A Delaware jury has ruled against four of five patent infringement claims made two years ago by Lucent Technologies Inc. against network services vendor Extreme Networks Inc.

In a statement Tuesday, Santa Clara, Calif.-based Extreme Networks said the jury awarded Lucent US$274,990 in damages for one patent infringement claim sought by Lucent but found the company not guilty on the other four charges.

The award could have been as high as $16.4 million had the jury ruled against Extreme Networks on the other four patent infringement charges. Extreme Networks said the unspecified networking feature that led to the jury"s award has been removed from the company"s products for more than a year.

Lucent had contended that Extreme Networks was developing and selling equipment that contained Lucent"s claimed inventions for organizing voice and data transmissions, congestion control, network security and broadcasting.

"We view this as a total victory, particularly in light of the fact that Lucent initially demanded payment of tens of millions of dollars," Gordon Stitt, president and CEO of Extreme Networks, said in a statement.

Lucent filed the lawsuit alleging five data-networking patent infringements in May 2003.

John Skalko, a spokesman for Murray Hill, N.J.-based Lucent, said today that the company was pleased with the partial verdict in its favor. "But we were disappointed that we did not win on the other four patents," Skalko said. "Lucent vigorously guards its intellectual property, which is the lifeblood of the company."

Lucent is reviewing the verdict for a possible appeal and "will determine our next course of action in due time," he said.