The award is part of a plea agreement in a criminal software piracy case in Houston, Symantec said on Tuesday. The case came to court after a yearlong investigation by the Houston police and the FBI into the activities of Li Chen, who was found to have 5,100 copies of counterfeit Symantec software at his Houston business, Symantec said.
Chen pled guilty to one count of trademark infringement and agreed to pay Symantec US$1,005,000 in restitution, the Cupertino, California, software maker said. Microsoft is to get US$95,000, according to a copy of the agreement, which was signed on August 29.
Law enforcement officials searched Chen's business, Microsource International, on November 17, 2004. In addition to the pirated software, they found documents showing that Chen had sold counterfeit Symantec products with a retail value of more than US$9.9 million, Symantec said.
"This guy was one of the largest distributors of pirated software. He had direct ties to China, where the counterfeit product was being produced," said Cris Paden, a Symantec spokesman.
Microsoft was not immediately available to comment.
Symantec and Microsoft both have significant ongoing initiatives to fight software piracy. Since September 2003, Symantec has won judgments in criminal and civil court of more than US$19.5 million in damages against various entities for selling counterfeit Symantec software, the company said.
