Legal Issues

On Tuesday morning, the Obama administration formally unveiled its Open Government directive, an effort aimed at weaving the philosophies of openness, transparency and participation into the DNA of the federal government and its agencies.

That directive comes as a direct result of President Barack Obama's first executive action, on January 21, only hours after the hoopla from his inaugural parade and parties had died down, when the new chief executive issued the so-called Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government.

That document, which began, "My administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in government," was … Read more

Windows 7 isn't just getting good reviews, it's also selling well, CEO Steve Ballmer told shareholders Thursday.

Delivering opening remarks at Microsoft's shareholder meeting, Ballmer said that Windows 7 was off to a "fantastic start."

"We've already sold twice as many units as any OS in a comparable time frame," Ballmer said. "Windows 7 is simply the best PC operating system that we or anyone else has ever built."

By last week, Windows 7 accounted for 4 percent of Web-accessing devices, according to Net Applications; it took Vista more than … Read more

Microsoft has halted distribution of a tool aimed at making it easier to put Windows 7 on Netbooks amid allegations that the utility makes improper use of open-source code.

The software maker said on Tuesday that it has pulled down the Windows USB/DVD Tool while it investigates the issue, which was raised last week by Windows blogger Rafael Rivera on his Within Windows blog.

In his blog post, Rivera said Microsoft appears to use code from a tool called ImageMaster that is licensed under the GPLv2 open-source license. The General Public License, like other open-source licenses, allows code to … Read more

It was only a matter of time, but the T-Mobile Sidekick issue has now spilled over to the courthouse.

A number of lawsuits have been filed, including two filed in federal court in Northern California on Wednesday that allege both negligence and false claims on the part of Microsoft and T-Mobile.

The suits come amid a massive outage of the service that powers the Sidekick, which has hampered data service since early this month and left many users without access to their calendars, address books, and other information. At one point, Microsoft and T-Mobile indicated that any data not yet … Read more

Microsoft's top lawyer said that a tentative agreement with Brussels announced earlier Wednesday could potentially allow the software maker to move out of the regulatory crosshairs, perhaps paving the way for regulators to shift their attention elsewhere.

"It's important for us to get closure in Europe on issues that have obviously been controversial for over a decade," General Counsel Brad Smith said in an interview. "Today's decision takes us an important step closer to doing that."

Microsoft initially took a much different approach to the European Commission's assertion that the inclusion of … Read more

European Union regulators said Wednesday that Microsoft can go ahead and start using its latest proposed "ballot screen," which will let new users of Windows choose which browser--or browsers--they wish to use.

The decision to let Microsoft "market test" the latest version would seem to mark the wrapping up of the latest antitrust skirmish with Brussels.

More than a decade after Microsoft first started including a browser with Windows, regulators said earlier this year that they had reached the preliminary view that such an inclusion violated European antitrust law.

In response, Microsoft initially said it would … Read more

A federal court on Tuesday reversed an earlier ruling that Microsoft's product activation technology infringed on another company's patent, overturning a $388 million verdict in the case.

In a ruling on Tuesday, the court vacated the earlier decision and decided the case in Microsoft's favor.

"We are pleased that the court has vacated the jury verdict and entered judgment in favor of Microsoft," Microsoft spokesman Kevin Kutz said in a statement.

Tuesday's ruling is the latest twist in a case that has had plenty of them. Microsoft initially won a summary judgment ruling, which … Read more

A federal appeals court on Wednesday heard arguments over whether to uphold an injunction that would ban sales of Microsoft Word in its current form.

Microsoft is appealing a jury's ruling that a custom XML feature in recent versions of Word infringes on a patent held by I4i, a Canadian software company. The jury ordered Microsoft to pay $200 million, while a judge raised that amount and also issued the injunction, although it has been temporarily put on hold while Microsoft's appeal is being heard.

The hearing before a three-judge panel in Washington, D.C., lasted about 90 … Read more

SAN DIEGO--It's been very clear for a long time that the American patent system is deeply flawed.

According to information provided on stage at DemoFall 09 here Wednesday by a company called Article One Partners, as much as 45 percent of all litigated patents are eventually found to be invalid. But the U.S. Patent Office is obviously overwhelmed by the sheer workload it faces, and its investigators' inability to keep up with the research that would help them reject many applications.

There are some solutions in the works, including Peer-to-Patent, a nonprofit system that would spread out the … Read more