ODA Accuses Autodesk of Copyright Infringement

The ODA this morning issued this statement against Autodesk:

The Open Design Alliance understands that Autodesk has, for approximately two years, been distributing application programs which include our copyrighted DGNdirect libraries, for reading and writing DGN V8 format files. Autodesk does not have, nor has it ever had, any license or right to use DGNdirect in its application programs. We believe that Autodesk, by its actions, is infringing our copyright.

In a FAQ associated with the statement, the ODA accuses of Autodesk of being aware, yet ignoring the issue for two years. You can read the entire document here.

This is a drawback to a company making numerous acquisitions: they don't always know what they are getting, such as when Autodesk acquired Softdesk and found out later it had also acquired IntelliCAD, a secret project of Softdesk's. The current case is different, because Autodesk repeatedly acquires companies knowing that they use ODA technology (such as Revit and Alias), and then spends the time and effort to rid the acquired software of ODA code.

To be determined is how much Autodesk owes ODA for the time it does use their code.

Comments

[Tony Tanzillo]

"they don't always know what they are getting, such as when Autodesk acquired Softdesk and found out later it had also acquired IntelliCAD, a secret project of Softdesk's"

Autodesk didn't know about IntelliCAD, when it bought Softdesk ????

That's news to me!