You catch someone selling furniture that was taken from your house. You ask them to stop. They refuse. They send you hostile letters. They use delaying tactics. They say the furniture isn't very large, so why are you upset anyway? After two months you get sick of it and sue. The next day they act surprised and claim you have refused to talk with them.

24. On or about November 23, 1992, a telephone conference was held with Mr. Clow and Mr. Whiting of Stac, and Microsoft's Mr. Chase. During that conversation, Mr. Chase admitted that, during Microsoft's ``normal due diligence process,'' Microsoft had concluded that the DoubleSpace data compression utility of the MS-DOS 6.0 operating system software infringed Stac's '009 patent, one of the two patents in suit. Mr. Chase requested that Stac grant a license to Microsoft under Stac's '009 patent. After a brief discussion, Mr. Clow requested that Microsoft make a specific licensing proposal to Stac, and Mr. Chase agreed to do so. During this same telephone conference, Mr. Chase promised, in response to Stac's request, to make available to Stac a copy of the beta version of the MS-DOS 6.0 software.

Microsoft Corp. was found guilty of patent infringement and ordered to pay $120 million in damages to a tiny California firm in a rare setback for the giant computer software company.

However, the federal jury on Wednesday also ruled that the violation was not willful and awarded Microsoft $13.6 million on a counterclaim against Stac Electronics, which makes a data-compression program called Stacker.

Stac sued Microsoft for patent violations, and Microsoft counter-sued Stac. There is great irony in the fact that Microsoft sued Stac for "improperly using" undocumented system calls in Stacker. According to Microsoft, Stac "illegally" reverse-engineered MS-DOS in order to gain information and access to those undocumented system calls. Apparently, Microsoft wants it both ways: to be able to reverse-engineer the competition, while preventing their own products from being reverse-engineered through legal intimidation.

The suit charges Microsoft with infringement of United States Patent 5,838,906 ('906) by Microsoft's various web-enabled operating system and application products, including Windows® 98, Windows 95 and Internet Explorer. Eolas holds worldwide exclusive commercial rights to the '906 patent. Eolas is represented in the suit by the law firm of Robins, Kaplan, Miller & Ciresi L.L.P.

Priceline claims Microsoft willfully infringed its patent for buyer-driven commerce systems and that Microsoft's behavior violates Connecticut's Unfair Trade Practices Act.

Priceline claims that Microsoft asked for and was given detailed confidential business and technical information over a period of eight months, as the two sought to form a business relationship. Priceline and Expedia, Microsoft's online travel service, were considering a possible joint marketing program and licensing of Priceline's intellectual property, Priceline said.

Priceline's suit is considered a test of whether courts will allow a patent to cover not just a technology but also a business process. Expedia says Priceline's claim is so broad that it cannot be enforced.

Eolas(R) Technologies Incorporated, a Chicago-area Internet technology firm, today announced that the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois entered a Memorandum and Order construing disputed patent terms on December 28, 2000. Eolas is pleased with the Court's ruling. Commonly referred to as a Markman ruling, a copy of the Order can be downloaded from the Court's Web site at http://www.nysd.uscourts.gov/courtweb/pdf/D07ILNC/00-13016.pdf

InterTrust, one of several companies that provides technology to protect songs and videos from being illegally copied, sued Microsoft on Thursday, saying the giant's music and video software infringes its patent rights.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, charges that Microsoft's TrueSpeech software, used to code and decode voice signals, violates a patent that was originally issued to AT&T in 1984. TrueSpeech is incorporated in several Microsoft operating systems including Windows 95, Windows 2000 and Windows Me, according to the lawsuit.

The suit also charges that Microsoft's NetMeeting product, which lets users hold video and voice conference calls over the Internet, makes use of the same patented technology.

1. Microsoft's newly announced 'Corona' product uses technologies and trade secrets misappropriated from Burst.com. These proprietary technologies are protected by numerous U.S. and International patents (and patents pending). Microsoft met with Burst over a two-year period and negotiated unsuccessfully for the rights to use Burst's innovative technology.

InterTrust isn't the only David gunning for the industry?s Goliath. Since 1998, Microsoft has been named a defendant in at least 35 patent-infringement cases, compared with seven suits in the prior 22 years. Twenty-one are currently active...

But some inventors and their lawyers say they turned to litigation as a last resort, after being strung along by Microsoft in fruitless patent-licensing negotiations that gave it time to design competing products. Richard Lang, chief executive officer of Burst.com, says it showed its video-transmission technology to Microsoft, rejecting a Microsoft offer of $1 million for rights to its patents. The 14-year-old company, whose investors include the rock group U2, sued Microsoft in federal court in Baltimore over patent and antitrust violations after Microsoft announced plans for a version of its Windows Media product, code-named Corona. Burst.com once employed about 100 but now has just two employees.

Dwayne Walker, a former Microsoft executive who is chairman of Seattle-based Network Commerce Inc., says his company negotiated with Microsoft over licensing a technology for downloading music and other digital material over the Internet. Then Microsoft went silent, he says, and later introduced similar technology.