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Chinese Court Rules Microsoft Violated IP Rights
angry tapir writes "A Beijing court has ruled that Microsoft violated a Chinese company's intellectual property rights in a case over fonts used in past Windows operating systems. The Beijing Number One Intermediate People's Court ordered Microsoft to stop selling versions of Windows that use the Chinese fonts, including Windows XP. Microsoft plans to appeal the case. Microsoft originally licensed Zhongyi's intellectual property more than a decade ago for use in the Chinese version of Windows 95, according to Zhongyi. Zhongyi argues that agreement applied only to Windows 95, but that Microsoft continued to use the intellectual property in eight versions of Windows from Windows 98 to Windows XP. Vista and Windows 7 are not involved."
Which is why there is an IP case about Chinese fonts, but illegal copies of Windows 98 to Windows XP being sold on the streets of China for $1 a CD each. If Microsoft were a Chinese company, the Chinese government would crack down on the illegal copies, but since Microsoft is a US company, the Chinese government turns a blind eye on the illegal copies of Windows 98 to Windows XP.
And western owned companies take a similar attitude to human rights. They won't have their people working in sweatshop conditions, as the public outcry would ruin them if legal action didn't first, but they are quite happy to deal with factories in countries further east that are run that way. Governments don't do enough about the issue because it isn't directly affecting their voters and the indirect affect on their economies and lifestyles (at least in the short-to-medium term, certainly on the scale of a political term) through cheaper products is largely positive.
While China has no good case not to be called hypocritical on IP law enforcement and other issues, other nations have no such claim to even handed fairness in all issues either and the Chinese are likely to see (well, those who can see it, pervasive censorship will reduce the number that can) our calling their government hypocritical as, well, hypocritical....