Adobe Wins Patent Infringement Lawsuit Against Macromedia

by , 11:30 AM EDT, May 3rd, 2002

Adobe announced today that it had won a patent infringement lawsuit against Macromedia. The company received a favorable verdict from a jury trial in which it had accused Macromedia of willfully infringing on Adobe's patents governing reconfigurable tabbed palettes. From Adobe:

Adobe Systems Incorporated today announced that it has received a favorable jury verdict in its intellectual property case against Macromedia, Inc. in the U.S. District Court of Delaware, finding willful infringement of U.S. Patent No. 5,546,528. The patent at issue covers Adobe's reconfigurable tabbed palette patent, which is Adobe's method of displaying and working with multiple sets of information in the same area of the computer screen. The patented invention allows users to customize how the functions in the product are organized on their workspace.

"We are very pleased with the verdict," said Bryan Lamkin, senior vice president of Adobe's graphics business unit. "We've maintained all along that Macromedia infringes this patent. While we would have preferred to settle this issue out of court, we are satisfied that the validity of this key innovation has been upheld."

Adobe was awarded $2,822,280 in damages and the company anticipates that the court will issue an injunction to stop Macromedia's infringement.

You can find more information on Adobe and Macromedia at their Web sites.

The Mac Observer Spin:

This could have chilling repercussions on software development, depending on what happens with the case after this. Macromedia isn't the only company that has infringed on this patent, and it will be very interesting to see what happens next.