05.06.10
Lawsuits and Proxies: Ohio and Utah
Summary: New case in Ohio state shows Microsoft-connected lawyers pushing for Google antitrust; new details emerge in SCO’s Microsoft-backed push for ‘Linux tax’
A FEW months ago Microsoft confirmed that it was behind the push for anti-Google antitrust (complaints through third parties). This is not something that Microsoft is denying. This is why the following antitrust lawsuit is interesting (full filing therein). The lawyers have connections with Microsoft.
Back in February, we highlighted a rather odd antitrust lawsuit brought against Google by a small company. Google had originally brought a lawsuit against the company in the Ohio state court system for failure to pay its advertising bills, and the company suddenly came back with a group of big name (expensive) lawyers (who just happen to have a connection with Microsoft), claiming antitrust violations against Google.
A favourite old case of Microsoft (versus Linux, by proxy) is the SCO case. New evidence surfaces in this case after Caldera.com’s removal of robots.txt (for permission to spiders/indexers). In the words of Groklaw:
In the old days, it seemed every time Groklaw linked to evidence on one of those Caldera pages, it went to the great 404 in the sky within a day or two. Now, it will be possible to fix all those links. I wish they’d sell the sco.com domain name next. Maybe then we could get the complete historical picture.
As we pointed out 3 years ago, Novell too had changed its Web site quite a lot after the Microsoft deal. It essentially removed or modified pages that were hostile towards Microsoft.
Speaking of lawsuits and ‘Linux tax’, watch who is being sued for patent infringement. It’s the same company that already pays Microsoft some ‘Linux tax’. [via]
LG’s patent infringement lawsuit against Taiwan-based AU Optronics took an unexpected turn, as the final ruling not only found no fault against AU but in fact found AU as the victim, and now LG is the guilty party.
It is worth emphasising that this is to do with LCD (hardware). █
