Court Ruling Supports Claims That Microsoft's First OS Was Stolen
 

*Source: Information Week (http://www.informationweek.com/windo...ID=201202009)*
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Dismissing a defamation suit brought by the inventor of DOS against a British writer, a judge has left unchallenged computer industry lore that holds the operating system Microsoft licensed to IBM in the 1980s -- thereby launching Bill Gates' multibillion dollar software empire -- was a knock off.

In a book on American innovation, author Sir Harold Evans wrote that DOS inventor Tim Paterson relied heavily on an existing OS called CP/M (Control Program/Monitor) created by a programmer who has since died. Microsoft in 1980 struck a licensing deal with Paterson's company -- Seattle Computer Products -- to obtain access to DOS and resell it to IBM.

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