For many years before I became an Florida Small Business Attorney and Florida Estate Planning Lawyer, I was in the computer industry. Much of our business was from selling products internationally. Often the resellers in those countries complained that what we were doing was Black market or Grey Market. The customers liked the US prices and the availability of the products. Although for many years there have been grey market problems in the United States with electronics and cameras, it was not a big problem with software. Occasionally there would be "unauthorized" product sold in the market place. One example I can remember is when some hard drives that were sold to a computer manufacture became available in the normal channels of distribution. This problem was that these devices were able to be sold for 1/2 the price of the normal drives.
Lately Microsoft has been having the same problems with their OEM software. It appears that they have begun to file lawsuits to enforce their rights and persuade others from being tempted to use their software in an unauthorized manner.
Recently Microsoft filed nine suits in Florida Courts:
MICROSOFT CORPORATION v. AMERICAN BEGONIA CORPORATION ET AL, 1:07-CV-21642
MICROSOFT CORPORATION v. COMPUTERS & LAPTOPS CENTER, INC. ET AL, 1:07-CV-21643
MICROSOFT CORPORATION v. COMPUGLOBE, INC. ET AL, 0:07-CV-60900
MICROSOFT CORPORATION v. KEN’S COMPUTERS INC. ET AL, 5:07-CV-00258
MICROSOFT CORPORATION v. PC TOUCH OF FLORIDA, CORP. ET AL, 1:07-CV-21644
MICROSOFT CORPORATION v. TAKE A BYTE COMPUTERS, INC. ET AL, 0:07-CV-60901
MICROSOFT CORPORATION v. CRUZ ET AL, 8:07-CV-01117
MICROSOFT CORPORATION v. GUNTHER, 3:07-CV-00596
MICROSOFT CORPORATION v. NETFX PRO, INC. ET AL, 3:07-CV-00597
The suits filed in the Middle and Southern Districts of Florida set forth claims of copyright and trademark infringement as well as state counts for unfair competition. This wave of lawsuits principally seems to focus on pre-installers of unlicensed software. Much of this software is purchased overseas and enters the country in through the parallel market. They add to the growing number of lawsuits recently filed in other parts of the country by Microsoft against parallel market software importers.
If you have a similar claim, you may want to speak with a Patent lawyer.
For More information on these suits check out the following links:Microsoft wages New War on Parallel Market and Microsoft Lawsuits against unauthorized Resellers
