US software company Adobe Systems is suing rival company,
Macromedia, for alleged infringement of a patent for its user
interface. It sought a court order yesterday to stop the launch of
the Flash 5.0 program which is planned for September.
Adobe said in its lawsuit that has owned a patent for so-called
“tabbed palette” technology and has done so since 1996. The
technology enables computer users to work with groups of data in
the same area of a monitor display. It claims that this is used in
Macromedia’s Flash 5.0.
Adobe says that it warned its smaller rival against the
infringement but that Macromedia continued to use the technology
without licence. In a statement, Bruce Chizen, president of Adobe,
said: “Adobe will not be the research and development department
for its competitors.” Macromedia denies the infringement.
