PSI vs. IBM

Sebastian Welton

Sep 29, 2007

I see Hercules has been brought up in the court case:

http://www.platform-solutions.com/docs/PSI-Amended-Answer-sept07-FINAL-REDACTED.\
pdf

5:49 am

Re: PSI vs. IBM

jim s

Sep 29, 2007

Sebastian Welton wrote:

>http://www.platform-solutions.com/docs/PSI-Amended-Answer-sept07-FINAL-REDACTED\
.pdf
>
>
>
Page 9 / 73

I'm no legal expert, but I don't read the citation as a good thing for
Hercules. PSI claims that information cited by IBM in their complaint
paragraph 34 is available in Hercules, and foreign patent applications.
I will have to read the complaint paragraph 34 to see what to make of it.

Funsoft is mentioned too by way of a history discussion.

8:32 am

Re: PSI vs. IBM

Roger Bowler

Sep 29, 2007

--- In hercules-390@yahoogroups.com, jim stephens wrote:
> Sebastian Welton wrote:
>>http://www.platform-solutions.com/docs/PSI-Amended-Answer-sept07-FINAL-REDACTE\
D.pdf
> Page 9 / 73
> I'm no legal expert, but I don't read the citation as a good
> thing for Hercules. PSI claims that information cited by IBM in
> their complaint paragraph 34 is available in Hercules, and foreign
> patent applications.

The IBM amended complaint is also hosted at the PSI website:

http://www.platform-solutions.com/docs/IBM-Amended-Complaint-REDACTED-version.pd\
f

Para 34 of the amended complaint talks about something called a
Technical Information Disclosure Agreement (TIDA) between IBM and
Amdahl. Later, they claim that PSI used trade secrets contained in
this TIDA to develop the PSI product. In fact, the whole thrust of the
amended complaint seems to be the claim that PSI must have used the
TIDA information because otherwise it's impossible (so IBM seem to be
claiming) to develop an emulator without this information.

The very existence of Hercules, of course, proves this claim to be
complete and utter rubbish. It's common knowledge that Hercules was
developed using only publicly available information. The developers of
Hercules do not have access to any IBM trade secrets.

So it does not surprise me to see that PSI are making indirect
reference to this in their defence.

> I will have to read the complaint paragraph 34 to see what to
> make of it.

What is most striking about the amended complaint is how the tone
differs radically from the original complaint. The original complaint
was at least reasonable in tone, even if it was based upon a contrived
and highly doubtful premise.

But this amended complaint is written in a desperate, almost
hysterical tone. Right in the first sentence we get the claim that
"PSI's entire business model is built on PSI's theft of IBM's
intellectual property". You can't get much more insulting than that.

Then they go on to say that "PSI has developed and is offering for
sale emulators that seek to imitate IBM's computers. PSI sells its
emulators to consumers by telling them expressly that their PSI
emulator will run IBM's operating systems" as if there is suddenly
something underhand about what was, until recently, normal business
practice of the plug compatible manufacturers.

Later in the same paragraph they come out with their pièce de
résistance: "Not surprisingly, in order to create emulators that mimic
IBM's computer systems, PSI has relied on the wholesale theft of IBM's
intellectual property. Without IBM's intellectual property, PSI's
emulators could simply not exist". This is plainly false.

One has to wonder whether IBM seriously intend to win this case or
whether they are simply hoping to eliminate PSI by a war of attrition.

Roger Bowler

8:58 pm