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Court Favors Autodesk, Grants Temporary Restraining Order Against Open Design Alliance

Posted on Wednesday, November 22, 2006 3:47 PM

Autodesk won the first round of its trademark lawsuit against the Open Design Alliance today, as a US District Court judge granted Autodesk's request for a temporary restraining order against the ODA.

The order, signed by Judge Marsha J. Pechman, states:

"The Court hereby temporarily restrains and enjoins Defendant, its agents, servants, employees, attorneys, and all others in active concert or participation with Defendant, from using or simulating Autodesk's TrustedDWG technology, including but not limited to the Autodesk watermark and/or TrustedDWG code, without Autodesk's authorization; from distributing DWGdirect libraries that use, incorporate or simulate Autodesk's TrustedDWG technology or that otherwise insert or mimic the unauthorized Autodesk and/or TrustedDWG code."

The order is effective immediately and remains in effect pending a hearing scheduled for January 18, 2007. At that time, the order can be rescinded, amended, or changed into a preliminary injunction that would remain in effect pending trial.

  --RSN

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# re: Court Favors Autodesk, Grants Temporary Restraining Order Against Open Design Alliance

11/23/2006 3:30 AM by Raggi_Thor
I think Autodesk is pushing it too far this time.
With their alert in AutoCAD every time you open a drawing from another system, they have forced ODA to mimic the "TrustedDWG" signature.
See for example this comment:
http://worldcadaccess.typepad.com/blog/2006/11/whoops_oda_cant.html

Autodesk could instead of their TrustedDwg slogan have used a kind of authentication like we have in signed macros, and then let their users decied if they want to trust dwg files from BricsCad (for example).

Dwg files from MDT, ADT, Revit and Inventor are probably making more trouble for AutoCAD users than dwgs from BricsCad or IntelliCad or MicroStation.

Kind Regards
Ragnar Thor Mikkelsen
www.designdata.no

# re: Court Favors Autodesk, Grants Temporary Restraining Order Against Open Design Alliance

11/23/2006 12:53 PM by R. Paul Waddington - cadWest
Ragnor is right on the mark here, Autodesk needs to get its act together and demonstrate seamless transfer of files between it products, something it has not been able to do nor seems willing to put in the effort to do properly.
If they what we users to take TrustedDWG seriously then Autodesk's must be able to show and lead by example else the court battle should fail on these grounds alone.
TrustedDWG could become Autodesk's marketing peoples next nightmare; it will become the word and expression used to describe any unreliable CAD file.

# re: Court Favors Autodesk, Grants Temporary Restraining Order Against Open Design Alliance

11/26/2006 6:15 AM by Mike
This is good, how would you like it if you invented a product and someone duplicated it and sol it on the market. If other companies want to support the dwg format then they should become a software partner of Autodesk

# re: Court Favors Autodesk, Grants Temporary Restraining Order Against Open Design Alliance

11/26/2006 1:32 PM by Raggi_Thor
Mike, what about the doc file format?
Do you think OpenOffice, StarOffice and all other "Office" programs should be banned?
What about customers right to their own data?
I like the slogan "Who owns your drawings?".
Do you think Autodesk would let any competitor use their libraries?
They only partner with comapanies that make solutions for AutoCAD, I guess.

# re: Court Favors Autodesk, Grants Temporary Restraining Order Against Open Design Alliance

11/27/2006 9:49 AM by Pete Rimkus
I realize that there are licensing, trademark, intellectual properties issues galore, but the gist of the Autodesk complaint seems to be the disguising of ODA-produced DWG files as "trusted DWG". It should be noted that developers using the ODA's DWGDirect 2.1 can simply turn off the 'watermark' with one line of code.
Would doing so still violate the restraining order?

# re: Court Favors Autodesk, Grants Temporary Restraining Order Against Open Design Alliance

11/28/2006 9:50 AM by Pete Rimkus
I guess that's now a moot point, since the ODA has released 2.1.1 without the 'watermark'-ing.

# re: Court Favors Autodesk, Grants Temporary Restraining Order Against Open Design Alliance

12/4/2006 4:44 AM by Ed Rose
As I understand it, to get the trusted DWG in your software, you just have to purchase the programming libraries from Autodesk. If you want your product to be standalone, there are additional fees but if your product requires a seat of AutoCAD the libraries are not that expensice.

And btw, I don't see other CAD companies giving there file formats away for free. In fact, I find that most CAD conpanies have made it a real pain in the but to translate CAD data out of there systems.
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