Microsoft faces lawsuit
A complaint filed by Symantec in federal court in the state of Washington, where Microsoft has its headquarters, charged that Microsoft misappropriated data storage software for use in technology such as its new Vista operating system.
"Over the course of nearly a decade, Microsoft has deliberately and surreptitiously misappropriated Symantec’s valuable storage technologies, misled and thereby convinced the US government to issue patents to Microsoft based on technologies invented by Symantec," the complaint charged.
Microsoft countered that the suit stemmed from "a very narrow disagreement" regarding the terms of a 1996 licensing deal Microsoft had with software security firm Veritas, which Symantec acquired last year.
"We worked hard to resolve these issues with Symantec," Microsoft said in a written statement. "We believe the facts will show that Microsoft’s actions were proper."
Microsoft contended it licensed the "volume management technology" from Veritas in 1996 and exercised an option to buy the software code and intellectual property rights in 2004. Symantec charged in its complaint that Microsoft overstepped the bounds of the licensing deal and broke the terms of the contract by not giving Symantec access to Microsoft source codes as required.
Symantec’s suit asked a federal judge to order Microsoft to stop using Symantec’s Volume Manager technology and pay "proper compensation".
"Symantec would have preferred to have resolved this issue through negotiations and pursued that effort for close to a year," the company said in a written statement.
"However, we were unable to resolve our differences and found it necessary to take this step to protect our intellectual property."
Symantec is based in Cupertino, California.
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