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update Microsoft ended another long-standing legal dispute on Monday, announcing a $440 million settlement and licensing deal with InterTrust Technologies, which markets digital rights management tools. The settlement marks the end of the nearly 3-year-old patent infringement suit. InterTrust's suit contended that virtually all of Microsoft's products--from the company's flagship Windows operating system to its multimedia software--trespassed on InterTrust's content protection holdings. The deal opens the door for Microsoft to expand the array of antipiracy tools it provides with its digital media software, including Windows Media Player.

Original by Harry Dare (1892) Update-Parody by Coral Snake (2003) MIDI - BYCYCLE BUILT FOR TWO Look under OLD TYME MIDIES 1. Stealing source codes Bill Gates often played...Software pirate, Our Linux switch should not be delayed...don't buy into Win Longhorn. Had penguin problems in 2K3...Bill went in scheming mode, Paid off the SCO group crook Darl McBride...While pirating others' code. (CHORUS) Longhorn, Longhorn...Another Windows more. So kiss your code...goodbye, it's out the door. Your CVS trees Bill's sifting...Your source codes he is lifting. Bill's Micro ca$h...what a stash...comes from pirating others' code. 2. There's one more item Bill had...

Last month, when Microsoft announced its bellwether decision to award employees restricted stock instead of options, it also made news in a federal courtroom—the kind of news you keep quiet about. Microsoft suffered utter defeat at a crucial pretrial hearing in what appears to be the highest-stakes patent litigation ever—one in which a tiny company called InterTrust Technologies claims that 85% of Microsoft's entire product line infringes its digital security patents. (See Can This Man Bring Down Microsoft?) InterTrust's engineers developed and patented what they say are key inventions in two areas: so-called digital-rights management and trusted systems. The technologies...

With little fanfare, a federal judge has issued a critical ruling supporting a patent lawsuit against Microsoft brought by InterTrust, a digital rights management company. In a crucial preliminary hearing aimed essentially at setting the ground rules for the trial itself, Judge Saundra Brown Armstrong ruled strongly in favor of InterTrust Technologies. The company is suing Microsoft on 144 counts of patent infringement, contending that Microsoft products ranging from the Windows operating system to the Xbox game system violate its digital rights management patents. No decision has been made on whether Microsoft actually has infringed on InterTrust's patents. But the...