The point is that MS are not interested in everyone else, so they'll be happy to have everyone required to use their patent...
They'll even be quite happy to have everyone pay reasonable and non-discribatory terms...
After all such terms could well stop Samba!!!
We (the consumers) are quite free to demand an Ogg Vorbis interface from MS, just as MS are quite free to refuse to provide us with one and only provide WMA interfaces...
Much like if you don't like a law, you can campaign to have it changed... if the campaining gets you nowhere, buy a boat and sail out to international waters and declare your own corporate state... there you can write your own rules all you like... (oh are you complaining about inconvieniences? worried about having to have your own security? that's what happens when you throw out everything just because you don't like something)
If I have a patent on compressing audio or video using a specific algorithm, then I should be entitled to royalties when people use my patent.
That is what patents are about. And while I may find the need for them w.r.t. software somewhat questionable, currently the rules allow for some patents on some software algorithms
Now suppose that an API requires that the audio data being passed to it is in my compressed audio format (the one on which I have a patent). The EU competition authority cannot say that I should not recieve royalties on people using my audio compression algorithm. They can even say I'm charging too much, they can decide that 0.0000001c per server is too much, but they cannot tell me to give it away for free (Without opening themselves up to a massive internal fight with the EU patent office)
The thing sounds more like the EU covering their ass to prevent MS from throwing out the remediation in court
I think the idea is that if Microsoft had decided to use their own patented encryption to encrypt packets (for example), then because they have a patent on the encyrption (for example) which is incuded in their specification that the EU is making them disclose, they would be entitled to renumeration for the subsequent use by others of their patents.
I think the reason the EU put that sentence in is to styme MS's subsequent legal trickery.
If the EU said, "you have to tell everyone in the EU how to make things work with your stuff, oh and by the way all your patents are rubished too" it would be easier to throw out.
But by saying "You have to tell everyone in the EU how to make things work with your stuff. Oh, and if you have used things on which you have patents you are entitled to _fair_ payment for other people using your patents" it will be harder for MS to claim it's unfair...
basically the EU competition people don't want their remediation being thrown out just because they stepped on the EU patent people's toes
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I think you missed my point.
The point is that MS are not interested in everyone else, so they'll be happy to have everyone required to use their patent...
They'll even be quite happy to have everyone pay reasonable and non-discribatory terms...
After all such terms could well stop Samba!!!
We (the consumers) are quite free to demand an Ogg Vorbis interface from MS, just as MS are quite free to refuse to provide us with one and only provide WMA interfaces...
Much like if you don't like a law, you can campaign to have it changed... if the campaining gets you nowhere, buy a boat and sail out to international waters and declare your own corporate state... there you can write your own rules all you like... (oh are you complaining about inconvieniences? worried about having to have your own security? that's what happens when you throw out everything just because you don't like something)
If I have a patent on compressing audio or video using a specific algorithm, then I should be entitled to royalties when people use my patent.
That is what patents are about. And while I may find the need for them w.r.t. software somewhat questionable, currently the rules allow for some patents on some software algorithms
Now suppose that an API requires that the audio data being passed to it is in my compressed audio format (the one on which I have a patent). The EU competition authority cannot say that I should not recieve royalties on people using my audio compression algorithm. They can even say I'm charging too much, they can decide that 0.0000001c per server is too much, but they cannot tell me to give it away for free (Without opening themselves up to a massive internal fight with the EU patent office)
The thing sounds more like the EU covering their ass to prevent MS from throwing out the remediation in court
I think the idea is that if Microsoft had decided to use their own patented encryption to encrypt packets (for example), then because they have a patent on the encyrption (for example) which is incuded in their specification that the EU is making them disclose, they would be entitled to renumeration for the subsequent use by others of their patents. I think the reason the EU put that sentence in is to styme MS's subsequent legal trickery. If the EU said, "you have to tell everyone in the EU how to make things work with your stuff, oh and by the way all your patents are rubished too" it would be easier to throw out. But by saying "You have to tell everyone in the EU how to make things work with your stuff. Oh, and if you have used things on which you have patents you are entitled to _fair_ payment for other people using your patents" it will be harder for MS to claim it's unfair... basically the EU competition people don't want their remediation being thrown out just because they stepped on the EU patent people's toes