EU Fine Appeal, Patent Cases

A challenge to a massive fine levied by the European Union (EU) in Feb. 2008, a patent suit over its RoundTable videoconferencing hardware, and a challenge to patents held by videoconferencing software vendor Avistar were added to Microsoft’s legal docket in Apr. and May 2008.

EU challenge. Microsoft has asked the European Court of First Instance to annul the €899 million (US$1.4 billion at press time) fine levied in Feb. 2008 by the European Commission (EC), the administrative body that handles antitrust and fair competition enforcement for the EU. The fine punished Microsoft for failing to release adequate documentation to enable interoperability between Windows PCs and servers and non-Windows servers between Mar. 2004 and Oct. 2007. The company said the appeal was an effort to “seek clarity” from the court. Microsoft’s last appeal to the Court of First Instance was an attempt to get the EU’s original Mar. 2004 order reversed, and it failed on almost every count. (For background on the latest EC fine, see “Ongoing EU Threat Spurs Interoperability Pledge” on page 29 of the Apr. 2008 Update.)