Autodesk vs SolidWorks

Owen Wengard’s last post at CAD/Court finally made me take some time off work and read the Autodesk vs SolidWorks case documents. A bloddy waste of time, I must say. To me it looks as if Autodesk simply wants to waste some of its money on lawyers so that SolidWorks wastes some of its money on lawyers. The irony is that both their customers end up paying the bills.

In my opinion, complaining that SolidWorks uses the term “DWG” in it’s product names and “Real” in it’s marketing is just falling short of intellectual bankruptcy, especially when Autodesk has repeatedly be declined trademarks related to “DWG” and most definately cannot come close to trademarking the word “Real”. And I would consider Autodesk’s assertion that only they can use an “Orange Frame” in their product branding a joke, but I really didn’t find it funny.

After reading the arguments that SolidWorks put up in its defense I believe Autodesk realizes it is nowhere close to winning this one. I hope they also realize that the more law suits they loose or settle, the worse their chances get of finally trademarking “DWG” because the opposing party keeps building its defence on what Autodesk conceded in the previous cases. In this case SolidWorks used the Autodesk vs ODA law suit to bolster it’s own case.

This one will be a no-brainer for the judge.