Judge Says Microsoft Infringed On Copyright
Technology News
(05/25/99, 7:38 p.m. ET)
(http://www.techweb.com/wire/story/TWB19990525S0018)
By Amber Howle, Computer Reseller News
The U.S. District Judge handling the
Sun vs. Microsoft trial Monday issued
three tentative rulings.
Judge Ronald Whyte gave a tentative order
declaring that Microsoft, in Redmond, Wash.,
practiced "copyright infringement" against Sun
Microsystems, in Palo Alto, Calif.
According to Whyte, Microsoft's distribution
of software products containing an
implementation of the Java virtual machine
that failed to pass a Sun test suite, "exceeded
the scope of the copyright license" granted in
their agreement and constituted "copyright
infringement."
Whyte also struck down Microsoft's counter
motion regarding Sun's copyright-infringement
claim.
The issue is presently on appeal to the U.S.
Court of Appeals in San Francisco and oral
arguments are scheduled for June 16.
The other two rulings were in Microsoft's
favor.
Microsoft was tentatively granted a summary
judgment regarding independent development.
Whyte declared that the Java license
agreement does not prohibit Microsoft from
independently developing technology that
directly competes with Sun,as long as it makes
no use of Sun's intellectual property.
Whyte tentatively denied a motion by Sun
regarding a provision of the licensing
agreement. Sun said it would be "nonsensical"
to interpret the section as a warranty, and that
its most current Supplemental Java Classes
would execute on a prior reference
implementation that lacked the required
functionality to run them.
A decision on Microsoft's counter motion is
still pending.
All of Monday's rulings are tentative and do
not impact last November's preliminary
injunction against Microsoft, which, among
other things, forced it to use JNI in its Java
products.
Oral arguments from both Sun and Microsoft
on these latest rulings are slated for June 24.
Spokespeople for both Sun and Microsoft
acknowledged that the rulings are tentative,
and that each looks forward to arguing them.
Sun sued Microsoft in the fall of 1997 for
breaching its Java licensing agreement. Sun
said Microsoft was "polluting" the technology
to create programs that run only on
Microsoft's operating system, when Java was
created to be compatible with all operating
systems.
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Today's judgement may creatig buying in SUNW shares tomorrow.
EKS |
