All IP Agreement
Commission warns Microsoft of further penalties over unreasonable pricing as interoperability information lacks significant innovation. (…) Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes said, “Microsoft has agreed that the main basis for pricing should be whether its protocols are innovative. The Commission's current view is that there is no significant innovation in these protocols.”
Microsoft provides two separate licensing arrangements to companies wishing to obtain the interoperability information as foreseen by the 2004 Decision's remedy. The first is a 'No Patent Agreement', allowing licensees to use the protocols which together comprise the interoperability information, but without taking a licence for patents which Microsoft claims necessary, a claim disputed by some third parties. The second (the 'All IP Agreement') combines this first licence with a licence for these disputed patents. Companies therefore have a choice of agreement, depending on whether they consider they need a patent licence. Both licences confirm that an assessment of the reasonableness of Microsoft's prices depends on whether there is innovation in the protocols, and, if there is, what is charged for comparable technologies in the market.
(…) The Commission's preliminary view is that there is virtually no innovation in the 51 protocols in the 'No Patent Agreement' where Microsoft has claimed non-patented innovation, and that Microsoft's current royalty rates for this agreement are therefore unreasonable.
(…) For the 'All IP Agreement', the Commission has assumed that the existence of patents indicates some associated innovation, although third parties remain free to challenge Microsoft's patent claims before an appropriate court or to implement software that, in their view, does not infringe the patented technology. In any event, the Trustee's analysis is that most of the information relates only to solving problems specific to Windows, and will not improve the functionalities of the licensee's own operating systems. The Trustee has also provided evidence to the Commission that comparable technologies to these were provided royalty-free.
(…) In light of these elements, the Commission takes the preliminary view that Microsoft's current royalty rates for its 'All IP Agreement' are also unreasonable.
Lees het gehele persbericht hier.
