14 DAY TRIAL // Microsoft has confirmed the debut of legal action against CRM rival Salesforce.com, alleging willful intellectual-property violation. Via a lawsuit filed in the federal court of Seattle, the Redmond company is accusing Salesforce.com of patent infringement with its customer management relationship products, and is seeking monetary damages, but also temporary and permanent injunctions against its competitor. “Microsoft has filed an action today, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, against Salesforce.com for infringement of nine Microsoft patents by their CRM product,” Horacio Gutierrez, corporate vice president and deputy general counsel of Intellectual Property and Licensing, explained.
Salesforce.com hasn’t commented in any way on the patent-infringement lawsuit brought against it by the software giant. At the same time, the company is yet to react in any manner to Microsoft’s move, and its options are limited. Salesforce.com can, of course, fight Microsoft in the lawsuit, and, provided it has the necessary IP arsenal, it too can fire a salve at the Redmond company on similar grounds. And, of course, there’s always the option of settling the matter out of court through a patent agreement.
“Microsoft has been a leader and innovator in the software industry for decades and continues to invest billions of dollars each year in bringing great software products and services to market. We have a responsibility to our customers, partners, and shareholders to safeguard that investment, and therefore cannot stand idly by when others infringe our IP rights,” Gutierrez added.
According to a January filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission from Salesforce.com (via BeyondBinary), Microsoft’s CRM rival mentioned the future risks of being sued for proprietary-rights infringement. The filing doesn’t reference Microsoft, but this cannot be a simple coincidence, especially as it is a normal tactic for the Redmond company to approach companies with IP violation claims long before going to court.
“During fiscal 2009, we received a communication from a large technology company alleging that we were infringing upon some of their patents. We continue to analyze the potential merits of their claims, the potential defenses to such claims and potential counter claims, and the possibility of a license agreement as an alternative to litigation. We are currently in discussions with this company and no litigation has been filed to date. However, there can be no assurance that this claim will not lead to litigation in the future,” Salesforce.com stated.