Symantec Drops Lawsuit Against Microsoft

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.”