CAD Vendors: Happy 2009, and Be Prepared to be Sued

Gregory Swartz of Cygnus Systems and law firm Niro, Scavone, Haller & Niro are suing Google, Apple, and Microsoft over file previews: images of files displayed before the files are opened. Mr Swartz applied for a patent on the concept back in 2001, and just got it approved.

His game plan:

1. Win against G, A, & M, gaining royalty agreements and court injunctions.
2. "We've identified many other potentially infringing products that we're investigating."
3. $$$.

Software from Autodesk shows file previews in AutoCAD's SheetSet Manager and so on. I presume other CAD software also shows previews in non-OS related functions.

Source.