Pretrial ruling says Business Objects did not infringe a third patent Business Objects Americas did not infringe a MicroStrategy patent, and two other MicroStrategy patents are invalid, a U.S. district court judge ruled Monday. The pretrial ruling leaves Business Objects with no case to answer.MicroStrategy had accused rival business intelligence software developer Crystal Decisions of infringing three of its patents, known in the case as 033, 432, and 796, after the last three digits of their patent numbers. It filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware in December 2003.The U.S. subsidiary of Business Objects countersued, claiming that the three patents were invalid. It had become party to the case because it was in the process of absorbing Crystal Decisions following its acquisition of the company in July 2003. On Monday, Judge Kent A. Jordan ruled the 432 patent invalid because of errors in its drafting. It describes systems for producing reports in a more secure and efficient way by doing less processing on client systems.He also ruled the 796 patent invalid because he had received evidence that Crystal Info 6, a product released one year prior to the filing of the patent, constituted prior art. The 796 patent relates to systems for automatic scheduling and delivery of reports to the user, and for an administrator module to increase the speed of this processing.Finally, he ruled that Business Objects had not infringed the 033 patent, which describes a system for allowing users to request reports for later processing, and to prevent duplication of processing a report requested multiple times. The parties have 10 days to decide whether to go to trial to pursue Business Objects’ counterclaim that the 033 patent is invalid. Technology IndustrySoftware DevelopmentBusiness IntelligenceDatabases