Court bars Microsoft from shipping networking feature

How much merit Alacritech's lawsuit against Microsoft has is largely dependent, in my opinion, on one thing.

Whether or not Alacritech gave Microsoft any details in 1998.

For much the same reason that Coke can't sue Pepsi for patent infringement, Alacritech can't hope to win a case against Microsoft (or any other company for that matter) just because they produced a competing product.

There is merit to the case if Alacritech said to Microsoft "This is what we're doing and this is how we're doing it." and, furthermore, Microsoft's "Chimney" technology is found to be based on that same Alacritech design.

Anything else is just Microsoft trying to make the same thing in-house, and the last time I checked, that wasn't against the law. I am not the sort of person who hopes that Microsoft gets taken down a peg any time they get sued. BeOS deserved to sue Microsoft, as did Burst. I'm not so sure about this one because details are sketchy. Expect the usual parlor tricks from the MS Legal team, which really needs to get its own PR firm to keep them, and thus the company they represent, from looking like Satan incarnate. I'm conflicted, because I don't believe that Microsoft can ever get a fair trial again after their legendary behavior in previous court cases. The U.S. legal system is not supposed to work that way, but it does. Kind of sad, really.

Let the competing implementations be the judge.