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The mouse trap

Microsoft sues three dealers for
selling counterfeit hardware.

Microsoft has sued three dealers and reseller that the company found was selling counterfeit mice in their name in India.

The Delhi high court, which is hearing the case, has passed an interim injunction restraining two dealers in New Delhi -- Delhi Computers and Creative Peripherals -- from selling, distributing or dealing in Microsoft

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products.

According to Microsoft, the court has also appointed commissioners to search the premises and seize counterfeit goods in both Delhi and in Bangalore.

While searching the Delhi dealers' premises, 28 counterfeit Microsoft mice were found at one place, 22 at the other. Also found was a hard disk with an unlicensed Windows 95 package and four CDs of pirated Microsoft software.

According to company sources, what they felt more serious than the loss of revenue was the bad name they got when the inferior counterfeit products failed.

Microsoft, which brought in its hardware like mice, keyboards, joysticks and gamepads about two years ago, has often received complaints about their mice. And found that these were counterfeit.

The hardware was evidently imported from Singapore and Hong Kong, and the dealers who peddled them apparently have a big network in India too. Microsoft is now trying to halt such counterfeiting in these countries too.

-Compiled from the Indian media

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