Guess which patents are not infringed in the Microsoft Visual Studio suit?
WebXchange is suing Microsoft--or, rather, three of its customers--for allegedly infringing its patents in Microsoft Visual Studio, as CNET reports. Just desserts? Nah. Microsoft rarely sues anyone, preferring instead to threaten to sue.
Regardless, WebXchange's suit against Dell, FedEx, and Allstate for using Visual Studio is nuclear waste: by suing customers, WebXchange just made software licensing even uglier than it already was, making its own future business as difficult as it will become for Microsoft and every other vendor. Nice one, bozo. Suing customers--in this case--is always bad form and serves to hurt all players in the industry.
One bright spot in the litigation is that open source is not involved. Microsoft uses the open-source JQuery project in Visual Studio. Perhaps WebXchange forgot to throw in a claim against JQuery as part of its Visual Studio lawsuit.
Regardless, this is small comfort in a lawsuit that promises to muddy the waters for open-source and proprietary vendors alike.
Matt Asay brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to The Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. Matt is vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. You can follow Matt on Twitter @mjasay. 





I suppose it gives you brand awareness though. Not necessarily the sort you would want however.
Sue Microsoft, yes, that makes sense. Suing their customers? That's just making enemies out of potential customers. I don't get that logic at all.
Only time I've ever seen anyone try to sue customers was SCO. We all know how that ended.
Question is: why is such litigation only occurring in the USA? I believe the British Phonographic Industry has done some sabre rattling but nothing else.
- by andrewkatz November 21, 2008 12:58 AM PST
- @odubtaig
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(7 Comments)Interesting point: the answer is that the damages obtainable in English courts are likely to be very low. Unlike the US, there is no set figure for statutory damages, and it's extremely unlikely that the court would award exemplary or other enhanced damages. The damages are either (1) an account of profits made by the infringer to the copyright owner; or (2) diminution in value of the copyright work as a whole. The file sharer makes no money out of their infringement, so no damages under (1), and it's very difficult for the copyright owner to prove the extent to which the infringer's actions have dimished the value of the work as a whole. The low level of damages likely to be awarded in England would hardly be the disincentive the BPI is looking for.
However, there is one law firm, at least, which offers rights owners private prosecutions in the criminal courts for copyright infringement. Generally speaking, criminal infringement only occurs when the copying happens in the context of a business, although it can also attach to file-sharers. I'm not particualrly happy about this development: the costs of the prosecution are met by the taxpayer. There's a government agency - the Crown Prosecution Service - which is intended to filter out unmeritorious claims before they hit the courts. By bypassing this, the copyright holders get to avoid this important safeguard.
This is why the rightsholders are permanently seeking tougher penalties, and the criminalisation of activities which were formerly civil infringements.