Judge rules on Java ownership dispute

Ruling Microsoft has been told to remove all Java logos from IE 4.

Sun Microsystems won the first round in its legal battle over the. ownership of Java when a US federal judge issued an injunction preventing Microsoft using the '100 Per Cent Pure Java' logo on its products.

In a separate development, JavaSoft president Alan Baratz has threatened to file a suit against HP for intellectual property infringement. The action will be brought if HP refuses to stop developing and licensing a separate Java Virtual Machine (JVM) to be used on consumer electronic devices.

Both issues were raised at the JavaOne developer's conference, which took place in San Francisco, California, last week.

Baratz used his keynote speech to deny claims by HP that it was charging excessive licensing fees for a consumer JVM. He said Sun was willing to give HP the licence for free in return for improvements to the technology and recognition of Sun's licensing policy. But he confirmed that legal action would be taken if HP refused to comply.

Commenting on the preliminary ruling in the MS case, Sun CEO Scott McNealy said: 'The message is clear that Microsoft is not shipping a compatible product.'

The decision by District Judge Ronald Whyte gives MS 30 days to remove the coffee cup logo and slogan from its product packaging, marketing material and Websites unless the products first pass Sun's compatibility tests.

Judge Whyte said he based his decision on evidence that MS 'would essentially destroy the cross-platform compatibility of the Java programming environment'.

He also ruled that: 'Sun has demonstrated a sufficient likelihood of establishing consumer confusion.'

The ruling will stay in place until the case goes to trial and effectively means that MS will have to recall the current version of IE 4 Plus.

But MS played down the implications of the decision. A US representative at MS said: 'The impact on the channel will be minimal.

We do not expect to incur a significant cost.'

(See JavaOne story, page 20).