Apple Suit Against Hewlett, Microsoft Is Delayed a Year
A trial that was expected to shed light on whether personal computer makers and software writers can legally emulate the Apple Macintosh computer’s snazzy graphics on competing machines was postponed until next August.
The delay, ordered by U.S. District Court Judge Robert Aguilar because of a clogged judicial calendar in his San Jose courtroom, is likely to heighten uncertainty in the PC industry and stymie developers of competing products--including, perhaps, industry giant IBM, whose PCs historically have not boasted the fancy graphics and ease-of-use of Apple’s.
Apple Computer filed the lawsuit against Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard in March. The suit charged that the companies’ Windows 2.03 and NewWave programs, which work together to create an on-screen format that is similar to the Macintosh’s, violated an Apple licensing agreement with Microsoft as well as Apple’s copyrights.
Both defendants have denied Apple’s allegations and have countersued, claiming that Apple was using the lawsuit to throw up obstacles against their own innovations.
Sought Early Resolution
Though no trial date had been set until the judge’s order on Tuesday, the high-powered combatants had expected that the trial would begin this fall.
But, said Denise Mingrone, one of the judge’s clerks, “a judge’s criminal cases always take precedence over civil cases.”
The judge’s order “comes completely out of the blue,” said William P. Pope, an attorney for Microsoft. “It is not what we want. We want to resolve this matter as soon as possible.”
Hewlett-Packard, too, had sought a rapid resolution of the case. A spokeswoman said the pending lawsuit has discouraged software writers from investing time and money to adapt their applications programs so that they will work with NewWave.
Indeed, Microsoft is the only major software house that has announced that it is adapting one of its applications programs--Excel, a spreadsheet that competes against Lotus 1-2-3--to work with NewWave. “This does not preclude either side from filing a motion for summary judgment, or from settling the case,” the H-P spokeswoman noted.
Sparks Fly in Silicon Valley
“By and large, software developers wish this lawsuit had never happened,” said David Grady, editor and publisher of The Grady Report, a newsletter that tracks the PC industry. The success of software developers, he noted, is increasingly tied to the number of types of machines their software can run on.
“Developers understand that they have to be free to take their products wherever they want,” Grady continued, adding that that delay might “put NewWave developers in the deep freeze waiting to see what happens.”
Though a year away from trial, the lawsuit has already generated plenty of sparks in Silicon Valley. In June, the judge decided to separate the case into two phases--the first on the scope of the licensing agreement between Apple and Microsoft, the second on the copyright question.
And just last week, Apple filed a request that Aguilar be removed from the case because his son, also named Robert, is employed by Hewlett-Packard as a shipping supervisor in Oregon. Earlier this year, the judge denied a similar request that he remove himself in a case that pitted H-P against Bausch & Lomb.
