Seattle Trademark Lawyer

On June 29, Vnunet.com reported that Microsoft launched a “legal blitz” consisting of 23 lawsuits in California and Florida against alleged sellers of counterfeit software. That makes 125 such suits in Microsoft’s last fiscal year — which ended June 30 — compared with 56 during its last fiscal year.

PC World added that Microsoft filed all of the lawsuits in federal court — all on June 28.

That’s not entirely accurate, as the first complaint I found was filed in the Middle District of Florida on June 27: Microsoft Corp. v. Gunther, in which the company alleged that John D. Gunther and his company, Onyx Systems, had engaged in selling counterfeit Microsoft software.

The complaint appears to contain Microsoft’s typical counterfeiting allegations, including that Microsoft contacted defendants and followed up by purchasing counterfeit software from them. It states: “Microsoft notified Defendants by letter dated September 29, 2006 that it had received a report that Defendants had distributed illegal and/or unlicensed Microsoft software. The letter specifically informed Defendants that it violates copyright and trademark laws to distribute unauthorized copies of Microsoft software installed on the hard disk drives of computers.

“In or about January 2007, Defendants distributed to an investigator computer systems with infringing Office 2003 Pro software. Defendants also distributed counterfeit Office 2003 Pro, FrontPage 2003, Visio Pro 2003, Project Pro 2003, and One Note 2003 software.

“On information and belief, this is not an isolated incident. Rather, Defendants have been and continue to be involved in advertising, marketing, installing and/or distributing infringing copies of Microsoft software to unidentified persons or entities. On information and belief, Defendants’ distributions of Microsoft software are the result of Defendants’ advertising and marketing the availability of such materials.”

The Gunther defendants have not yet answered Microsoft’s complaint. However, an Associated Press story quotes another Florida defendant who denies Microsoft’s allegations. “Never in my life have they been in touch,” said Gustavo Ibanez, owner of PC Touch in Miami. The AP reports Mr. Ibanez said he sells computers with the appropriate Microsoft codes on them and that he has invoices for all of the subject software.

This denial notwithstanding, it will be interesting to see a few months from now how many of these 23 suits Microsoft has reduced to default judgment.

Thanks to Chicago IP Litigation blogger David Donoghue for bringing this story to my attention.