Novadigm sues Marimba, says W3C is being deceived

Novadigm originally filed suit against Marimba in March but the issue has arisen again in the wake of Marimba's submission yesterday of a proposed Distribution and Replication Protocol to the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C).

Novadigm claims Marimba infringes its property rights in the submission and is warning that the protocol could be held up because of its legal claim. Specifically, Novadigm alleges that the method of indexing used by Marimba is too close for comfort to its own model.

"Standards are clearly a positive force in the industry, but the fact remains that this technology is not Marimba's to give away," said Albion Fitzgerald, chairman and CEO of Novadigm. "Marimba is a startup which has garnered much attention but apparently does not respect our property rights ... Dragging the W3C and the Internet community unknowingly into the middle of the dispute is a particularly inappropriate tactic."