Lawyers representing Sun Microsystems Inc and Microsoft Corp will meet in a San Jose court room on February 27 in the latest stage of their legal battle over the Java licensing contract. In October Sun brought charges against Microsoft claiming its had breached terms of its Java licensing agreement by shipping the Java Development Kit 1.1 in Internet Explorer 4.0, without certain key communication programs, while adding others which are specific to the Windows environment (CI No 3,263). Microsoft retaliated and counter-sued Sun. A week after Sun put in its initial claim, it filed an amendment demanding $35m in damages against Microsoft for allegedly shipping the Java source code with JDK 2.0. But the case has been somewhat over shadowed in recent times by the legal procedures between Microsoft and the US Department of Justice over the bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows 95, which Microsoft has just lost (CI No 3,332). But confident to the last, Microsoft said in October that the suit issued against it by Sun was without merit and it would prevail in court (CI No 3,264). Attorneys representing the companies will meet in court later this month, following the discovery period, which saw both companies gathering documents relating to their respective Java licensing agreements. If the case gets to trial, which according to industry insiders is looking increasingly unlikely because both companies want to minimize their expenses, a date for trial could be set for anytime between 18 months and two years from the end of the month.
