Microsoft Corp claims that Apple Computer Corp used the threat of a $1.2bn lawsuit as a club against it during the lengthy negotiations that led to the $150m deal that the two firms cut last year. On the stand, Microsoft counsel Theodore Edelman asked Apple VP Avadis Tevanian Jr, isn’t it a fact that Apple threatened to sue Microsoft for $1.2bn if they didn’t enter into some sort of cross licensing agreement? Tevanian denied this and said he didn’t recall making a personal threat of that nature himself. He went on to assert that if a resolution had not been reached over intellectual property disputes, that it would have been Apple’s right to sue. Microsoft spokesman, Mark Murray, talking outside after court session had ended, claimed that the exchanges showed that, if anyone was wielding a club in these negotiations, it was Apple.
