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| Noted Antitrust Attorney Robert McTamaney Comments on
Bristol Technologies v. Microsoft Case NEW YORK, July 13 -- Robert A. McTamaney, an antitrust attorney with Carter, Ledyard & Milburn in New York, commented on the case: "The Bristol Technologies case seems to me just an attempt by Bristol to play the American litigation lottery. This is simply not an antitrust case, but rather an obvious effort by Bristol to secure better licensing terms from Microsoft than Bristol's competitors. There is no antitrust case since at least one of Bristol's competitors has licensed acceptable parts of the Microsoft source code and has apparently enjoyed a substantial increase in sales of its conversion software as a result. Bristol had a contract with Microsoft, it expired, and Bristol records suggest that its later negotiations were more directed toward setting the stage for a lawsuit against Microsoft than really trying to negotiate a new deal. Bristol now says that Microsoft promised orally that it would extend the agreement, but the Bristol contract itself clearly said that it could only be amended in writing, so there isn't any valid contract claim either, and Microsoft has continued to offer to license Bristol on the same terms happily accepted by Bristol's competition. I just hope that the jury is savvy enough to see this case for what it is -- one competitor, Bristol, trying to get an unfair advantage over another, and Microsoft, to its credit, refusing to let them do that." Robert A. McTamaney is a partner at Carter, Ledyard & Milburn, a Wall Street law firm founded in 1854. Carter, Ledyard's general practice includes corporate, securities, mergers and acquisitions, media and technology, litigation, trusts and estates, maritime, environmental, employment, telecommunications, ERISA, intellectual property, exempt organization, antitrust, real estate, and tax. Significant portions of the firm's practice involve representation of overseas-based clients and their U.S. affiliates, and representation of financial services, media, technology and Internet clients. The firm, with approximately 100 attorneys, is headquartered at Two Wall Street in downtown New York City, with additional offices in midtown Manhattan and Washington, D.C. |
New online Internet Law Guide launched Specialty Technical Publishers, Inc. has announced the ideal single source of reference information for all legal issues pertaining to both business and personal use of the Internet. Approximately 1,700 pages and growing, Internet Law: The Complete Guide is now available right at your desktop as a fully searchable, hot-linked, updated subscription-based legal resource. Written by Chicago-based lawyer and former Information Systems Manager Steven D. Imparl (J.D.) this Guide poses a number of questions facing anyone using the Internet: * What are the stages of "going online"? The answers to these and a myriad of other questions are contained in Internet Law: The Complete Guide - a comprehensive yet easy-to-follow roadmap to the information superhighway. This Guide will help you to avoid potholes (hidden, unexpected legal problems), traffic jams (areas of conflict and litigation), and road construction (places where the law is developing and still undefined). Internet Law: The Complete Guide not only discusses legal rules that have already emerged to govern online conduct, but also developing trends in Internet law. With an eye to the future it also hypotheses how the law will develop and evolve as the use of the Internet continues to grow. The Internet Law: The Complete Guide web site is hosted and managed by Information Retrievers Ltd., an electronic information publishing company, and can be found at http://www.internet-law-guide.com. |
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