Summary: Microsoft's tendency to not only abuse the competition but also to destroy it with patent lawsuits as seen in Corel's case

THE Corel section of our site has not been updated for a very long time. The wiki page was last updated 8 years ago.

If the company is still around, then it's certainly not doing much, but its legal case apparently persists and it's not just about antitrust. Remember Microsoft's abuses against Corel back in the 1990s and how Microsoft derailed Corel's GNU/Linux business?

The patent case, as it turns out, is still going on. As usual, the lawyers get paid for this and it devours the company's budget. Bonnie Eslinger has just published "Corel Says Microsoft Expert Overestimated Patent Damages" at Law360 (mostly behind paywall). To quote:

Corel Corp. asked a California federal judge Wednesday to nix some damages estimates proposed by Microsoft Corp. in its suit over infringement of nine software patents, saying one estimate overstates how much it would have cost Corel to design its home office software in a noninfringing way.

Wednesday’s decision comes as the tech rivals head toward a February trial date over damages related to infringement of Microsoft’s patents, which Corel admitted to in an amended answer to Microsoft’s complaint.

Remember that Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer threatened Sun over OpenOffice, demanding payment per download (for patents). Microsoft has always been aggressive with patents, even well before the Novell deal. Do not think for a moment that Microsoft has profoundly changed. ⬆