| Microsoft sued by Symantec over alleged patent
infringement
22 May, 2006
By Paul Weinberg
A legal action that involves Symantec alleging the misappropriation
of its technology by Microsoft should not delay the introduction
of the Microsoft Windows Vista operating system.
That's the view of IT consultant and commentator Richard
Morochove.
I wouldn't panic at this point; I mean frankly, Microsoft
gets sued almost on a daily basis. Given that we are talking
of a Vista release that is six months away, I am sure there
will be some accommodation between the two parties, whether
it be, Microsoft going to do a payment [to Symantec].
Morochove draws a parallel to a similar case involving Apple
which sued Microsoft for using aspects of the Apple Macintosh
computer interface in its own software. That case went on
for a long time. Windows of course was never stopped from
being sold.
The complaint that Symantec filed in U.S. federal court in
Seattle alleges that Microsoft has taken a technology where
it had limited access and turned it into its own commercial
product.
Back in 1996 Microsoft signed a license with Veritas for
the use of the latter's volume management technology which
allows operating systems to store and manipulate large amounts
data, as well as protect systems from costly data loss by
permitting the recreation of data following a storage hardware
failure.
Veritas, which subsequently merged with Symantec last July,
had expected Microsoft to use this agreement to ensure that
successive versions of its Windows operating systems could
work with volume management.
Instead, says Cris Paden, a Symantec spokesperson, Microsoft
developed its own product Logical Volume Manager, which is
currently competing with a similar product from Symantec,
Solid Foundation for Windows. Both products are based on volume
management technology.
That same 1996 licensing agreement also stipulated that Microsoft
had to pay Veritas, and subsequently Symantec, if the former
wanted to use volume management technology for other purposes,
continued Paden.
So they never did have sole proprietary rights to the technology
and they certainly never had the right to take the technology
and develop a competing product.
Microsoft and Symantec/Veritas spent a year attempting to
resolve this difference before it ended up in court, stated
Paden. He says that Symantec still has a close working relationship
with Microsoft in other areas and has no interest in disrupting
the introduction of Vista this January.
We would just like to have the intellectual property that
is ours.
The Symantec spokesperson says it is too early to indicate
what kind of financial compensation is being sought from Microsoft.
"We have not been able to have access to [Microsoft's]
product, the code of the product, or how they are using it,
things like that."
Echannelline was unable to speak to a representative from
Microsoft. However, the company issued a statement that it
had actually purchased intellectual property rights for all
relevant technologies from Veritas in 2004.
Furthermore, adds Microsoft, the contract with Veritas to
license volume management ultimately gave Microsoft the option
to buyout the rights to Veritas code and intellectual property
rights. In 2004, Microsoft exercised that right and purchased
the IP rights.
Rob Enderle, the principal analyst for the Enderle Group,
suggests that Symantec as the smaller party is hoping that
Microsoft will agree to settle.
Symantec hasn't been doing as well financially of late and
part of their aggressiveness is an attempt to offset growing
customer dissatisfaction with products and increasing competition
including that from Microsoft.
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