Microsoft Litigation Resource Page
Tuesday, December 28 2004 @ 04:06 AM EST
It seems like a good idea to collect all the information we can find on litigation involving Microsoft, anticompetitive practices, and antitrust allegations and violations. In part, we were inspired to do this by the Novell v. Microsoft lawsuit, an anti-trust case seeking money damages filed in U.S. Federal District Court on November, 2004 alleging anti-trust violations by Microsoft in regard to the WordPerfect word processing and QuattroPro spreadsheet programs. But the SenderID fracas and the issues over Microsoft's license terms, as well as recent hints from Microsoft about patent threats to GNU/Linux were also a motivating factor. The shredding of legal documents in the Caldera, Inc. v. Microsoft case was another influence. All in all, it seemed the right time for a permanent collection.
Because we are aware of a tension between patents and antitrust law, we hope a database of evidence (and leads to evidence) showing a long history of anti-competitive acts by Microsoft will serve as a valuable resource: (i) for any F/OSS developers who are later charged by Microsoft with patent infringement; (ii) for developers who may wish to sue Microsoft for refusal to license patented technology on reasonable terms; and (iii) by its existence and availability, creating a deterrent that will hopefully cause Microsoft decision-makers to think long and hard before mounting an intellectual property attack against the F/OSS community's code base or trying to establish a patent licensing policy to embrace and extend interoperability standards with proprietary rights to cripple F/OSS competition with Microsoft.
We've been working on this for a couple of weeks in-house. Now we feel we have enough of a framework to open it to the public, although we are aware it is not yet complete. If you know of any links we've overlooked, please do provide them in your comments, and we'll incorporate them. Then we'll make this a permanent resource page on Groklaw.
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Microsoft Litigation
- AOL Time-Warner v. Microsoft
- Apple v. Microsoft
- Avary v. Microsoft
- Pulp Fiction writer sues Microsoft over virtual yoga | The Register
- The complaint accuses Microsoft of breach of implied contract, breach of duty, breach of confidence, misappropriation of trade secrets, fraud, negligent misrepresentation, unfair competition and unjust enrichment. Avary claims Microsoft used his ideas in a Yoga game for the X-box designed with ResponDesign called Yourself!Fitness
- Brazil: Board of the Administrative Council for Economic Defense v. Microsoft Brazil
- Bristol Technology v. Microsoft Corp.
- Caldera v. Microsoft
- The DR-DOS anti-trust lawsuit. Settled out of court shortly before trial. Prior to settling, Microsoft filed nine (9) motions for summary judgment. Caldera's responses exhibited a multitude of Microsoft documents. All Microsoft motions for summary judgment were denied.
- Caldera Antitrust Lawsuit Index, timeline
Annotated timeline of Caldera case. Most links are to Caldera web site, now invalid.
- Document: First Amended Complaint and Jury Demand, in Caldera v. Microsoft, Case No. 2:96 CV 645B.
- GrokLaw - Canopy, Novell, Sun, Caldera, IBM and Microsoft -- The DR-DOS Gang's All Here
- O'Reilly Network: The Caldera v. Microsoft Dossier
Andrew Shulman's summary of the DR-DOS anti-trust case. Note his mention of the secrecy requirements on the settlement agreement and the numerous dead links to court documents formerly available on the Caldera DR-DOS and Microsoft web sites.
- Shulman, Andrew, Examining the Windows AARD Detection Code, Dr. Dobbs J.
- eLeaders v. Microsoft
Anti-trust class action case, 1999, District of Columbia.
- California Cities sue Microsoft
Aug. 29, 2004, charging overpricing because of monopoly control
- Civil Investigative Demands, U.S. Dept. Of Justice
- Corel: DoJ Civil Investigative Demand re Corel-Microsoft deal
- MSN: DoJ Civil Investigative Demand re Microsoft Network
- WebTV: DoJ civil investigative demand
- Class action lawsuits
- Minnesota: Gordon v. Microsoft
- Other states
- Eolas Technologies v. Microsoft
Eolas alleged patent infringement by Microsoft involving technology used in Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser product.
- European Commission anti-trust case
- European Commission v. Microsoft (UPC)
Investigation and settlement requiring Microsoft not to exert "undue influence" on European digital cable television industry.
- European Commission v. Microsoft Europe (Win2k and Media Player)
Suit challenging alleged deliberate interoperability barriers in Windows servers and clients, unlawful tying of Windows with Windows Media Player
- en.pdf (application/pdf Object)
2004 Commission decision including findings and rulings. (PDF, 302 pp.)
- European Commission press release on decision
- Summarizes ruling on anti-trust claims:As regards interoperability, Microsoft is required, within 120 days, to disclose complete and accurate interface documentation which would allow non-Microsoft work group servers to achieve full interoperability with Windows PCs and servers. This will enable rival vendors to develop products that can compete on a level playing field in the work group server operating system market. The disclosed information will have to be updated each time Microsoft brings to the market new versions of its relevant productsAs regards tying, Microsoft is required, within 90 days, to offer to PC manufacturers a version of its Windows client PC operating system without WMP. The un-tying remedy does not mean that consumers will obtain PCs and operating systems without media players. Most consumers purchase a PC from a PC manufacturer which has already put together on their behalf a bundle of an operating system and a media player. As a result of the Commission's remedy, the configuration of such bundles will reflect what consumers want, and not what Microsoft imposes.
- Microsoft grounds for appealing decision of European Commission (PDF, 2 pp.)
- Summarizes Microsoft grounds for seeking reversal of European Commission anti-trust decision regarding Windows 2000 and Windows Media Player.Official Journal of the European Union, 10.7.2004, C179/18 (EN)
- Microsoft PressPass Legal Newsroom Archive
- Microsoft: Legal News on PressPass
- AntiTrust.org paper on differences between US and EU antitrust cases [PDF]
- Federal Trade Commission: Passport
- France: Syn-X Relief v. Microsoft
- Intertrust Technologies v. Microsoft
- Japan Fair Trade Commission
- Lindows v. Microsoft
- MDL-1332 (consolidated anti-trust proceedings against Microsoft)
- Be, Inc. v. Microsoft
- BeOS - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
- Microsoft Corp. and Be Inc. Reach Agreement to Settle Litigation
- (Microsoft press release.) "MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif., and REDMOND, Wash. -- Sept. 5, 2003 -- Be Inc. (Nasdaq: BEOS; OTC:BEOSZ.PK) and Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) today announced that the parties have reached a mutually acceptable mediated settlement of an antitrust lawsuit filed by Be Inc. in February 2002, which is currently pending in the United States District Court for the District of Maryland in Baltimore. Be will receive a payment from Microsoft, after attorney�s fees, in the amount of $23,250,000 (U.S.) to end further litigation, and Microsoft admits no wrongdoing. All other terms of the settlement will remain confidential."
- MS Settles Anti-Trust Charges with Be 9/8/03 "Previously, Be claimed that in 1998 its Be Operating System was
to be part of Hitachi's pre-installed "dual boot system." Be says
Microsoft was angry with Hitachi's decision and pressured the company with
higher prices for its Windows OS. Any price increase would pressure Hitachi's
margins on each PC, making it more cost-effective to remove the BeOS."
- Burst v. Microsoft
- Netscape v. Microsoft
- Sun v. Microsoft
- New York, et al v. Microsoft
- Novell v. Microsoft
- OS/2
- RealNetworks v. Microsoft
- SCO
- Sendo v. Microsoft
- South Korea Fair Trade Commission antitrust probe
- Stac Electronics v. Microsoft
- Sun Microsystems, Inc. v. Microsoft Corp. (1997)
- Ticketmaster v. Microsoft
- Microsoft v. Timeline
- Typeright Keyboard Corporation v. Microsoft
Patent infringement case
- U.S. v. Microsoft
- Miscellaneous
- FindLaw: U.S. v. Microsoft documents
- U.S. DoJ--U.S. v. Microsoft archive
- Jurist.law.pitt.edu's MS Antitrust page
- Washingtonpost.com: WashTech -- U.S. v. Microsoft Special Report
- A Washington Post resource site for the U.S. v. Microsoft case. Includes links to stories, a timeline, profiles of key players, and an archive of case documents, including some exhibits and Bill Gates' video deposition.
- Washington Post's US v. MS Timeline 1990-2002
- Declaration of Economist, Kenneth J. Arrow
- US v. MS, No. 98-1232(CKK) Tunney Act Comments of Professor Einer Elauge on the Proposed Settlement Agreement Between the US and Microsoft, Jan. 27, 2002 [PDF]
- Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson Order, ruling on MS motions, Sept. 1998, quotes from MS email re Java and Netscape browser strategies and discusses MS's copyright contention re preemption of antitrust laws
- U.S. v. Microsoft (contempt)
- U.S. v. Microsoft (current case)
- U.S. v. Microsoft (Intuit)
- U.S. v. Microsoft (OEM licensing)
- WordPerfect
Legal research
- Governments and Treaty Organizations
- U.S.A.
- World Trade Organization
- Miscellaneous
Miscellaneous
Topics
- BeOS
BSA
- F/OSS
- F/OSS Licensing
- Gnu/Linux
- FoxPro
- Miscellaneous
- Patent FUD
- Piracy
- Gates, Buffett a bit bearish | CNET News.com
- Bill Gates: "Although about 3 million computers get sold every year in China, but people don't pay for the software," he said. "Someday they will, though. As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade."
- Vaporware
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