The U.S. International Trade Commission said Tuesday it agreed to investigate a patent infringement complaint filed by Microsoft Corp. against Alcatel-Lucent.

The ITC said it had agreed to institute an investigation based on a complaint that Microsoft filed in February, which seeks to ban imports of some Alcatel-Lucent products that allegedly infringe several Microsoft patents, the ITC said.

Shares of Alcatel-Lucent (up $0.02 to $11.87, Charts) fell 1 percent in morning trading on the New York Stock Exchange, while shares of Microsoft (up $0.15 to $27.98, Charts) were little changed on Nasdaq.

The patents cited by Microsoft cover technology used to integrate telephone systems.

The ITC complaint is part of a larger battle over patents between Microsoft and Alcatel. The two companies are locked in a number of patent disputes including a suit over the video-decoding technology in Microsoft's Xbox 360 video game console.

In February a federal jury found that Microsoft infringed digital music patents held by Alcatel-Lucent and should pay $1.52 billion in damages.

Microsoft said it plans to ask the trial judge to knock down the digital music ruling and will appeal if necessary.

Representatives of Alcatel-Lucent and Microsoft were not immediately available for comment on the ITC decision.

(Published by CNN, March 20, 2007)