Barely two hours ago I gave you the news that a Washington judge had ruled that Dr. Kai-Fu Lee was allowed to work at Google, who had poached him from Microsoft, during the pendency of a lawsuit filed by Microsoft against both Google and Dr. Kai-Fu Lee. At that time Microsoft issued a press statement declaring a victory in the preliminary ruling, despite the fact that the Judge had ruled that Kai-Fu could work at Google, and had expressly stated that “Microsoft has not sufficiently shown that it has a clear legal or equitable right to enjoin Dr. Lee, pending trial, from establishing and staffing a Google development facility in China.”
With the ink on that press statement barely dry, Microsoft has now revised that press statement, to include and issue the following challenge to Google, the new subtitle of which is “Microsoft offers to make today’s injunction permanent.”
Here is the new added text of the statement, which amounts to a call-out to Google:
Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith added, “We can settle this lawsuit tomorrow if Google will agree to take today’s preliminary injunction, keep every word without a single change, and enter it as a permanent injunction that will last until July 18, 2006. We can avoid a trial, forgo paying outside lawyers, and get back to competing in the marketplace. We are very pleased with today’s order, and we’re prepared to back up our words with concrete deeds if Google will do the same.”
Now, of course, even if Google agrees, millions can be spent in court arguing over whether “every word without a single change” of that order means X, Y, or Z, particularly if Microsoft believes they mean “X” and Google believes that they mean “Y”.
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On the other hand, if they go to trial, the odds of the trial being over in ten months (i.e. July 18, 2006), not to mention appeals, is pretty slim, and the amount of dollars churned will be astronomical.
If I were Google, I’d save the money and run. After all, they have to abide by the preliminary injunction until the trial is over anyways.
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