While the earlier lawsuit portrayed corporations as the victims, investigators said the latest action directly affected individuals.

But some legal experts liken his action to the early lawsuits filed by smokers against the tobacco industry.

Many of its early lawsuits targeted websites for comments and forum posts by the site's readers.

They also recycle excerpts from internal Lilly memos, retrieved by lawyers for plaintiffs in earlier lawsuits.

Ford cited driver error in defending some early lawsuits but has largely refrained from doing so in recent months.

The validity of the six patents was upheld in an earlier lawsuit, Mr. Byers said.

An earlier lawsuit filed by residents also challenged the plan.

Lawyers for the lenders and dealers point out that several earlier lawsuits challenging dealer markups have been largely unsuccessful.

But the most likely method is the one Microsoft employed once before, in January 1998, in response to an earlier federal lawsuit.

He added that two earlier lawsuits filed by Pepsi in Indian courts had been dismissed.