We've said it before, and we'll say it again: high-tech lawsuits make the world go 'round. While Microsoft's own entanglements with the Justice Department and Sun are the courtroom battles currently making all the headlines, let's not forget that Apple has its own share of lawsuits pending. They are, for example, being sued for cancelling Newton. They are also being sued for chucking out the whole "free telephone support forever" SOS-APPL plan. In fact, there are quite a few lawsuits filed against Apple, but none is as large nor as potentially absurd than the suit filed by IMATEC. IMATEC, you may recall, alleges that Apple violates three of their patents in the ColorSync color management technology-- and is suing for $1.1 billion. (With that much green, who needs color management?)

We hadn't heard anything more about this case in many months, leading us to suspect that IMATEC had either given up or been laughed out of the court system; instead, however, the lack of news seems due primarily to the pace at which these lawsuits typically proceed. Suddenly, out of nowhere, IMATEC has issued a press release announcing their witnesses in the case, which apparently will proceed to trial. Previously, everything we'd seen about the lawsuit indicated that the case was groundless, that IMATEC was a scam artist hoping for a quick out-of-court settlement in order to raise some much-needed cash, and that even if they tried to bring the case to court, they'd likely fail to get that far. Whoops! Guess not. And IMATEC's witness list doesn't name the newsstand vendor and the owner of the local nudie bar, either-- there are some real live people on there, and ones that should know what they're talking about. Intellectual property lawyers. Contributing editors to MacWorld. That kind of stuff.

We hope Apple's warming up their legal team. Just imagine if they lose this case and have to pay $1.1 billion to IMATEC. (Actually, AtAT's resident Law Goddess Katie states that since the suit alleges "willfull infringement" by Apple and "full knowledge by them of IMATEC's rights," the payment could actually be double or treble damages. Holy Bonus Multiplier, Batman!) What rotten timing-- Apple just gets back on its feet in time to deal with a billion-dollar lawsuit. But that's the way the game is played. Gentlemen, start your lawyers...

"Redmond Justice" has just closed out the fifth week of its new fall season, and much of the high drama seems to have left the show. Early confrontations between Microsoft lawyers and the government's star witnesses-- Netscape's Jim Barksdale, AOL's David Colburn, and even Apple's Avie Tevanian-- were occasionally acidic, often spiteful, and always just plain entertaining. Now that we've moved into the bottom half of the batting order, though, the witnesses are more likely to be economists and antitrust theorists than celebrities of the high-tech world. Still, they serve an important purpose: one point that the government must prove if its lawsuit against Microsoft is to succeed is that Microsoft's actions hurt consumers. That's why economist Frederic Warren-Boulton is testifying on behalf of the government-- and, thankfully, Fred's a pretty colorful witness after all. CNET has the story.

In essence, Fred charges that Microsoft is "keeping prices for its operating systems above market levels." As evidence, he points to internal Microsoft email messages which indicate that the company was very aware that their operating system prices kept rising while the prices on all other computer components were dropping. Those email messages indicate that Microsoft considered the possibility that eventually some PC companies might be pushed too far by exhorbitant prices, and they might try to go elsewhere for their operating system needs-- but Microsoft wasn't worried, because their customers had such an investment in Microsoft's platform that alternatives wouldn't sell due to "inertia." That, Fred says, is a monopoly: Microsoft can charge whatever it wants to, because customers are so dependent on them that they have no choice but to pay. And according to the story, he held his ground under cross-examination.

Now, we're fully aware that when Fred talks about Microsoft charging more than they should for Windows, he's talking about OEM prices to PC manufacturers. (For instance, Compaq alone apparently had to pay three quarters of a billion dollars for Windows licenses one year.) But just for fun, let's consider the costs of off-the-shelf shrinkwrapped operating systems, shall we? Average selling price of the Windows 98 upgrade: $87. Average selling price of Mac OS 8.5: $87. Uh-oh. Suppose Apple should gear up for another lawsuit? Granted, one's an upgrade and one's a full OS, but still, you never know what could happen these days...

Looks like Java will continue on the Microsoft platform after all. Last week, a judge granted Sun another preliminary injunction in its contract infringement suit against the Redmond Giant; Microsoft has ninety days in which to alter the version of Java that it ships in its products so that it can pass Sun's compatibility tests. Since such a change affects Internet Explorer, Windows, and Microsoft's Java development products, there was some speculation floating around that Microsoft might have some trouble complying. And due to an off-the-cuff remark made by Microsoft's Paul Maritz, some people even thought that Microsoft might chuck the whole Java thing altogether, wash their hands, and be done with it.

Instead, just one day after the injunction was handed down, Microsoft announced that they'd be able to comply without too much trouble. As described in a TechWeb article, all they need to do is add JNI and RMI interfaces to their virtual machine-- which they claim is a "relatively easy" task, as far as changing software goes-- and change the default settings in their Java development products so that Microsoft-only Java extensions must be manually turned on by the user. In addition, if and when a developer does choose to use Microsoft-only Java extensions, the products will warn that the resulting program won't work on any non-Microsoft implementations of Java.

What remains to be seen is if Microsoft "complies" with this preliminary injunction in the same manner that they "complied" with the one handed down by Judge Jackson nearly a year ago. If you recall, that was when they were ordered to offer an alternate version of Windows 95 with Internet Explorer omitted. They did just that; unfortunately, that version didn't even boot, leaving PC manufacturers with very little actual choice as to which version to use. Does Microsoft have something similar up its sleeve this time? We're picturing scenarios in which developers all choose to turn on the option to use Windows-specific Java calls-- because the option is really "Allow Windows-Specific Code and the Use of the Letters 'E' and 'S' in Text Strings." Hmmm, not bad...