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. "After Alacritech discovered that Microsoft Chimney is based on intellectual property that we developed, patented and own, we offered Microsoft a license," Alacritech CEO Larry Boucher said in a statement. "Microsoft rejected licensing terms that would be acceptable to us. We were forced to sue Microsoft to stop them from continuing to infringe, and inducing others to infringe, on our intellectual property rights."