SolidWorks yesterday gave up on defending its DWGgateway and DWGeditor trademarks in the US Patent and Trademark Office. You can read the document here: ttabvue.uspto.gov/ttabvue/ttabvue-91170857-OPP-36.pdf
That which was so important a month ago no longer matters.
Whither ODA Withers?
That leaves the Open DWG Allinace alone in its defense against Autodesk's demand that nobody use the generic file extension dwg without its permission. What will the ODA do, now that SolidWorks caved in?
Secret Agreement
What was in the secret agreement between litigious Autodesk and defendant SolidWorks, signed after midnight? We're working on finding out, but in the meantime we have a guess: We speculate that SolidWorks agreed to adopt Autodesk's DWG APIs in a Bentley-like manner.
Support for DWG API choice in the marketplace is quickly drying up.
That which was so important a month ago no longer matters.
Whither ODA Withers?
That leaves the Open DWG Allinace alone in its defense against Autodesk's demand that nobody use the generic file extension dwg without its permission. What will the ODA do, now that SolidWorks caved in?
Secret Agreement
What was in the secret agreement between litigious Autodesk and defendant SolidWorks, signed after midnight? We're working on finding out, but in the meantime we have a guess: We speculate that SolidWorks agreed to adopt Autodesk's DWG APIs in a Bentley-like manner.
Support for DWG API choice in the marketplace is quickly drying up.
ODA is registered as Open Design Alliance -- not Open DWG Alliance, so it's not a trademark issue with them. But still, they're not out of Autodesk's legal battle yet.
Posted by: Bob Holtzmann | Jan 20, 2010 at 01:46 PM
You are right: that was a typo on my behalf, although their name was OpenDWG Alliance originally. Their software use DWG in trademarks that are registered with the USPTO -- hence the ongoing dispute.
Posted by: Ralph Grabowski | Jan 20, 2010 at 02:57 PM