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4th Cir - Plaintiffs were on inquiry notice of their claims as of 1992.
GO Computer, Inc. v. Microsoft Corp. (11/19/07)
Affirming the lower court, the 4th Circuit held that GO and its principal, Kaplan, were on inquiry notice of their claims as of 1992, when enough red flags had flown that a reasonably diligent person would have investigated and acted. GO essentially alleged that Microsoft drove it out of business in 1994. One of the ways that Microsoft allegedly accomplished this was to steal GO's trade secrets to create a faux competitor to GO's product known as PenPoint. By the time GO sued in 2005, the statutory limitations period had long since run; GO asserted various tolling arguments in an effort to sidestep this flaw in its case. However, the facts showed that by 1991 or 1992, Kaplan knew, with some specificity, about the array of obstacles that Microsoft was allegedly putting in GO's way. What put Kaplan so plainly on inquiry notice was the multiplicity and specificity of the information he had.
Kaplan founded GO in 1987 to market a handheld computer that could be operated by writing directly on its screen with a stylus and an operating system called "PenPoint" for use with touch screen computers. GO reached out to software developers, including Microsoft, to persuade them to write programs for PenPoint. Kaplan alleged that Microsoft saw PenPoint as a threat and took anticompetitive steps against GO to extinguish that threat. Specifically, Kaplan alleged that Microsoft pressured Intel to withhold its endorsement and funding, forced other hardware and software developers either not to build products for PenPoint or to pay exorbitant licensing fees if they did so, and stole GO's trade secrets to create a faux competitor to PenPoint, that Microsoft would pull from the market as soon as GO was gone. As a result, GO ceased operations in 1994. The complaint adds that even after GO closed, manufacturers sold hardware based on PenPoint through 2002 and that Microsoft still sold products based on trade secrets it stole from GO. Lucent Technologies eventually came to own PenPoint. After DOJ launched its action against Microsoft, Kaplan convinced Lucent to assign its interest in any antitrust claims that were acquired from GO.
The only injurious acts that GO could legitimately allege predated its closing in January 1994, more than four years before the government filed its suit against Microsoft. Thus, GO's only hope was to invoke the fraudulent concealment doctrine to start the limitations period later than January 1994. The trial court, however, correctly found that enough bells went off as of 1992 to put Kaplan on inquiry notice of his claims. By 1991 or 1992, Kaplan knew, with some specificity, about the array of obstacles that Microsoft was allegedly putting in GO's way. In fact, Kaplan met with the FTC twice as part of that agency's investigation of Microsoft. There could be no question that the profusion of information was sufficient, as a matter of law, to spur a reasonably diligent person to investigate. What put Kaplan so plainly on inquiry notice was the multiplicity and specificity of the information he had. The injuries at the core of this suit were committed, if at all, no less than eleven years before GO filed suit. To allow this litigation to proceed would eviscerate Congress' intent.
