Will Adobe Suit Ground Macromedia MX?

Adobe won its patent infringement suit against Macromedia and was awarded $2.8M in damages. Adobe claimed that Macromedia products infringed U.S. Patent No. 5,546,528. That patent covers Adobe's method of combining multiple floating palettes into a single tabbed windoid. See the Adobe Press Release.



Macromedia disputes the jury's finding and has filed a countersuit, to be heard shortly.



Macromedia may be enjoined from shipping Flash MX and other Macromedia products, such as Dreamweaver and Fireworks, that use the same tabbed palettes. This lawuit was filed in 2000, and there were threats of a lawsuit from Adobe prior to that, so it predates the MX family of product significantly.Adobe's LiveMotion authoring tool doesn't seriously challenge Macromedia's Flash, but the original suit was intended to prevent Fireworks from imitating Photoshop. When Macromedia started touting its "industry standard UI" in 2000, Adobe cried foul. I've examined the patent and the applications in question, and Macromedia's applications, such as Flash 5, clearly infringe on the Adobe patent. If Macromedia couldn't find prior art or another reason to invalidate the patent, the jury's conclusion seems reasonable to me.



Regardless, Macromedia could simply recompile Flash to disable this feature in the authoring tool. The lawsuit or patent do not affect the Flash Player browser plugin.



Is this a meaningful blow to Macromedia? I doubt it. If they ship the Flash authoring tool without tabbed palettes, users can still open and close palettes individually, it just takes a little more screen area. In fact, the Macromedia MX interface (used in Flash MX, Dreamweaver MX, and Fireworks MX) uses a somewhat different paradigm to show/hide multiple palettes than did Flash 5, Dreamweaver 4, and Fireworks 4. So the issue may be moot, except for the small damage award.



Macromedia still has their countersuit and may use other tactics to bring Adobe to the bargaining table (in the past, it has been Macromedia that has refused to negotiate).


Macromedia may have to pay a small judgement, and at worst, recall some products from the channel and replace them with a slightly modified version that doesn't infringe. But Macromedia isn't stupid. They'll settle with Adobe, if necessary, at a cost that won't significantly affect their bottom line. I haven't studied their financials, and I don't know if they have insurance or an existing set-aside for cases like this. Macromedia says there will be no material impact on their financial outlook. I rarely believe what Macromedia says about their financials, but I agree with them on this one.



Bottom line: This is a non-event. The Macromedia MX product family will not be measurably affected.



The Apple suit against Sorensen over Flash MX's video feature is much more relevant.