Symantec Sues McAfee Over Code Theft

Symantec Corp. said it sued McAfee Associates Inc. in state court in San Jose, claiming it stole software code used to recover data from crashed computer disks. The suit accuses McAfee of stealing the computer code from Symantec’s Norton CrashGuard product, which was released in September, and including it in McAfee’s PC Medic product, released last month. The suit seeks the recall of PC Medic and recovery of all of McAfee’s profit on sales of the product, as well as unspecified monetary damages. Shares of Symantec, based in Cupertino, fell 50 cents to close at $13.875 on Nasdaq. The company announced it had filed the suit after the close of trading. McAfee shares rose $1.31 to close at $49.06, also on Nasdaq. A spokesman for Santa Clara-based McAfee said the company hadn’t seen the suit and couldn’t comment.