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Japanese Government Raids Microsoft Offices
Nakito writes "According to an article at the financial news site Bloomberg, Microsoft's Tokyo office was raided by Japan's Fair Trade Commission, which is investigating whether the world's largest software maker violated the country's anti-monopoly law." Other readers note a AP/Yahoo story claiming: "A commission official, speaking on customary condition of anonymity, said Microsoft Japan is suspected of attaching improper restrictive conditions when signing software deals with Japanese personal computer manufacturers, such as requiring that Japanese companies allow infringement of their patents."
Should we expect eminent post of the Japanese version of Windows XP source code now?
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
BBC is also running the story here.
Ryan T. Sammartino
"Ancora imparo"
Wow.. what a crazy hemispere. Kazaa and now Microsoft?
Just shocking. Never saw that coming *at all*.
One of the benefits of the new trend towards global companies is that the set of rules one must play by becomes more and more restricted as you enter into new markets.
--- I do not moderate.
"IT Department of Japanese Government Raided by BSA"
Wow i hope they make a Anime about the raid!... .. Giant Robots!!
Officer: Stop!
M$: no!
Officer: So, Be it.. we must Kungfoo Figh!...
Then out of no where
When will the governments of the world learn that Microsoft WILL do absolutely anything it can to achieve and maintain market dominance.
Microsoft's objective hasn't changed since day 1: control.
Microsoft would much rather control a broken protocol than use or contribute to an open one.
Microsoft would rather squash or buy out competitors instead of compete on a level playing field.
The only 2 things that can change this behavior are Open Source and government restrictions, in that order. (Increased public awareness and understanding is considered part of Open Source.)
Long live Open Source!
As covered in a previous story here , why couldn't the FBI do that on MS's home turf?
I'm willing to bet the anti-trust trial would have made more headway.
What happened to the good old days when we had RIAA and SCO jokes to space out the Microsoft ones?
It is absolutely ridiculous that our rights (to free trade in this instance) in the United States are treated so lightly by our government.
At every opportunity it seems the president is reinforcing "his commitment to spreading freedom throughout the world" yet it takes a foreign power to ultimately prove how hollow that sentiment is.
When compared against Europe and Japan, the United States commitment to protecting its citizenry from overbearing coorperate powers is shown lacking time and again. I for one an tired of the hypocrisy.
Its shameful that I have to look to another country with hope that something will be done to curb the monopolistic amoral appetite of these coorperations.
For now I can only say "go Japan!". I'm embarrased by the entire predicament.
Yeah, shame they didn't think about doing this in December. God, that would have been great.
A couple of years ago, the Bank of Japan's Washington, DC office scheduled their annual holiday party on December 7th and sent out invitations before realizing that they had invited economists from every nation to a bash on Pearl Harbor Day.
Needless to say, Greenspan did not attend.
The United States couldn't finish the Microsoft case during the Clinton administration, but it may be the Japanese that cause Microsoft to adopt tactics conducive to competition.
They gave us anime, lots of neat consumer electronics, and Microsoft a slap upside the head. Japan gets two thumbs up from me.
May we never see th
Perhaps the problem is with large overreaching foreign companies?
The plural of 'anecdote' is not 'data'. --Dan Kaminsky
Matsushita, JVC, and Sony are Japanese corporations, which the Japanese government is probably very interested in protecting. The large businesses/corporations of Japan have considerable influence in their government, moving beyond petty lobbying towards very strong and well-set puppet strings. It wouldn't surprise me if the raid was taken on in part to protect the interests of a Japanese firm or two.
If my answers frighten you, stop asking scary questions.
Come on, sack up and go after someone who has persistently leveraged monopolistic control to promote inferior technology (Intel, Matsushita, JVC, Sony), rather than someone that your government can't currently do without.
The article doesn't really say, but I'm thinking it's just that Microsoft stepped on the wrong toes. It's not like Japan is banning Microsoft from doing business in Japan, but more like a little warning. This is less anoying than a flybite to the big MS.
Shouldn't it be:
....
In A.D. 2004
War was beginning.
NEC: What happen ?
Dell: Somebody set up us the contract.
Dell: We get signal.
NEC: What !
Dell: Main screen turn on.
NEC: It's You !!
Microsoft: How are you gentlemen !!
Microsoft: All your patent are belong to us.
Microsoft: You are on the way to bankruptcy.
NEC: What you say !!
Microsoft: You have no chance to survive make your time.
Microsoft: HA HA HA HA
Japan: Take off every 'cop' !!
Japan: You know what you doing.
Japan: Move 'cop'.
Japan: For great justice.
It might not have happened if MS were Japanese company?
Microsoft Japan is suspected of attaching improper restrictive conditions when signing software deals with Japanese personal computer manufacturers, such as requiring that Japanese companies allow infringement of their patents."
A deal "allowing infringement of one's patent" is more commonly referred to as a "patent license". I don't see anything improper about that
The problem is the monopoly itself, not the specific conditions that Microsoft can impose using that monopoly. Forcing manufacturers to license their patents is no more or less injurious than forcing consumers to pay $200 for Windows XP Home.
They don't have a problem with large overreaching Japanese companies, that's for sure. But Microsoft comes from America (or Satan-guys, don't post Slashdot after taking cough syrup).
If my answers frighten you, stop asking scary questions.
I hope they show a Japanese official on C-Span trying to pronounce "Ballmer"
We can send in the Enola Gates... and watch it plummet into the sea, just short of its target.
It goes from God, to Jerry, to me.
In this case, they aren't recognizing patents held by foreign companies.
It's sort of like in WWII, where we seized Bayer's patents. Except Japan *always does this*.
Actually I'm the president of a company that has used open source profitably for over 5 years, and it does pay the bills. Very nicely in fact.
Thanks goes to the developers of Linux, Apache, MySQL (and other databases), PHP, and others.
And yes, I want my company to make money, which it does. But there are more important things than that, and there are plenty of profitable companies (open source or otherwise) to prove that money can be made hand over fist without resorting to Microsofts tactics.
Sony has leveraged its positions in both media and consumer electronics to push an admittedly superior to DVD-Audio format (SACD). Phillips beat RAMBUS to the "standardize my patents, suckers" game with CD. JVC with VHS, etc...
Matsushita and Sony were both found to have scale monopolies (price-fixing) in Europe. Japanese business is famous not only for its oligopolistic practices (keiretsu), but also its strong influence over the decisions of the modern Japanese government.
Besides, the root comment is an obvious troll. Admit that governments shelter their domestic businesses and move along.
Are you kidding me? They're getting away with it because it's a foriegn company. Japanese corporations get away with things we'd never dream of in this country. They have no trouble with overreaching corporations as long as they're there own. Japanese trade policy has always seen Japanese Companies and government working hand in hand to pry open foreign markets by every means nessecary, and the nature of the complaints has Japanese coporate complaint all over them.
Why?
From my knowledge of Asian culture, I believe these are the most likely scenarios:
....never mind.
1) Microsoft had discovered an ancient form of super-Karate, and was training hordes of minions in the art, with plans to take over the world. But, a lone anti-trust agent, has discovered a long lost form of Karate that is even more powerful. He, a few trusty sidekicks with little fighting experience, and a girl with an unusual aptitude for fighting, raid Microsoft and defeat the faceless hordes. Finally Steve Ballmer himself leaps into the fray for a one-on-one fight to the death with the hero. Ballmer is defeated, and begs to be spared. The girl leaps in to finish him, but the hero holds her back, showing mercy to Ballmer. As the hero and heroine walk away, Ballmer leaps at them with a knife, and the hero sidesteps, and cuts Ballmer in half.
2) Microsoft is fashioning a set of super swords that, if combined, will have the power to
While I've worked for MS before and may again I always find their street address rather funny/ironic.
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA
"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
The large businesses/corporations of Japan have considerable influence in their government, moving beyond petty lobbying towards very strong and well-set puppet strings.
Fortunately, American companies don't influence our government.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
However my point is that as a company you have to pay attention to more and more rules. If you don't then you end up in a situation like the present one Microsoft finds themselves in.
While one legal ruling in one country may hold absolutely no weight in another, any company that assumes it won't entice other countries to look for similar laws is not only doing themselves a disservice but acting out of arrogance. While the rules ARE different from country to country, as a global organization, you have to be aware of all of them and make sure your corporation is covering all of its bases in each distinct zone but at the same time balance this against sets of created expectations.
Assuming one can just have very specific terms and rules for one country is dangerous... for example if in Croatia Microsoft relaxes desktop icon restriction and certain license requirements to fit in with local law, how do they then deny the same changes and benefits to Serbia?
--- I do not moderate.
Care to illustrate it a bit? Are you speaking from first hand experience, or hear-say?
Unless you have a first hand experience, I doubt your assertion that the Japanese judicative does not upheld the right of foreign companies (which they have, thanks WIPO and TRIPS).
Next, it seems a bit unlikely to me that someone from the US tries to enforce a patent in Japan by going through a Japanese law-suit instead of a US ligitation. US courts are more than willing to accept a case, when the there is any involvement with a US citizen, US company, or US subsidary.
Not to mention that one had the favour of a American jury.
The enforcement would also be no problem, unless it is a purely local company, which has no business, directly or indirectly, with the US. But I guess, such a company would be hard to find.
"Between strong and weak, between rich and poor [...], it is freedom which oppresses and the law which sets free"
Balmmer: Oh no. Japanese Government set us up the bomb...
You do the rest...
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
This is good because we'll get to see what's really going on behind those closed doors of Microsoft. An American company gets inspected by a foreign country.
Summerizing this Japanese article, the issue is that the OEM contracts contain a clause disallowing the filing of complaints about against Microsoft software. The main part that seems to have rankled is that Microsoft is believed to have improperly included software developed by Japanese manufactures(Fujitsu, NEC, etc). By being forced to agree to the clause in the contract however, they are unable to file a complaint against Microsoft.
This is where the monopoly bit comes in. Because Microsoft has an OS monopoly the makers have no other choice than to include the OS on their machines, which in order to do so forces them into sign the contract. All of which rubs up against various Japansese antitrust and trade laws.
I don't have any link handy, but there has been a number of patent cases brought to a court by foregin (read: US) companies. One of my buddies, who used to work for a well-known Japanese electronics company beginning with "h," once told me that this Japanese company's newly established computer (desktop) devision knowingly copied DOS, and after it was discovered the company was tried, and ordered to pay hefty damage to MS, which lead the devision to shut down.
If Japan really is patent outlaw country, why do all the big companies (Sony, Panasonic, Toyota, Honda) own so many patents both in Japan and US? I'd appreciate it if you can explain to me, please.
I don't really have any link to back up my argument, but your knowledge in Japan's Patent laws and enforcement obviously is paper thin.
Remember The Madness of King George a few years back? The original title was The Madness of King George III but they thought that American audiences would want to know where parts I and II were playing at...
(ducks)
See it here.
Let's not forget that Microsoft made a huge blunder with the Xbox in Japan.
.... NOPE ....... NOPE ....... NOPE
....that and the Xbox green colour looks like radiation.
Did they get the hardware wrong?
Did they get the marketing wrong?.... NOPE
Did they get the games wrong?
Did they get the price wrong?
So what did they get wrong?
The freakin NAME of the machine.
The letter X in Japan is synonymous with BAD, like an incorrect answer or a cross on a mistake....
and hence the X-box earned it's name as the BATSU-BOX (or the No-Way-BOX)
And THAT was just asking for trouble coming from an American company.
Funny, for a company with loads of cash... Microsoft couldn't even get the cultural sensitivity thing right.
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
This is in referrence to raids on Kazaa in Australia.
Not a great post, but certainly not offtopic.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
a decade or two ago, when japanese productivity was the marvel of the industrialized world and US supremacy seemed in doubt, the documentation to some US-bound japanese VCR's included instructions on how to set the date, using December 7th as the example date.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
If you want to really go after the Japanese on patents, at least get your facts straight.
Japan actually has one of the highest rates of corporate patenting ANYWHERE. This is caused largely by corporate guidelines that say "department x must have at least 3 patentable inventions per year."
As a result, Japan's books are filled with tens of thousands of patents for truly mediocre things.
That said this forms the basis of a series of "blocking patents" which are taken quite seriously.
Your claim that "... without such enforcement" is simply wrong.
the moderators who gave you "insightful" should be ashamed. I mean, you're 180 degrees wrong and were just speaking out of your ass out of some quixotic wishful thinking, not facts.
No. But I have helped prepare the paperwork for a successful patent filing in Japan. The difference between the US and Japan is that you cannot patent bollocks. In this particular case 8 patents for the US ended up being 4 patents in EU and only 1 in Japan.
First: their patent office has not yet degenerated into an approval stamp machine so the patents have to have merit.
Second: they charge an arm and a leg for a patent filing so even large corporations avoid defencive patenting and stuff that has no commercial value is not patented at all.
I usually get flamed by the idealists which still believe in the "small inventor", but I will say it again. This is the way a patent system is supposed to work. A patent is a government guarantee to the inventor that he/she will be capable to exploit the commercial merits of his/her invention. Note the words commercial. So with all due respect I do not see any merits in trying to patent an invention of no commercial merit.
The side effect of this is that the US method of IPR development is reversed. For Japan you first find financial backers for the idea and then patent it.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
if MS is under monopoly threat in just about every country due to their own actions, the local government needing money, or the local people/government wanting to start their own software industry and need to stop MS?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
In Japanese, there's a distinction between "long" and "short" vowel sounds. It's not the same as in English, where the sound changes; in Japanese, long really means long; it's the same sound, just held longer.
They have short and long consonants, too--just like Italian, where "fato" (fate) isn't the same as "fatto" (done) and singing "a cappella" (like they do in chapel) isn't the same thing as singing "a capella" (like a little goat).
Anyway--you can embarrass the heck out of yourself if you don't keep your long and short consonants and vowels straight when speaking Japanese. Jack Seward, in his delightful book Japanese in Action, gives an example of a fellow who went to work for a Japanese firm after WWII. This unfortunate man made just that mistake, and thereby told a group of Japanese visiting the firm that he was his boss's, um, sphincter rather than his boss's assistant.
All the above, of course, is a distraction so that you won't notice that I don't remember just what vowel lengthening is involved with obasan...[pause for some Googling]...ah. There's "obasan" and "obaasan"; this message explains the difference (among other things).
In the past few years, look at what Microsoft's user base has suffered as a result of using their products:
1. Countless viruses - okay, not directly Microsoft's fault but nobody here would agree that MS have done all they could have done to make their products as secure as possible.
2. Licensing changes - costing businesses more.
Okay, so there's nothing new in either of the above except that both the above have had sometimes dramatic reductions on company profits through downtimes and extra IT costs. Add to that the shrinkage in the high-tech industry over the past few years and, all of a sudden, there are a heap of governments out there getting less income from taxation as a result.
On top of that, those same governments are being squeezed to spend less and less on public services and along comes Open Source that suddenly seems to offer a way of cutting down on a lot of the government's IT expenditure.
I know these discussions have been had on /. many times before but this issue in Japan just seems the latest in a long line of governments wanting to simply give, rightly or wrongly, Microsoft "a good kicking" - firstly the DOJ, then Europe, now Japan.
I don't think it matters whether or not MS is a "monopoly" but it is apparent that they could have done a lot more in the past to stop what's happening to them now.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.