Microsoft has asked a US district court to give it more time to comply with a preliminary injunction that gave it 90 days to make changes to its products that use Java technology.
Microsoft last week filed three motions with the US District Court in San Jose, Northern District of California, where Sun Microsystems is suing the software maker for allegedly breaching its Java licensing contract, Sun and Microsoft officials said.
One of the motions asks the court to give it 120 days to comply with the order on some of its products, and requests a 90 day extension for other products, according to Sun spokeswoman Lisa Poulson. The motion is accompanied by declarations from PC manufacturers describing the time it takes to get updated technology into certain distribution channels, Poulson said.
Microsoft spokesman Jim Cullinan said the motion asking for more time was filed under seal with the court, and should not have been discussed publicly by Sun. He declined to say which products Microsoft needs more time to make the changes to.
US District Court Judge Ronald Whyte, in awarding Sun the preliminary injunction last month, said he would extend the 90 day period if Microsoft could show good cause.
A second motion asks for an expedited hearing on Microsoft's request for extra time. Microsoft asked the court to grant it a hearing January 8, 1999, Cullinan confirmed.
"We need a chance to explain the timeline by which we are moving here," Cullinan said. "Microsoft has shipped thousands of products that are affected by this order and we are moving to comply as quickly as we can."
A third motion asks the court to clarify or modify the injunction so that it won't keep Microsoft from distributing "independently developed" technology, Poulson and Cullinan said. This motion refers to Java products made by Microsoft that do not include Java source code from Sun, Cullinan said.
Cullinan declined to say whether Microsoft currently has Java products that do not include Sun source code, but said the company wants to keep that option open for the future, Cullinan said.
The second and third motions were not filed under seal, Cullinan said.
Last week Microsoft filed notice with the district court that it intends to appeal the preliminary injunction.
As it is, the injunction stands at least until the case comes to trial, a date for which has not been set. Microsoft denies all of the charges leveled against it by Sun.
Microsoft, in Redmond, Washington, can be reached at +1-425-882-8080 or at http://www.microsoft.com/. Sun, in Palo Alto, California, can be reached at +1-415-786-7737 or at http://www.sun.com/.