Palm blocks daVinci PDA sales

Palm Computing was granted this week an injunction preventing Olivetti's US subsidiary importing, exporting, distributing or selling its Royal daVinci PDA. Palm's action centres on allegations that the Olivetti PDA's operating system, Nexus, developed by Hong Kong-based software company Echolink Design, contains huge chunks of PalmOS source code. Palm has already filed a copyright infringement case in Hong Kong against Echolink, and won an court order preventing Echolink from distributing Nexus in any way until the case is settled. The 3Com subsidiary filed similar suits against Olivetti Office USA and CompanionLink, the distributor of the daVinci OS software development kit, in July. In granting the injunction against Olivetti and CompanionLink on 10 August, the court said the Palm had "made a showing of likelihood of success on the merits" of its claim that the daVinci OS contains portions of the PalmOS copied verbatim. ®