Autodesk, SolidWorks Lawyers Working Overtime

owenw@manusoft.com — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 03:03:00 GMT

In a recent flurry of filings, Autodesk attacks SolidWorks' motion to dismiss charges, and SolidWorks counters. The legal soap opera reads like a "he said, she said" schoolyard argument, except with more at stake. In my reading of the documents, I felt that Autodesk spent a lot of time straining at gnats in the weaker parts of its argument (perhaps intent on maximizing the defense costs -- unlike its approach in the Vernor case, where it chose to settle its weakest arguments). So far, SolidWorks appears to be up to the challenge.

One thing that struck me is that Autodesk still refuses to state what exactly is false in SolidWorks' advertising claims. One might read into Autodesk's failure to address this and a few other specific challenges raised by SolidWorks that they are not primarily interested in making the judge's job easier. It will be interesting to see how the judge reacts to this apparent haughtiness.

Docket Activity

Autodesk, SolidWorks Lawyers Working Overtime