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17 Dec 2009
Sun Microsystems has emerged victorious from intellectual property cases in the US and UK related to the illegal production and distribution of its products.
The company won its claim in the UK that M-Tech Data had been illegally importing and redistributing Sun products in Europe without approval.
Sun also won a cash decision against a US repair firm found guilty of selling counterfeit hardware. Sun said that it may still seek criminal charges against Sun Valley Technical Repair and its founder.
The company vowed to file similar suits against companies that violate its patents or resell its products without permission.
"Sun is committed to aggressively pursuing those who violate Sun's intellectual property rights and threaten its market integrity," said Sun legal director Bill Mooz.
"All of these acts not only tarnish Sun's brand, but can put users of Sun products in the terrible position of depending on inferior or unlicensed technology in mission-critical environments, without proper warranty or support. "
Sun has invited any company suspecting that it may be running counterfeit or otherwise illegal systems from M-Tech Data or Sun Valley Technical Repair to contact Sun to have the systems verified or assessed.
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M-Tech a victim of Archane trade laws
The IP/copyright law that M-Tech broke is archane, essentially allowing only serial #s intended for the EU to be resold into the EU after re-use. This is not the case in the US and elsewhere where modern free trade is promoted. Making matters worse, Sun refuses to share details of where products were intended for use. You can't just tell by where they were sold, because sometimes products are sold by Sun into a region (say the UK) when originally, at time of manufacture, that product was intended for a different marketplace (say Australia) but redirected by them... In that case, the serial number is still "intended" for Australia. A used reseller would never know this, so essentially these laws kill secondary markets. Sun is the main manufacturer litigating these cases right now, but rumors are that Cisco is getting ready to follow and other manufacturers like Dell, HP and IBM can't be far behind. The EU needs to get with the 21st century and loosen these copyright laws to allow free imports of products intended for other markets. The Sun Valley case certainly looks cut & dry though... glad they got a major counterfeiter off the market... but I feel bad for M-Tech that they're getting associated with shady resellers when they're just one of many potential victims of anti-competitive EU trade policies.
Posted by: Godofredo 17 Dec 2009