A small San Jose, Calif., company said it has been granted a preliminary injunction preventing Microsoft from incorporating a patented networking method into future versions of Windows.
Alacritech said Wednesday that the injunction blocks Microsoft from using its Chimney architecture, which Alacritech said Microsoft plans to include in both a "scalable networking pack" for Windows Server 2003 and in Longhorn, the next version of Windows. Microsoft"s Chimney software provides support for hardware that accelerates networking using the TCP/IP standard, which underlies the Internet and countless private networks. Microsoft designed Chimney to minimize compatibility issues with existing computing technology.