Sun rebuts Microsoft’s appeal in Java case

February 12, 1999 — Sun Microsystems this week urged a US Court of Appeals to uphold a US District Court order requiring Microsoft to make changes to key software products so they are compatible with Sun’s Java programming language.

“The district court carefully crafted its order prohibiting Microsoft from distributing products that infringe Sun’s copyrights to minimize the hardships on Microsoft and the public,” Sun’s lawyers wrote in the appeals brief, filed Wednesday with the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco.

District Court Judge Ronald Whyte ordered Microsoft in November to make changes to Windows 98, Internet Explorer, and other products as part of a preliminary injunction awarded to Sun in its bitter feud with Microsoft over the software giant’s alleged misuse of Sun’s Java programming language.

Microsoft appealed the injunction in January, arguing that the district court had made several errors in granting it. Specifically, Microsoft argued that the court misinterpreted the terms of Sun’s Java licensing contract when it said Microsoft must include Sun’s Java Native Interface in its products. In addition, Microsoft claimed the court incorrectly treated the issue as a contract dispute rather than a copyright matter.

In its filing Thursday, Sun’s lawyers urged the appeals court to uphold the lower court ruling.

“The district court’s order displays a keen understanding and appreciation of both the law and the technology at issue,” Sun’s lawyers wrote. “The court should decline Microsoft’s invitation to substitute its judgment for the district court’s.”

Unless it is overturned, the preliminary injunction will apply until the conclusion of the trial. No trial date has been set yet. Meanwhile, Microsoft is taking steps to comply with the order even while it is fighting it.

“We believe that the court erred in its ruling in several different issues and look forward to making our appeal to the US Court of Appeals in San Francisco,” said Microsoft spokesman Jim Cullinan when reached by telephone Thursday.

“We believe it’s important that our [Java licensing] contract is clear, and allows Microsoft to improve on Sun’s technology in a way that benefits Windows customers, which is what we agreed when we negotiated the contract in 1996,” Cullinan added.

Sun’s reply brief, along with other Sun filings in the case, can be found on the Web, and Microsoft’s January appeals brief and other filings are in a legal archive (see Resources).