Another Way To Look At It
I am a regular reader of upFront.eZine from Ralph Grabowski. He made some interesting comments regarding the Autodesk-ODA law suit in his latest issue. He seems to suggest that the tide may be changing in favor of the ODA. As usual I have my own weird views on this and that’s precisely what this blog is for.
I have always maintained that the ODA received lousy legal advise to begin with. I am surprised that they accepted it and went ahead and infringed the Autodesk trademark. The ODA has now realized that a lawyer who tells them that it is ok to reverse engineer the TrustedDWG technology and then comes up with stupid arguments when hauled up in court is not someone to go along with. They have been forced to bring heavy weights to fight for them.
As I see it, the ODA’s new legal team now believes that attack is the best form of defense, which is a normal strategy for someone who find himself in a position of weakness. That’s why they are now counter-suing Autodesk for a laundry list of issues, something which I feel they should have done earlier instead of infringing the trademark in the first place.