- Microsoft continues the court’s fight for the legality of reselling office and Windows licenses
- VALUELICENSING Microsoft claims restricted the resale market and seeks £ 270 million in damages
- The result could remodel the future of the second -hand software industry in Europe
Microsoft’s long dispute with Valueling, a revenue of the United Kingdom of licenses used for products such as Windows and Office, returns to the Competition Court of Appeals this week, with the US technological giant who now argues that selling office and Windows licenses is illegal.
Valuegensing says that the trial will focus on whether the entire resale market for the perpetual licenses of Microsoft is legal or, in fact, and the result could have enormous implications for the popular second -hand software market in Europe.
The revenuer argues that if Microsoft’s argument is successful, it would mean that second -hand licenses trade should never have existed in Europe.
A POSTURE CHANGE
The case, which has been happening for several years, is derived from Valuegensing statements that Microsoft restricted the availability of used licenses.
According to the researcher, Microsoft offered client discounts on subscription services if they delivered their perpetual licenses, which limits the actions available for companies such as Valueling.
He also alleges that Microsoft inserted contract clauses that reduced resale rights in exchange for more price cuts. This strategy, Valuelicensing’s statements, cost him 270 million in lost profits.
Microsoft’s defense is based on the statement that Copyright has not only for the program code, but also for elements such as the user graphic interface.
The technology giant says that the European software directive does not apply to such components, which means that the resale is not allowed.
The head of Valuegensing, Jonathan Horley, said that Microsoft’s position had changed dramatically, from denying anti -competitive behavior to arguing that the resale market itself should not exist. “It is a remarkable coincidence that his defense against Valueling has changed so dramatically of being a defense of ‘we did not do it’ in defense of ‘The market should never have existed,” he said.
The Microsoft position is based on a precedent of the Tom Kabinet failure, which discovered that the software resale was allowed but that the electronic books were different.
Microsoft is looking to place its own products outside the rules that allowed secondary trade by making the interface different from the software code.
The Court’s decision could determine whether the prosperous trade in Europe in used software survives or disappears completely.
Through The registration
