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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
.... That you can read here: http://www.thestar.com/Business/article/187051
Note this quote from the above story:
"This is a company which apparently does not like to have to conform with antitrust decisions," said EU Commission spokesman Jonathan Todd.
Next they'll be saying that the sky is blue and fish swim. Thanks for stating the obvious.
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
this sends a stronger "Get a Clue" message to the US Patents office than they're used to ignoring.
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
That's Microsoft's problem, confusing the interface specification with the source code implementing the interface. The EU is commenting on the interface, not the implementation. When they say the interface specification contains no protectable innovation, that doesn't mean that Microsoft's particular implementation of that specification doesn't contain any innovation but simply that that innovation isn't going to be present in the mere API spec.
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
I'm curious as to how the EU would go about collecting the fine. Wait, let me guess.. the World Court? No wonder Microsoft feels no need to comply with their requests.
Before anybody goes nuts read the article. This is about the p[ricing for a liscence microsofts allows third parties to buy that gives them the documents. Microsoft states that it should be based on innovation but the ec states they dont have too much inovation so the ec is stating that the prices are too high. How does the ec know what is innovative or not?
<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.
Record EU fine for lift 'cartel'
Conservatism: The fear that somewhere, somehow, someone you think is your inferior is being treated as your equal.
Sorry, couldn't resist ;)
Perhaps they might just take all their assets held in countries signed up to the EU? Microsoft don't operate soley from their secret headquarters in the Rockies - hording their gold in giant underground bunkers to which only Bill and Steve have the keys. They have offices, staff, equipment, bank accounts around the world. If they don't pay the fines they cannot operate in one of the two largest combined economies in the world, not to mention losing all the assets they have there, all the legal protections for their IP in that region, never being able to send any employees to the region or to regions with extredition treaties, etc, etc.
Or did you think Bill poped over with a big sack of money every time MS did a transaction in the EU?
They are being fined because they demand too much money for those interface specifications they were supposed to release when there's nothing innovative about them. Means the court thinks MS is just increasing prices to prevent competitors from being able to afford the specs.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
I would disagree.
Now, the EU is saying that, according to the terms MS agreed to about how to value the stuff based on the amount of innovativeness in it, MS hasn't really done anything innovative. And, furthermore, how dare they try to charge so much damned money for something which, really, isn't all that different from the stuff that already existed. They're being caught in their embrace, extend, then break model of 'competition'.
This is not the EU 'scraping the bottom of the barrel', this is about trying to enforce a previous judgement against MS -- one which they continually try to evade both the letter and spirit of: that of allowing for more interoperability between MS products and anyone else.
They might take the step of invalidating the patents held by Microsoft. Which would say "hey, wait a minute, those magic proprietary protocols you have and claim people need to spend big bucks on are just open protocols you have intentionally made incompatible, and are trying to prevent people from implementing to preserve your monopoly-like status".
This is all about MS continuing to defy court rulings which say they're not allowed to enforce a software monoculture -- especially when all they did is minorly change existing protocols (or, take an existing idea and do it slightly different) and then patent them in order to make sure nobody else can communicate with their stuff. You know, continuing to do the exact same offence they were found guilty of doing in the first place -- and the enforcement which they've been trying to re-interpret to their own benefit for quite some time.
Microsoft is doing their usual obfuscate and delay tactics. The EU is starting to say "enough, do what we told you that you had to do".
Cheers
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
In the 50 years of European antitrust policy, it's the first time we've been confronted with a company that has failed to comply with an antitrust decision.
I find that statement rather significant. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6408391.stm
weirdest thing I ever saw: scientology advertising on slashdot.
I'm curious as to how the EU would go about collecting the fine.
MS will comply with that. They may be a big company but they aren't big enough to fight a government. Keep in mind that MS doesn't control their European operations from outside the continent, they have several subsidiaries within the EU and have to pay taxes and whatnot anyway.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
Supply complete and accurate information: This is very vague and how would they even test whether the documentation is complete and accurate
If I was appointed to the evaluation, I would try to figure out if I am able to create a software able to communicate with windows's SMB (and friends) protocols from their spec. I don't see this as an impossible task really as long as I am given enough time, and it looks like they took some time for that since the issue with EU began. The formulation of the news report may sound vague to you, but the objective it represents does not need much more details I think.
Make that information available on resonable terms: Then specify the terms rather than going back and forth on telling MS, your royalty rates are high. If comission finds that the royalty rates are high, then specify the maximum that MS can charge on these kind of things. If comission determines it should be free and specify that
I've the feeling that it's more or less what they have done:
here reads:
For both licences, Microsoft divided the protocols into Gold, Silver and Bronze price categories based on the claimed degree of innovation. Microsoft has already agreed that there is a fourth category of protocols, not necessarily innovative, for which there will be no royalty.
According to the trustee, there is no innovation in most of their protocols, which means there should be no royalty for them if I read that correctly. You may argue that the appointed trustee might not be in conditions to drive educated enough conclusions, but this is someone both EU and microsoft have agreed upon:
In accordance with the terms of the Decision, Microsoft submitted several candidates for the position of Monitoring Trustee
Hence, I see some substance in the today's development of the microsoft issue, and hope it's gonna go a lot further for once. This is a stupid games, and microsoft is wasting both EU's time and tax money on that one; I'll be glad if some of that cash come back as a fine they truly deserve.
Look at the comparable technology and if its not priced below it then perhaps they are being unreasonable.
Except that this doesn't involve technology. The EU is making a statement about the specifications, not the implementation. The specification for the TCP protocol isn't a TCP protocol stack, it's only MS that wants to call it one.
They don't conflate interface with implementation; you do!
RTFA:
"The Commission's current view is that there is no significant innovation in these protocols."
The EC is saying that THE PROTOCOLS THEMSELVES should not be patentable. I suspect that they are rebutting Microsoft's argument that the PROTOCOLS THEMSELVES constitute innovation and therefore must not be divulged.
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.
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.
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.
moreover, it really doesn't matter how did you become a monopoly. If you are then you have to play very nicely, like a non-monopoly. Otherwise the government must restore the competitive environment or control the monopoly, e.g. define its prices. Here EU wants to create the possibility of some competition, not to help other competitors (although that is a necessary side-effect).
False. MS is having gov. do their bidding for them. In particular, upper reaches of gov. tell sub groups that they will run windows. The upper group have a cash or reward incentive to do it. In America, it is called lobbying or simply doing business as usual. In other countries, it is called bribery and is illegal.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
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 !
Read radical news here
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
Because I'm bored, I'll try to spell it out for you.
I think what you're missing is that this case is about *two* platforms; Microsoft Servers and Microsoft Clients. They communicate using proprietary *protocols* which are not APIs and are very often publicly disclosed (think NFS, TCP/IP, ODF etc.). I don't use Microsoft software a lot but I think this specific case is file serving protocols and printer services. If these protocols are public (I would say publicly downloadable; Microsoft seems to think $50000 or so is R.a.n.D enough) then any competing company can make
(A) A client program for any given platform (say, Linux) that makes it seem like a Microsoft Client to e.g. a Microsoft printer server, and
(B) A server program for any given platform (say, Mac OS X) that makes it seem like a Microsoft Server (say CIFS server) to a group of Microsoft Client machines.
And then, you have what is called "interoperability", which is seen by some people (no, not just anti-US Microsoft haters) as a Good Thing(TM), because it reduces monopoly and encourages competition and innovation.
Snap je 't nu?
To be, or not to be: isn't that quite logical, Slashdot Beta?
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?
If you look at what is covered by Microsoft's Published Protocols made available by entering into Royalty Free licensing agreement, you will find yourself able to "to implement the Protocol(s) for which the applicable box(es) are checked on Exhibit A, and to use the corresponding Technical Documentation (as defined below) for that purpose." What are some of these Royalty Free protocols?
The list just keeps going on. I know this is royalty free but for the life of me I cannot figure out why I would need to sign a licensing agreement with Microsoft to implement any of these. A patent agreement maybe with Apple for AppleTalk or relevant parties to implement Bluetooth for example (not saying that I agree with software or protocol patents but this is the IP environment that we currently work in). Signing an agreement with Microsoft to be allowed to read documentation and implement someone elses protocol, WTF? No significant innovation. I would be interested to know if anyone has entered into this Royalty Free agreement.
Protocols not included in this list are subject to other licensing and royalty agreements. An implementation of a General Server without restricted protocols has a royalty rate of 5% for a software product and 2.5% for an embedded product with a minimum royalty of $40 per server or $0.40 per user. Per server licensing would put the minimum product price at $800.
Included in this is permission to implement propriety Microsoft protocols (.NET Remoting TcpChannel Protocol, FrontPage Server Extensions Remote Protocol, Microsoft Media Server Protocols, Windows Group Policy Protocols, etc) which may include significant innovation as well as others that are existing protocols that have been extended. These include:
None of these appear to be licensed separately, they are only available as part of task based licensing bundle. The protocols in the list above also don't have any significant innovation, they are just minor extensions or combinations of, existing protocols. I agree with the EU, these should not be patentable (nor should any protocol) and that the royalty is excessive.
What? Something of value happened outside the US borders? That is absurd.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
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?)
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