Former Sun boss: Steve Jobs threatened to sue

Former Sun CEO Jonathan Schwartz wrote on his blog that Steve Jobs threatened a lawsuit over the phone in 2003 over Sun allegedly violating Apple patents. The top of Microsoft would also have used this tactic.

schwartz writes that Sun was working on the Looking Glass project at the time, a concept for a 3D desktop for Linux. Shortly after a presentation of Looking Glass, the Sun CEO was said to have been called by Steve Jobs. According to the Apple CEO, Sun would violate Apple’s intellectual property on a large scale with the graphic effects in his Linux desktop. If Sun had commercial plans for Looking Glass, Jobs would immediately sue the company, Schwartz said.

Schwartz is said to have replied that a previous Apple keynote showed work that closely resembled Concurrence, a presentation package from Sun. He would also have referred to OS X, which would have the necessary similarities with Unix, an OS in which Sun has the necessary patents. According to Schwartz, after this answer, Jobs went very quiet and never said anything about the case again.

Microsoft is also mentioned in the blog post. Reportedly, Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer wanted compensation from Sun for every download of the office suite OpenOffice.org, a free competitor to Microsoft Office. Sun allegedly violated Microsoft patents with its product. Schwartz states that he informed the Microsoft executives that the then-fresh .Net violated the necessary Java patents, after which the conversation between the parties quickly ended.

The former Sun CEO – Schwartz parted ways with Sun after the acquisition by Oracle – argues that patents are necessary to protect intellectual property, but companies that use patents to attack the competition are desperate. They would not rely on fair competition in the free market, but pin their hopes on revenue from lawsuits for damages. As recent examples, he cites Nokia, which has started a patent case against Apple, and also Apple, which has sued phone manufacturer HTC – and indirectly Google – for similar reasons. However, the former CEO of Sun thinks that the accused parties often come out stronger after a lawsuit.