Bellevue-based Likewise Software and Sunnyvale, California-based Centrify have been named in a patent infringement suit brought by Aliso Viejo, California-based Quest Software. The suit alleges that both Likewise and Centrify violated a patent issued in 2009 to Matthew Peterson and Daniel Peterson related to how Unix and Linux systems could be managed using Microsoft Windows policy management tools. The patent -- titled “Apparatus, System, and Method for Managing Policies on a Computer Having a Foreign Operating System” -- was initially developed at a Utah company known as Vintela which was later sold to Quest for $56.5 million.

Likewise, an open source software company backed by Ignition Partners, Intel Capital and Trinity Ventures, said it planned to defend itself against the suit. "After a detailed review of the information available we believe that the charges are without merit and that the company is in a strong position to defend itself," the company said in a statement. "Unfortunately we cannot comment on additional details of the case at this time. Patent disputes have become a regular course of business in the software industry, especially for successful companies."

Meanwhile, Centrify has already filed a counter suit against Quest alleging patent infringement. Centrify CEO Tom Kemp said in a statement that he was surprised by Quest Software's suit since his company was never contacted about intellectual property issues prior to the suit.

"As a technology company, we understand the significance of intellectual property matters, and respect the rights of others. For example, Centrify has licensed from Microsoft specific patents and protocols around Active Directory and Windows Group Policy, which we have utilized to help build our technology that integrates and secures heterogeneous computing environments," Kemp said. "We firmly believe that we do not infringe any valid claim of the asserted Quest patent and believe that the claim against us is entirely without merit."

A drawing from the Quest Software patent

Kemp continued:

"Quest's allegation of patent infringement is a baseless attempt to distract Centrify and slow its leadership and significant growth vis-a-vis Quest in the market for securing and auditing access to cross-platform systems and applications. Quest's filing of a lawsuit against multiple companies and issuing a press release at 8:42 pm on a Friday night is emblematic of companies trying to compete in the courtroom instead of the marketplace. We will use all the tools at our disposal to vigorously defend Centrify, including actions such as the one we took today, and expect to prevail in court, as we continue to prevail in the market place."

But the suit suggests that Kemp acted in bad faith when putting together Centrify, alleging that the technology executive reached out to Vintela's CEO in 2004 claiming to be a representative of the Mayfield Fund. The suit says:

In early 2004, Tom Kemp, Centrify’s current CEO, contacted Vintela’s CEO on behalf of Mayfield Fund, a California-based venture capital company. Kemp, claiming to be a representative of Mayfield and without disclosing that he actually was in the process of organizing Centrify to compete with Vintela, expressed interest in facilitating an investment by the Mayfield Fund in Vintela, and peppered Vintela’s CEO with questions about Vintela’s business plan, product offerings, and strategies. Vintela’s CEO described the functionality offered by the Authentication Services suite of products, including the Group Policy module, and the market opportunity the software addressed.

Tom Kemp never followed-up with Vintela concerning a venture investment. Instead, a few months after the conversation, Vintela learned that Kemp was putting together a company named Centrify specifically to compete with Vintela. The products that Centrify eventually brought to market copied Vintela’s. Centrify’s CEO Kemp even issued statements to the marketplace about Centrify’s products that copied descriptions that Vintela’s CEO had made to Kemp during their 2004 conversation about Vintela’s Authentication Services products.

[Full suit can be found, here]