MS-Sun Agreement Leaves Opening For OO.org Suits

newentiti writes "We all know Microsoft paid $900,000,000.00 to Sun and they also signed a LIMITED PATENT COVENANT AND STAND-STILL AGREEMENT. The agreement basically states that Microsoft will not sue Sun for any patents for the next 10 years and vice versa. What's really interesting is that according to this story the agreement had a special provision that lets Microsoft sue anybody, including Sun, over OpenOffice.org. I wonder what Microsoft had in mind?"

Comments

Sun should get sued...

[Dante Shamest]

for unleashing Java upon the world.

Yeah, stupid.

[twitter]

A coward, anonymous for obvious reasons asserts:

I'd want to pop in a provision stating that they can't rip me off every time I add a new feature to one of my biggest products.

There is nothing reasonable about M$'s patent portfolio. It contains patents on obvious things with a long line of prior art. Generally, they "rip off" other people and then try to drive them out of the market.

I think it ironic that people are saying this is Microsoft's FUD

Of course it's FUD. Microsoft is telling the word that they are going to sue OO users and they have a contract with it's maker that requires the maker to assist them in the judicial extortion.