Autodesk - History

History

Autodesk's first notable product was AutoCAD, a CAD application designed to run on the systems known as "microcomputers" at the time, including those running the 8-bit CP/M operating system and two of the new 16-bit systems, the Victor 9000 and the IBM Personal Computer (PC). This CAD tool allowed users to create detailed technical drawings, and was affordable to many smaller design, engineering, and architecture companies.

Release 2.1 of AutoCAD, released in 1986, included AutoLISP, a built-in Lisp interpreter initially based on XLISP. This opened the door for third party developers to extend AutoCAD's functionality, to address a wide range of vertical markets, strengthening AutoCAD's market penetration.

Subsequent to AutoCAD Release 12, the company stopped supporting the Unix environment and the Apple Macintosh platform. After AutoCAD Release 14, first shipped in 1997, Autodesk discontinued development under MS-DOS, and focused exclusively on Microsoft Windows.

AutoCAD has grown to become the most widely used CAD program for 2D non-specialized applications. The native file formats written by AutoCAD, DXF and DWG, are also widely used for CAD data interoperability.

In the 1990s, with the purchase of Softdesk in 1997, Autodesk started to develop specialty versions of AutoCAD, targeted to broad industry segments, including architecture, civil engineering, and manufacturing. Since the late 1990s, the company has added a number of significant non-AutoCAD-based products, including Revit, a parametric building modeling application (acquired in 2002, from Massachusetts-based Revit Technologies for $133 million), and Inventor, an internally developed parametric mechanical design CAD application.

In Vernor v. Autodesk, Inc., Autodesk was sued in 2007 by Timothy Vernor, who alleged that he was entitled to sell on eBay "used" copies of AutoCAD software he had obtained at an office liquidation sale from an Autodesk licensee. A federal district judge in Washington State denied Autodesk's initial motion to dismiss in early 2008. In February and March 2009, both sides filed motions for summary judgment addressing the issue whether the First Sale Doctrine applies to previously licensed software. The Court ruled in Vernor's favor, holding that when the transfer of software to the purchaser materially resembled a sale (non-recurring price, right to perpetual possession of copy) it was, in fact, a "sale with restrictions on use" giving rise to a right to resell the copy under the first-sale doctrine. As such, Autodesk could not pursue an action for copyright infringement against Vernor, who sought to resell used versions of its software on eBay. The decision was appealed to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which reversed the lower court ruling, denying Vernor the right to resale Autodesk software on eBay due to Autodesk's nontransferable licensing restrictions. In October 2011, the U.S. Supreme Court let stand the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling.