Sun Microsystems, Inc. v. Microsoft Corp.

In 1996, Sun Microsystems, Inc. (Sun) (plaintiff) and Microsoft Corp. (defendant) entered into a Technology Licensing and Distribution Agreement (TLDA). Pursuant to the TLDA, Sun granted Microsoft a license to make derivative works of Sun’s Java programming language, termed “Java technology” in the TLDA, for the purpose of developing supporting products. The TLDA also placed compatibility obligations upon Microsoft, requiring that any commercial product developed by Microsoft under the TLDA would comprise only a compatible implementation that passed Sun’s Java Language Test Suite. Later, however, Microsoft began developing intentional (strategic) incompatibilities into its licensed Java products. First, Microsoft developed unauthorized extensions to the java.* class library, which ensured that applications created with Microsoft’s Java development tools were tied to Microsoft’s virtual machine and to its Windows operating system. Second, Microsoft refused to implement Sun’s JNI native method interface into its Java runtime or development-tools products, including its Java Virtual Machine Implementations, and instead created its own native method interfaces, including what it called its RNI and J/Direct native method interfaces. Microsoft, according to Sun, then flooded the market with its incompatible products, which caused developers to write applications solely for Microsoft operating systems, as opposed to applications for all virtual machines, effectively preventing the developers from using Sun’s JNI method interface. Sun sued Microsoft in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, accusing Microsoft of unfair competition under California law. Sun also filed a motion for preliminary injunction, requesting that the district court enjoin Microsoft from, among other things, continuing to sell or distribute operating systems and software-development tools that contained the Java technology unless they supported Sun’s JNI native method interface in a manner that passed the Java Language Test Suite.