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Winternals, Best Buy Settle Over Geek Squad
David Utter
Staff Writer
2006-07-10
 Insider Reports RSS Feed
A confidential settlement has ended litigation initiated by Winternals over copyright infringement regarding Geek Squad's use of its ERD Commander software.
The lawsuit should end following a July 7th motion from Winternals lawyer David Weaver, who cited a settlement agreement reached between the company and Best Buy, which owns Geek Squad.
Instead of a lengthy lawsuit, Winternals now has a three-year agreement in place with Best Buy. This will permit its Geek Squad of tech assistance personnel to lawfully use licensed programs from Winternals and Sysinternals. This includes the ERD Commander system recovery tool.
The problems for Best Buy and Geek Squad started in February 2006. Winternals had conducted training sessions for Geek Squad employees, as part of its negotiations with Best Buy to license software for its 12,000 Geek Squad workers.
Then the negotiations ended abruptly. Coupled with the admission from employees of Geek Squad and Best Buy that they had been using unlicensed copies of ERD Commander, Winternals began to investigate.
They set up systems needing repair in multiple locations, and put calls in to Geek Squad for assistance. Geek Squad staffers either used unlicensed copies of ERD Commander, or had them in their possession.
In April 2006, Winternals sued in US District Court in western Texas for copyright infringement, circumvention of copyright protections systems, and misappropriation of trade secrets.
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Tags: Winternals, Best Buy, Geek Squad
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About the Author:
David Utter is a business and technology writer for SecurityProNews and WebProNews.
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