Paterson v. Little, Brown & Co.

Jul 25, 2007

OUTCOME: Summary judgment granted on July 25, 2007.

This was a defamation (libel) and false light invasion of privacy lawsuit lawsuit filed by Tim Paterson, the inventor of QDOS later known as MS-DOS, against Sir Harold Evans, author of the 2004 book "T ... hey Made America", and others, seeking to hold defendants because of the book's discussion of Paterson's reliance on CP/M, an earlier operating system created by Gary Kildall, in creating QDOS. In the book, while discussing the invention of personal computer operating systems in a chapter on Kildall, there were statements that Paterson “[took] a ride on” Kildall's operating system, appropriated the “look and feel” of the CP/M operating system, and copied much of his operating system interface from CP/M. The court dismissed the plaintiffs' claims, finding that Paterson was a limited purpose public figure and that there was no evidence (and certainly no evidence of convincing clarity) that defendants had published any false statements of verifiable fact about Paterson with actual malice. The court held that several statements relating to Paterson were nonactionable statements of opinion.