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Microsoft and Symantec Oust Pirate

After a year-long investigation by the FBI and Houston Police Department, Li Chen was apprehended for selling $9.9 million worth of fake Symantec products from April 2002 to October 2004. In November, 2004 investigators found more than 5,100 units of counterfeit Symantec software at Microsource. Li Chen, proprietor of Microsource International in Houston, pleaded guilty to counterfeiting both Symantec and Microsoft software. Microsoft won $95,000 in restitution. William Baird, Symantec`s Global Investigations manager, said the investigation was aided by customers who sent in spurious product. Symantec gets about 50 submissions a month. `[Counterfeiters] buy thousands of authentic disks, copy the key codes and then sell the authentic disks through grey market channels,` he told internetnews. Each of the companies is waging all-out war against counterfeiters - and where one company`s software has been copied, the other`s often has been as well. Symantec established a Brand Protection Task Force in 2001, following a seizure of counterfeit software by Microsoft investigators. Along with Microsoft software the investigators found a huge haul of ersatz Symantec product. `These suspects that victimize Microsoft tend to victimize other companies as well,` Baird said. In February 2003, authorities shut down a counterfeiting ring in Queens, N.Y., seizing about $10 million worth of phony software bearing the company`s names. In April 2005, Symantec won a default judgment of $3.1 million against Sam Jain for selling counterfeit Symantec software and violating Symantec`s intellectual property rights. Since September 2003, the company has won more than $19.5 million in judgments in criminal and civil court against companies and individuals that ripped off its software. Most recently, Microsoft sued eight of its resellers for allegedly distributing counterfeit copies of software such as Office 2000 Professional and Windows XP.