Ashton-Tate Inc is suing the six key people associated with database start-up Migent Inc of Incline Village, Nevada, alleging theft of intellectual property. Included in the suit are Migent chairman Carl Gritzmaker, and Wayne Rateliff of Rateliff Software Productions of La Crescenta, California. Rateliff was the man who developed dBase II and sold the development to Ashton-Tate in 1983; he is now acting as a consultant to Migent, designing a database manager for the 80386 code named Emerald Bay (CI No 529). He left Ashton-Tate after reportedly saying he’d quit unless it paid him millions in additional royalties.
