Vernor in violation of Autodesk’s copyright." Whoops. So Autodesk went after CTA as well and obtained a consent decree in which the architecture firm "agreed that it had breached its promise to destroy the AutoCAD packages, and that it had transferred those packages to Mr. Vernor in 2007" as part of a discounted AutoCAD upgrade. One new wrinkle has emerged over the course of the case: CTA had actually agreed way back in 2002 to "destroy all copies of AutoCAD software in the AutoCAD packages that it transferred to Mr. With discovery completed and both sides pressing the judge for summary judgment, Jones ruled again this week-again for Vernor. Judge Richard Jones ruled in Vernor's favor in 2008. So did Vernor have the right to sell the copies?
Indeed, in Autodesk’s view, it never transfers ownership of AutoCAD packages to anyone." It contends that it never transferred ownership of the AutoCAD packages to CTA. US law typically gives a buyer the right to do what he or she likes with a product, including selling it to others (read our primer on the "first sale" doctrine).Īs the judge sums up Autodesk's argument, "Autodesk believes that it still owns the AutoCAD packages in Mr. This didn't matter to Autodesk the company asserts that it controlled the software anyway because it had only "licensed" it to customers under specific terms that eliminated the right to resell the software. The software maker managed to have Vernor's eBay access cut off for a month in 2007, and eventually sued him for copyright infringement in a federal court.īut Vernor's copies were't counterfeit it emerged during the court case that he had obtained them from Seattle architecture firm Cardwell/Thomas Associates (CTA), which sold them in 2007 along with a bunch of old office equipment. It found Tim Vernor, a full-time eBay reseller, who was offering AutoCAD far below the price of the newest version from Autodesk.
The dispute arose when Autodesk was trolling eBay for sales of its software in an effort to cut down on piracy and counterfeit copies of AutoCAD. Autodesk has lost (again) its bid to shut down eBay resellers of its terrifically expensive AutoCAD software-but the issues raised by the case aren't anywhere close to being settled.
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