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Authored by: designerfx on Sunday, June 17 2012 @ 10:36 PM EDT |
corrections here please [ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: designerfx on Sunday, June 17 2012 @ 10:36 PM EDT |
off topic comments here [ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: designerfx on Sunday, June 17 2012 @ 10:37 PM EDT |
newspicks comments here [ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: Ian Al on Monday, June 18 2012 @ 03:09 AM EDT |
Day 5THE COURT: I hope the reason for my impatience is clear. This
case is not about trying -- about the dominance that Word might have obtained
over WordPerfect. And it's not. That claim is time barred and that ruling is
subject to appeal. And the Fourth Circuit has ruled on it. The Tenth Circuit can
do it. But the fact of the matter is to the extent this is about acquiring or
maintaining monopoly in the operating systems market, and your own client just
testified and your own witness just testified that it was a better product and
WordPerfect was going to use it and it was going to be -- it's clear as a bell
to me. And I'll take a recess.
Day 6THE COURT:
...There's going to be a recurring issue in the case. First, I need to know from
Novell now, and you don't need to give it to me now, maybe back in the briefing
on the instructions I'll understand it better, but I don't quite know why I
hadn't picked this up before. But until I heard the opening statements, I really
thought that WordPerfect -- Microsoft had made Windows 95 incompatible with
WordPerfect as an application system. I don't know why I thought that, and I
probably missed it in the papers. I now understand that is not the case. That as
a word processing application WordPerfect could be used by Windows 95, and an
icon could have been installed and it could have been used. And to the extent I
just missed this, I apologize, but frankly that's where I was.
Now
that I understand the issue better, and I understand Novell's position that
providing documentation for the NameSpace extension APIs increase functionality
and that the third way is different than simply sitting on top of the -- having
the application sitting on top of the operating system. I understand
that.
But it does add a new dimension, which is to what extent a
monopolist has to cooperate with a competitor by providing to the competitor
product enhancement that the monopolist has made to his own product through its
own investment and research and development...
MR. JOHNSON: Your Honor,
if I could since we do have five minutes, and we will address in a fuller
fashion to Your Honor.
But two short points. First with your -- with respect
to your first comment about duty of a monopolist to help a competitor, and you
asked if there was a case. And there is a case. It's called Novell vs.
Microsoft. And you addressed this point in summary judgment. In fact --
THE COURT: I was under -- whatever I did, I'll reread it. I was under
-- frankly, and I'm embarrassed I was under a misapprehension. I thought that
WordPerfect would not run on Windows 95.
MR. JOHNSON: -- because what
you said was that this is not just the normal case of a monopolist withholding
some functionality that it had a right to do so. This was a case that involved
an element of deception.
THE COURT: Well, you tell me also in the
evidence where there is any evidence that when Microsoft first published the
APIs and NameSpace extensions API it knew at that time that it was going to
withdraw them. That would be a deception claim. What you're dealing with is
something, which frankly what I've heard is Microsoft's own e-mails that you
rely upon is an open question until the very end when Mr. Gates makes his
decision to withdraw. Now, that may have been wrong. It may very well have been
wrong in that it was favoring Word or WordPerfect, but that's not the
claim.
I don't see where there's any evidence that at the time that
in the alpha and beta releases it intended at that time to withdraw.
MR. JOHNSON: Your Honor, you may recall the evidence that came in through Mr.
Gates at the Hood Canal Retreat. There was the discussion of the Radical Extreme
which was a plan, a plan, Your Honor, to deny the extensible shell of Chicago to
ISVs.
THE COURT: When was that?
MR. JOHNSON: That was in
1993. Mr. Gates endorsed that plan. The actions ultimately taken in this case
mirrored that plan.
In the space of a day, Judge Motz has
forgotten that the Novell case is about middleware. He reverts to discussion
about unfair competition between office suites. Mr. Johnson explains it's all
about middleware and that Bill Gates promoted the deception and anticompetitive
action against WP as middleware in 1993, before they first published and then
withdrew the APIs.
On Day 8THE COURT: Well, it could be a
legal issue, and the general question I have is there any place else where
shared technological information provided any basis for an antitrust action
against Microsoft? It seemed to me it was external business practices dealing
with the OEMs and what they did in terms of threatening people, and I know of no
case, and I could be wrong, and one of the questions I have is, is this is a
case about you want Microsoft to provide its enhanced technology so that you can
use it.
Judge Motz is back to the issue of competing applications.
He has forgotten his embarrassment on Day 6 and he clearly hasn't reread his own
opinion in Novell v. Microsoft on this very issue.
Also, during the
preamble to the trial, Judge Motz told Novell that, if no senior manager
complained about the APIs at the time, then their case was lost. I can't find it
ATM, but Novell produced a 1994 message from Novell CEO, Frankenburg, to Bill
Gates complaining about the APIs. The judge has forgotten this, as well, come
the 8th day of the trial. (I have hunted for it on Groklaw, but without luck. I
know PJ put it in a story.)THE COURT: Okay. At this stage I'm not
going to let them in. If I really thought that the jury -- I think the jury
thinks what I think, which is what I thought was that the opening statements
talked about complaints to Microsoft. I don't think the door was
opened.
I don't understand what is going on in this case. I don't
think Judge Motz is being malicious. When he returns to speed on the facts, he
quite clearly has a full appreciation of the importance of the points. However,
that grasp on the facts seems to fade in days. I am actually a little worried on
Judge Motz behalf.br --- Regards
Ian Al
Software Patents: It's the disclosed functions in the patent, stupid! [ Reply to This | # ]
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Authored by: tiger99 on Monday, June 18 2012 @ 07:50 AM EDT |
It seems that there were a few technical hitches. Just wondering whose
technology was involved? I can guess, of course, and most likely be correct
(based on past experience of that particular company's abysmally poor products),
but it would be nice to have the true facts. It would be rather amusing if
their OS would not even perform properly in a trial involving them. [ Reply to This | # ]
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