Skip to main content

Home/ Document Wars/ Group items tagged European Commission

Rss Feed Group items tagged

Paul Merrell

EUROPA - Press Releases - Antitrust: Commission opens proceedings against MathWorks - 1 views

  • Brussels, 1 March 2012 - The European Commission has opened a formal investigation to assess whether The MathWorks Inc., a U.S.-based software company, has distorted competition in the market for the design of commercial control systems by preventing competitors from achieving interoperability with its products. The Commission will investigate whether by allegedly refusing to provide a competitor with end-user licences and interoperability information, the company has breached EU antitrust rules that prohibit the abuse of a dominant position. The opening of proceedings means that the Commission will examine the case as a matter of priority. It does not prejudge the outcome of the investigation. The investigation follows a complaint alleging that MathWorks had refused to provide a competitor with end-user software licences and accompanying interoperability information for its flagship products "Simulink" and "MATLAB", thereby preventing it from lawfully reverse-engineering in order to achieve interoperability with these two products.
  • As in the Microsoft case (see IP/04/382 and MEMO/04/70 and MEMO/07/359), the issue of software interoperability is central to this investigation. The Commission's investigation will focus on whether MathWorks' behaviour has prevented competitors from achieving interoperability with its widely used products and thereby hindered competition in breach of Article 102 TFEU. In this context, it is recalled that the European Directive 2009/24/EC on the legal protection of computer programmes also aims to foster interoperability by allowing for reverse-engineering for interoperability purposes provided that the software at issue was lawfully acquired.
  • Background MathWorks' "Simulink" and "MATLAB" software products are widely used for designing and simulating control systems. Control systems are deployed in many innovative industries such as in cruise control or anti-lock braking systems (ABS) for cars. Article 102 TFEU prohibits the abuse of a dominant position which may affect trade and prevent or restrict competition. The implementation of this provision is defined in the Antitrust Regulation (Council Regulation No 1/2003) which can be applied by the Commission and by the national competition authorities of EU Member States. The Commission has informed MathWorks and the Member States' competition authorities that it has formally opened proceedings in this case.
  •  
    Commission v. MIcrosoft Redux.
Paul Merrell

Microsoft offers Office 2010 file format 'ballot' to stop EU antitrust probe - 0 views

  • In a proposal submitted to the European Commission two weeks ago, Microsoft spelled out a range of promises related to Office, its desktop and server software, and other products to address antitrust concerns first expressed by officials in January 2008.
  • Beginning with the release of Office [2010], end users that purchase Microsoft's Primary PC Productivity Applications in the EEA [European Economic Area] in both the OEM and retail channel will be prompted in an unbiased way to select default file format (from options that include ODF) for those applications upon the first boot of any one of them," Microsoft said in its proposal [download Word document]
  •  
    Microsoft's proposed undertaking for resolving the ECIS complaint to the European Commission regarding its office productivity software can be downloaded from this linked web page. I've given it a quick skim. Didn't see anything in it for anyone but competing big vendors. E.g., no profiling of data formats for interop of less and more featureful implementations, no round-tripping provisions. Still, some major concessions offered.
Paul Merrell

Microsoft opens Outlook format, gives programs access to mail, calendar, contacts - 0 views

  • Microsoft on Monday said it will provide patent- and license-free use rights to the format behind its Outlook Personal Folders opening e-mail, calendar, contacts and other information to a host of applications such as antimalware or cloud-based services.
  • Documenting and publishing the .pst format could open up entirely new feature sets for programs such as search tools for mining mailboxes for relevant corporate data, new security tools that scan .pst data for malicious software, or e-discovery tools for meeting compliance regulations, according to Microsoft officials.
  •  
    The ripples from the European Commission v. Microsoft decision continue to flow. The catch, of course, is that the patent rights will almost certainly be subject to the Microsoft Open Specification Promise, a weasel-worded document that actually grants no rights. http://law.bepress.com/unswwps/flrps/art71/ But someone with some clout will push that issue sooner or later.
1 - 3 of 3
Showing 20 items per page