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for International Business Machine’s (IBM’s) first microcomputer.
MS-DOS was the operating system used on a majority of IBM’s
personal computers and IBM-compatible personal computers.
Petitioner (MS-DOS), IBM (PC-DOS or IBM-DOS), Digital Research (DR-
DOS), and other companies marketed a disk operating system (DOS)
under various names. DOS was a text or character-based system; it
required computer users to input words or characters to give the
computer commands. Since 1981, operating systems software has
continually evolved to permit computer users to accomplish
increasingly diverse and complex tasks on computers.
In addition to MS-DOS, petitioner marketed other proprietary
operating systems during the years at issue, such as “Microsoft
Windows”, “Microsoft LAN Manager”, and “XENIX”. At that time, MS-
DOS accounted for the largest number of Microsoft operating system
units distributed; Microsoft Windows was second.
In the early 1980's, petitioner also began to develop and
market application software products in order to increase the
appeal of the microcomputer. Petitioner’s applications included
word processing (e.g., “Microsoft Word”), spreadsheet computations
(e.g., “Microsoft Excel”), graphics (e.g., “Microsoft PowerPoint”),
and video games (e.g., “Microsoft Flight Simulator”). In 1990 and
1991, petitioner offered a wide line of application software
products.
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