Replies to post #57942 on Zeev's Turnips Patch-No Politics (ZEEV)

[jdaasoc]

RE MSFT

Microsoft faces multibillion DRM action from Intertrust

Sony and Philips want it a lot, wheel of fortune turns again

By INQUIRER staff: Friday 20 December 2002, 19:05


WE SOMEHOW MISSED a piece in Fortune Magazine which says the Great Vole is being sued over digital rights management (DRM).
The suit could be worth billions and billions of buckaroos, if Intertrust is successful.

Is Microsoft having an annus horribilis, right at the end of the annus, we wonder?

Fortune reckons this is the biggest legal threat to MS since the antitrust case in America.

We used to have a news editor who would sift through every feature he saw just because sometimes news was concealed in there - a bit like chicken inside a KFC nugget exterior.

The article says that Intertrust - which Philips and Sony tried to buy in cash for $453 million earlier this month - has a law suit pending against Microsoft.

It has some "important DRM" patents and slightly blabbed about it in mid-November, it would appear from the wheel of Fortune's feature mill.

It believes that practically every Microsoft OS and application it shifts means Intertrust should get a slice of the Volish action.

And that's why Sony and Philips want to buy Intertrust. The deal could dwarf anything ever seen before, Fortune reckons. µ