[GSDI Legal Econ] Microsoft appeals the EC fine but faces even more complaints

[Roger Longhorn]

And finally....

The crux of the argument:

"(the) EC argues that the terms of the (Microsoft) licensing 
(application programming interfaces) are unusable for open source 
software projects, as they are still subject to royalty payments. In its 
turn, Microsoft considers that the terms requested by the EC violate its 
intellectual property rights."

Read on.

7. Microsoft appeals the EC fine but faces even more complaints

While new accusations have been brought to Microsoft, the giant company 
announced on 9 May 2008 that it has appealed, at the Court of First 
Instance in Luxembourg, the 899 million euro fine imposed in February 
2008 by the European Commission (EC) for having abused its dominant 
position on the market.

"We are filing this appeal in a constructive effort to seek clarity from 
the court," was the company's statement. The basic question of the 
dispute is the way in which patents and interoperability protocols are 
licensed by Microsoft to competitors. In February, Microsoft announced a 
series of interoperability initiatives that would provide more 
interoperability between Microsoft's products and those of competitors, 
including publishing all details of application programming interfaces 
for its most widely used products. EC argues that the terms of the 
licensing are unusable for open source software projects, as they are 
still subject to royalty payments. In its turn, Microsoft considers that 
the terms requested by the EC violate its intellectual property rights.

On 13 May 2008, the British Educational Communications and Technology 
Agency (BECTA) also filed a complaint to the EC against Microsoft's 
"anti-competitive licensing practices" after having previously made the 
same complaint in UK with the Office of Fair Trading (OFT), the British 
competition regulator.

BECTA considered that the lack of compatibility between Microsoft's 
OOXML document standard and alternative codes, such as ODF, were 
deliberate as the giant "refuse to offer equivalent support for the 
ISO-approved Open Document Format (ODF)". Stephen Lucey, executive 
director of strategic technologies for BECTA, also stated: "It is not 
just the interests of competitors and the wider marketplace that are 
damaged when barriers to effective interoperability are created. (...) 
Such barriers can also damage the interests of education and training 
organisations, learners, teachers and parents".

In its complaint to OFT, BECTA has argued that Microsoft supported its 
own technical protocols far better than it supported the industry 
standard ones. "This decision had the effect of requiring users to 
download and install a range of converters to enable them to 
interoperate with those competitor products" also said the agency 
statement.

As a response to BECTA's complaint, CompTIA, an industrial association 
of which Microsoft is a member, published on 14 May a statement where it 
emphasized that "the working ICT marketplace fosters immense choice and 
solutions, which boost the overall interoperability and widespread use 
of competing ICT products and services".

Although OFT has agreed on BECTA's filing the complaint with the EC as 
well, it has not yet given its decision on the matter.

Microsoft appeals record EC fine (13.05.2008)
http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/107780

Microsoft's EU legal troubles continue (14.05.2008)
http://www.euractiv.com/en/infosociety/microsoft-eu-legal-troubles-continue/article-172347 


Education agency complains to Brussels about Microsoft (15.05.2008)
http://www.out-law.com//default.aspx?page=9119

Microsoft challenges 899 million fine (12.05.2008)
http://www.out-law.com/page-9108

EDRI-gram: Opera complains to the EC on Microsoft's Internet Explorer
(19.12.2007)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number5.24/opera-commission-microsoft

from EDRI-gram Number 6.10, 21 May 2008