ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, July 9, 1996 TAG: 9607100005
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: B-7 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: HOUSTON
SOURCE: Houston Chronicle
Microsoft Corp. has filed suit against a Houston computer manufacturer as part of a nationwide crackdown on software piracy.
Microsoft accused Premium Computers of installing pirated software on the machines it sells.
Premium's owners could not be reached for comment. However, Premium denied the allegations in papers filed with the court.
The software giant targeted 13 other firms in the Houston area, but they came to terms with Microsoft without litigation, said Microsoft spokeswoman Karen Porter.
Porter would not identify the other retailers accused of piracy.
The Houston suit was filed May 2 in Dallas and transferred to a Houston federal court June 13. It accuses Premium of selling a computer containing unlicensed copies of Microsoft's MS-DOS and Windows 3.1 operating systems.
In the suit, Microsoft alleges copyright and trademark infringement, false designation of the software's origin and unfair competition.
Microsoft wants an injunction against Premium to prevent the company from putting unlicensed software on the computers its sells and wants Premium to surrender all unauthorized copies of Microsoft's software. The suit also seeks unspecified monetary damages.
Overall, Microsoft took action against 33 Texas retailers, including 20 in the Dallas area, Porter said. Microsoft filed a similar suit against Centrex Systems of Garland, Texas.
Porter said Microsoft's actions in Texas are part of a nationwide crackdown on software piracy and were spurred in part by tips phoned in to an anti-piracy hot line.
``We get reports over time on a particular business, and after the reports accumulate, we send out mystery shoppers to test-purchase a computer,'' Porter said.
Microsoft earlier targeted 110 computer retailers in the Silicon Valley area of Northern California, Toronto and the New York/New Jersey area.
Microsoft charges computer manufacturers a set amount for each copy of its various operating systems installed on a PC. An operating system is the initial layer of software on a computer that controls basic operations, such as printing a document or saving a file to disk.
The practice of small computer stores installing unauthorized software is considered common. Microsoft said it is investigating the sale of unauthorized copies of its software in other U.S. cities.
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