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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.
They are about redistribution of wealth, from those that have less to those that have more.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Patents in the EU and the US are different, so the EU's ruling probably won't have much effect in the US courts. Also, being forced to reveal any non-patented trade secrets, as defined by US code, could have a bad precedential effect on US law. I wouldn't be surprised to see DOJ get involved in this one in some manner. Trade secrets don't have to be unique enough to be patented, but they are still protected by criminal penalties. If the EU can force American companies to give them up, that pretty much invalidates the entire statute. And I'm not arguing on the moral grounds of the Trade Secret statute, just that it exists, and the US government has an interest in maintaining it as such.
http://bgcommonsense.blogspot.com
Except, some of us might remember Microsoft co-opting things in plain sight.
Microsoft has been demonstrated in the past things like taking Kerberos, releasing a morphed version, and then try to claim it's a trade secret. Thereby, the extensions they made to an open standard are suddenly proprietary. Think also, of submarine patents, where you sit around with a bunch of people, decide how it should be done, and then secretly make a permutation of it, file for a patent, and then block everyone else from using it.
This is about MS providing the protocols to allow interoperability -- I suspect we're in the middle of getting better evidence that those 'proprietary' protocols which can't interoprate with other things are nothing more than other protocols they borrowed and intentionally broke compatibility with. They're going to be substantively similar to precursor technologies.
If you're going to claim that you have trade secrets that you would be damaged if other people see, and those trade secrets turn out to be versions of things which were developed by other people, the damage you're getting is to your credibility. Because, once people figure out that the only reason it's different (and secret) is to lock everyone into your product.
Co-opting other people's technology and then claiming it's a proprietary trade secret is basically crap. Refusing to provide the details under the continued guise that your 'innovative technology' is even more crap.
No, it's bullshit actually. If, in the example of Kerberos, the protocol was part of a publically available RFC (ie. free), then charging outrageous money for something you didn't really innovate but are pretending you did is hardly selling your stuff at "30% below market value". It's a cash grab at best -- fraud and extortion might also be said of this practice.
The people making this judgement are people selected from a list MS said it could live with of people who understand technology.
Don't let MS fool you -- this is about basic networking protocols which MS has intentionally made incompatible with everyone else for the purpose of making it break. This has nothing to do with innovating anything.
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
>Next they'll be saying that the sky is blue and fish swim. Thanks for stating the obvious.
Yea, we all know the sky is gray, and fish fly
(sorry, i live in Seattle, i couldn't resist)
Please, EU, i beg you, really i do, FUCKING KILL MICROSOFT! Because whatever you do, they will always just swindle by. Some fines? No problem, they can afford to pay them and still ignore you. Your best solution, is to destroy Microsoft in the EU by enforcing a fine they can not afford to pay, 1% of their yearly profits each day they continue to infringe. When they dont pay, simply confiscate their properties and money in the EU, if that dont pay for it, then remove their privilege to copywrite in the EU. If they dont comply, they will loose their entire business in the EU, and everything they own there. If they just so happen to have source codes in the EU, that would be open to the public domain effectively, effectively destroying Microsoft as a whole. There really is no point in play around with a company that has proven both in and outside the EU it wont play by the rules, get very serious very fast, or else risk them continue to ignore you, and possibly give ideas to other companies about ignoring you.