Microsoft Corp., the world’s largest software maker, has filed lawsuits against seven Microsoft Action Pack Subscriptions (MAPS) partners and three system builders recently to prevent them from pirating and reselling the company’s software illegally.

Microsoft claimed seven of its MAPS partners pirated and resold the company’s software despite a clause in their contract, which explicitly stated that MAPS partners were only given software on discounted prices under a condition that they would not resell it to generate sales revenue for themselves. The software maker alleged that pirated copies of the software were being sold online on auction sites.

The three system builders violated the same clause in their contracts, but instead of retailing the pirated versions on online auction sites, they installed them on their unsuspecting client’s personal computers. According to John Bull, General Manager, System Builder, Microsoft, the company wants to remain fair to system builders who conduct business in a fair and legitimate way.

Matt Lundy, Attorney, Microsoft, stated that some of the MAPS partners further violated their contracts by obtaining multiple subscriptions to the service when the contract limits one subscription per year.

The software maker added that it had to file lawsuits against its own partners due to their unwillingness to cooperate with Microsoft. The company first became aware of the problem while monitoring its MAPS program activity.

In the court, Microsoft is asking for a seize-and-desist order specifically for the three system builders. The world’s largest software maker is also asking the court (in both cases) for a prohibition order to ensure that 10 of its partners would stop their illegal activity at once and in the future, in addition to demanding fines based on individual cases.

Microsoft added that such lawsuits would hopefully prevent its other partners from pirating and infringing on the company’s trademarks and copyrights. Not only would this strategy be beneficial to Microsoft itself, but also to its other partners and end users, as it will help lower the cost of the retail and OEM software in the future.