The original lawsuit alleged Microsoft illegally bundled volume-management software technology it had licensed from Veritas into several Windows versions, but Symantec is dismissing it.
Symantec asked the U.S. District Court in Seattle
on April 1 to dismiss the lawsuit it brought against Microsoft in May 2006 for
misappropriation of intellectual property and breach of contract.
Symantec, which sought unspecified damages in the original lawsuit, alleged
that Microsoft inappropriately developed competing products and
bundled into several versions of Windows volume-management software technology
it licensed from Veritas before Symantec bought that company for $10.2 billion.
Under an August 1996 agreement, Veritas granted Microsoft the right to use
its volume management technology in Windows NT.
The original lawsuit asked the court to remove Symantec storage technology
from a number of Microsoft products, including Windows XP and Windows Server
2003, as well as Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008, both of which were still
under development at that time.
Symantec also claimed that Microsoft tricked the U.S. Patent and Trademark
Office into granting it patents based on Symantec IP and then based parts of
Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 on this.
Microsoft spokesperson David Bowermaster confirmed earlier reports of the settlement, but declined
to comment beyond the official statement the two companies released, which said
the dispute had been amicably resolved "in a manner that reaffirms and
extends our technical cooperation on volume management technologies. This
agreement will produce significant benefits for our many mutual customers using
mission-critical storage software technologies."