Software Firm to Seek Dismissal of Copyright Suit

McAfee Associates Inc. said Thursday that it will ask the Superior Court in San Jose to throw out Symantec Corp.’s copyright infringement lawsuit because the software code in question has no function.

Symantec claimed in April that McAfee copied computer code from its product, Norton CrashGuard, used to recover data from crashed computer disks.

Symantec amended its lawsuit in July to allege that McAfee stole more code than originally thought.

McAfee’s announcement Thursday was the latest salvo between the two leading U.S. makers of anti-virus software, which protects computer users from corrupt or damaged files.

McAfee said the code in question is used to format a particular computer system in Japan and has no role in protecting users’ files or disks.

“We’re going to move to have [the lawsuit] dismissed in its entirety,’ said Peter Watkins, general manager of McAfee’s network security division.

“There’s no shipping product in McAfee that’s shipping this code at all.”

Symantec said it wants the matter to be heard before a jury.

“What’s clear to me is that they’re admitting they stole our code,” said Symantec Chief Technology Officer Enrique Salem.

“We’re confident that the code that’s made it into multiple McAfee products was Symantec’s intellectual property. We’re confident that once we get this to court, everything will come out clearly.”

A hearing is scheduled for Oct. 3 in Superior Court in San Jose, Salem said.