Compliance Toolkit

Microsoft hits back at EU

Tags:
Antitrust,
Hurt,
Harm,
Innovation

Ina Fried CNET News

Published: 22 Apr 2004 08:35 BST

Aiming to portray itself as the victim of overreaching regulators, Microsoft on Wednesday released a position paper insisting that the European Union's antitrust sanctions amount to "new law" that could hurt others in the technology industry.

The seven-page paper, posted on Wednesday on Microsoft's Web site, is a cross between a treatise and a legal brief, citing both the potential damage of the ruling as well as alleged legal shortcomings of the decision.

"The Commission is seeking to make new law that will have an adverse impact on intellectual property rights and the ability of dominant firms to innovate," Microsoft said. "This adverse impact will not be confined to the software industry or to Europe."

The release of the paper comes just as the European Union is preparing to issue the full 300-page text of its ruling against Microsoft. The software maker has already seen the report, which is expected to be made public on Thursday.

Earlier on Wednesday, Microsoft told a US judge the company was willing to extend its existing program for licensing Windows communication protocols to rivals -- a move one observer said was aimed primarily at bolstering its case in Europe.

Last month, the European Union imposed a record $613m (£347m) fine and ordered Microsoft to share more of its technology with competitors and ship a version of its Windows operating system without a media player. The text of the ruling is expected to go into more detail on the mechanics of the ruling as well as how European regulators reached their decision.

In its detailed response to the EU action on Wednesday, Microsoft tried to cast the ruling as one that will stifle creativity at Microsoft and beyond.

"We live in a world in which most products result from combining a variety of individual components. Indeed, product innovation results in no small measure from such integration," Microsoft said. "The decision opens the door to intrusive regulation of product design -- not to mention a record fine -- based on a complaint by a single component supplier, even when this integration is the market norm and other suppliers continue to grow. Such a result, if allowed to stand, would almost certainly spell bad news for the European and global economies."