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The founder of pen-based computing has filed a lawsuit against Microsoft in federal and California courts.

S. Jerrold Kaplan's Go pen-based operating system never really went anywhere in the marketplace. Called PenPoint, it was meant to be the first entry into a world of tablet-based computing. At one point in the early 1990s, Intel was helping to develop it.

Now, after Go was bounced around to AT&T and then to Lucent, Mr. Kaplan has regained the rights to claims made about Microsoft's anticompetitive behavior. He has filed antitrust litigation in the wake of Microsoft's $850 million USD settlement with IBM on similar grounds.

According to CNET News, the complaint against Microsoft echoes allegations from other companies. "Microsoft undertook to 'kill' Go by resorting to many of the same collusive and exclusionary tactics Microsoft used against Netscape, Sun, Novell...and others," says the filing.

The suit, filed in US District Court in San Francisco, seeks unspecified damages from Microsoft. Meanwhile, the Redmond-based software and game console company finds the accusations groundless.

"These claims date back nearly 20 years," Microsoft spokesperson Stacy Drake said on Friday. "They were baseless then and they are baseless now."

Tablet pen-based computing seems to be a solution in search of a problem. Though the technology has made great strides in recent years, its appeal hasn't moved beyond certain vertical markets like health care or insurance.

David Utter is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business. Email him here.