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Microsoft Threatened With Fines By EU Again
ukhackster writes "The EC is threatening Microsoft with yet more fines. This time, it's over the interoperability protocols that Microsoft has been ordered to open up to its rivals. The EC has examined 1,500 pages of information about the protocols, and concluded that they 'lack significant innovation'. This is pretty damning for both Microsoft and the patent system, as it has been awarded 36 patents covering this technology and has another 37 pending. Could this encourage someone like the EFF to start pushing to get these patents overturned? The EU has a FAQ about this issue, containing additional details on the subject.
I think EU doesn't like MS too much nowadays :)
But honestly, aren't they right? If any monopoly is locking others from access they always do it. Why should MS be different? They're effectively a monopoly in OS.
"an experienced, industrious, ambitious, and often, quite often, picturesque liar" - Mark Twain
<sarcasm>What, you mean Microsoft didn't invent all of their networking technology from scratch?</sarcasm>
... MS has been acting like they invented all networking technologies ever, and they are entitled to protection for their 'innovations'.
I mean, really
The reality of it is, I bet all of their protocols are ones which were "embraced and extended" over time. Hopefully, they'll be forced to play a little nicer with others.
Taking stuff someone else did, obfuscating it, calling it proprietary, and then patenting it is just in bad form. I'm glad to see someone finally taking them to task over this. I'm even more glad that, after they were ordered to cough up the information, the information they gave demonstrated that they hadn't 'innovated' anything.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
This is the EU desperately looking for some reason, any reason, to levy a hefty fine, not so much for the revenue, but to show how "tough" they are. This is a joke. Fining someone because you don't think their patents are innovative? The EU is really scraping the bottom of the barrel on this one. The EU is the single most democratic movement in the history of the earth (yes, even more so than the US). The requirements for the rights a country's citizens have to be allowed are remarkable stringent.
Microsoft's monopoly has nothing to do with democracy and everything to do with tyranny.
To me, they're following the spirit _and_ the letter of the law. How common is that?
Anti-trust legislation hasn't been about protecting individuals or consumers for years. It's been about moving money from one business to other sets of businesses.. the selection of which is based on the political motivations of the government body in question.. which is largely determined by the "other businesses".
Where you see true monopoly, you almost always see government collusion.
My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
Can the EC dictate what I should price my products at so as to help my failing competition out?
If the competition are failing because of your illegal actions, then yes, they should.
-- Nick "Hallo this is Beel Gates, und I pronounce weendows as
Um, no. Nobody is forced to use any Microsoft product. Buy it or not buy it. Hell, you don't even have to use a computer, if you so choose. Nobody will show up at your house with a gun in their hand forcing you to use their products. You are FREE to use or not use as you choose. A government entity, though, CAN show up to your front door with guns and force you do do whatever they'd like.
I don't respond to AC's.
You could argue that this is modified since MS is a monopoly but what if I become a monopoly thats been convicted of unfair trade practices. But what if I got a monopoly through fair dealing - the competition just wasn't good enough?
If you obtained a monoploy and dealt fairly you presumably wouldn't lose a trial about your unfair trade practices. But Microsoft did, in fact, lose such a trial. This is the penalty phase of that trial, not a ruling that being applied to someone dealt fairly and happened to be best.
So?
Laws in the EU and the US are different and have different consequences. How did you conclude that the EU can force American companies to give them up, everywhere?
That's the cost of working in multiple countries. The EU has no jurisdiction in the US and doesn't pretend to have one. But if Microsoft chooses to operate in the EU, it has to abide by EU laws in the EU.
Mistake 1. The EU functions as a soverign body. They could happily levy a fee on any software "not invented here" This would show their "toughness"
Mistake 2. This is not a joke. This is justice being applied firmly to the behind of a company that is guilt of abusing it's monopoly advantage.
Mistake 3. This is not about how innovative their patents are. This is how innovative their protocols are. A patent can be taken out on a implementation of a protocol, but not the protocol itself. What the EU is saying is that the protocols are nothing special because they tend to follow the KISS principal.
Mistake 4. The EU represents a large percentage of MS customers. If the EU are trying to protect it's people from being abused under a monopoly, then the EU is doing it's job. If this is at the cost of MS shareholders, what matter is that to the EU? It isn't even a European company.
Must try harder.
A sig is placed here
To display how futile
English Haiku is
There is no bias in reality against foreign companies when it comes to EC anti-trust cases. In fact, the biggest anti-trust fine was given to a German company in connection with an lift and escalator cartel. And second this investigation wasn't initiated by the EC... it was a complaint from SUN Microsystems that triggered the whole thing. Which is, as I'm sure you know, very much an US company.
Dont even dare think of flaming me - remember the recent crap from u.s. senate we had to put up with about net neutrality, drm, patents, any shit that is beneficial to big buck, but detrimental to ALL people.
What eu did is something good. U.S. senate should learn to follow in its tracks.
you americans started to demean europe TOO much lately.
dont forget that, the ideas that sparked the united states revolution, the concepts of humanity, equality, republicanism and the like spread from europe especially with the 18th century writers like Rousseau, Voltaire, Diderot. If there werent these guys in the earlier parts of 18th century, many american founding fathers wouldnt field the same ideas with same strength in years coming up to 1774.
give some god damn deserved crecedence to europe dammit - some part of that soul which made 1789 still lives on in there - support them !
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Disclaimer: I make ~ $50,000 a year.
The president of my company makes ~ $150,000 a year.
We live or die by our patents. We're primarily a soil remediation/washing company; we developed a technology completely different from anything else on the market. We do what other companies cannot do, and we do it cheaper than disposal/incineration.
If we didn't have a patent on our core equipment, we would not be in business. Why? Because several of our contractors have already tried to steal our design, and got bitch-slapped in court doing so.
Not that I totally disagree with you. I believe patents should cover a very narrow range of mechanical/technical innovation. Definitely not software concepts, and most likely not biotechnology, either. But can a small company like ours utilize the patent system to our advantage? Most definitely; if we didn't have a patented technology, we'd be out of business, because someone would literally steal our equipment (this HAS happened to us), reverse engineer it (this HAS happened to us), and we'd have no legal recourse, except possibly against the original theft, which would be difficult to prove.
Does the patent system need major reform? Yes. Do I think that the USPTO's standard of obviousness is ridiculous? Yes.
Do I think a patent system, in principle, is a good idea? Yes.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell
That might sound harsh, but it's a reality. ...and here's why:
The *only* reason (based on what you've written) that you would go bankrupt in the face of competition is if you're not efficient and your competition is.
In other words, you believe you can only obtain profitable business by being the only player.
But wait! You're a _service_ business. You charge to provide the service of dealing with polluted soil. Even if your competitor 'stole' your technology they would still have operating costs, just like you do. Liberating your technology doesn't mean they can do it and you can't. That's the nice bit about ideas and such: we can all have them w/o taking anything away from anyone else.
As usual, I invite any-sayers to read this before applying flamage to my comments. And actually read it, dammmit.
If you think imaginary property and real property are the same, when does your house become public domain?
Or, he (his company) would go bankrupt because he can't compete with the superior assets/resources/cash his competition has. In other words, he gets robbed mafia-style ('this is my turf/business') just because he wasn't the first despite having a superior product/service.
And I read the link you gave and its terribly flawed. It acts under the assumption that big businesses wouldn't be deterred or punished for corporate espionage, which is utter bullshit. It makes the (flawed) statement that it applies even less to software, when in fact the theft of source code is not uncommon (HL2 source code theft anyone?)
This of course means that you are ignoring the fact that they have costs associated with the research and development of their new discovery that their competitors do not have to bear. As such, they *cannot* be more efficient, and so to allow recoupment of that investment, they are given exclusivity for a while.
Actually, I support grandparent. Developing a new technology is almost always more expensive than reverse-engineering it.
If competitors could license the technology for a reasonable price and still operate more efficiently, then I'd agree with you, grandparent's company needs to shape up. As it stands, with the little information we're given we have no reason to assume that they're working inefficiently.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Smells like a troll.
Obviously, you have no knowledge of the real world, outside the software world. You say, "You provide a service." What exactly does that mean? We do something no one else does, something no other company wants to do. They prefer to build giant landfills and pile up all the contaminated soils in them; because it gives them never-ending revenue. By stealing out technology, and driving us out of the few projects we do manage to overcome in terms of government inertia, they could get rid of us innovative upstarts, and go back to landfilling.
I'm glad you choose to live in a world of unlimited serfdom, where gigantic megacorporations control all the technologies out there, and new ideas are instantly "owned" by those capable of either mass marketing them fastest, or are driven into the ground by competitors capable of spending new companies into the ground. I'm also glad that in this specific instance, when you are talking about MY company, that you'd rather see the contaminated soils end up incinerated and landfilled, rather than decontaminated. Why? Because sure as hell, I can tell you that my company will not give away our expertise/technology for free; we will keep our remaining trade secrets secret, and take them to our grave (in a world without patents).
I'm a libertarian, but you sound like a libertarian crank; there ARE barriers to entry in various markets, there are sunken costs that are impossible to recover without patent protection.
As to stealing our equipment having nothing to do with patents? My point is that trade secret isn't enough; the "construction" business, which is ostensibly what we are in, is a dirty business. Our patents protect our technology; not secrets. Any sort of trade secret will be overwhelemed by corporate espionage, and not necessarily the high-tech kind.
I'm sorry that you think we should go out of business, but I think you don't know how business really works. Business isn't a cut and dry world of my operating costs are lower than other peoples operating costs, therefore I win. Business is a cutthroat world where you have to manipulate every advantage you can. Furthermore, if you are the little guy, you cannot be marginally superior; you have to be economically and technologically superior in every sense of the word; and without patent protection, there IS no such thing as technological superiority, and there is NO reason for us to develop better technologies, technologies which the "big guys" have no interest in pursuing.
WhiteWolf666 an exBush supporter. All you new-school,compassionate,save the children Republicans can rot in hell