Microsoft Traps Aussie Mouse, Says Inventor
Sydney Morning Herald
Thursday December 17, 1998
A family business that began in Sydney has launched a $US1 billion ($1.6 billion) lawsuit against the world's biggest software company.
Goldtouch Technologies - run by Australian Mark Goldstein, his wife, Liz, and their son, Matthew - has accused Microsoft of stealing its ergonomic computer mouse design.
Goldtouch, now based in California, is seeking "exemplary damages in an amount not less than $1 billion" in a suit filed with a United States District Court in Texas on Monday. The suit alleges Microsoft engaged in theft of trade secrets, patent infringements and fraud.
A Microsoft Australia spokesperson said the company was reviewing the complaint and would say only that it was confident there was no basis for the trade secret claim.
Mr Goldstein, who sold his family's Paddington terrace in 1994 to fund development of the hand-hugging Goldtouch mouse, said he had a patent pending on the design when he showed a prototype to Microsoft executives in a two-hour meeting on September 3, 1997.
When Microsoft rejected the offer, Mr Goldtouch made the mouse independently with about $3 million raised from 20 Sydney business interests.
In October 1997 a US retail chain agreed to distribute the $US39.95 device, which is claimed to reduced muscle fatigue by 90 per cent.
But two months ago a Goldtouch employee phoned Mr Goldstein after seeing the Microsoft Intellimouse Pro in a US shop. Sales of the Goldtouch mouse had since fallen, Mr Goldstein said.
"We were completely dismayed and devastated," he said. "We definitely thought straightaway that the design had been stolen. It looked the same and had the same features. It's quite a unique design concept and we have patents to prove so. It has multiple curves and slopes that make it ergonomic.
"We were just about to go into full mass production. We thought, what are we going to do now? This is Microsoft and they're much bigger than us."
Mr Goldstein, a former physiology lecturer at the University of NSW, previously criticised an earlier Microsoft mouse which he claimed was redesigned after Microsoft executives examined the Goldtouch prototype.
Mr Goldstein patented the design in 1990 and struck a deal with IBM in 1994 to sell an adjustable keyboard he had designed. Following its success, he focused on the mouse and spent the three years making clay models. The Goldtouch mouse was patented in March this year.
Microsoft is already embroiled in an anti-trust law suit filed by the US Department of Justice, which claims the giant has acted illegally to monopolise the market for Internet browsing software.
Microsoft has faced similar claims before, most famously from Apple Computer, which claimed unsuccessfully in a long-running law suit that Microsoft stole its idea for the friendly Macintosh computer operating system.
© 1998 Sydney Morning Herald