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Author Topic: Court rules against Microsoft in China font case  (Read 7562 times)

PirateMike

  • Guest
Court rules against Microsoft in China font case
« on: 2009-11-21, 20:07:35 »
There weren't any posts in this category so I thought I would go ahead and get the ball rolling and what better time then this week. Here's some breaking news in font made November 17, 2009

Quote
BEIJING — A Chinese court has ruled Microsoft Corp. infringed a Chinese company's intellectual property rights by including certain fonts in its operating systems, the companies confirmed Tuesday.

Beijing's No.1 Intermediate People's Court found Microsoft had exceeded the scope of a previous agreement to use and sell fonts owned by Zhongyi Electronic Ltd, Lan Fei, a spokeswoman of Beijing-based company told AFP.

The decision came during US President Barack Obama's visit to China and at a sensitive time in the trade relationship between the two countries. The US has been pressing China for tougher intellectual property law enforcement.

However, Microsoft said in a statement that it disagreed with the Monday-dated court ruling.

"We plan to appeal the decision for the Zhongyi fonts case," Microsoft said.

"Microsoft respects intellectual property rights... We believe our license agreements with the plaintiff cover our use of the fonts."

Zhongyi said the court agreed Microsoft installed and used the fonts in eight of its operating systems without its express permission and had ordered the US company to stop selling those operating systems in China.

The spokeswoman said the company was studying the ruling and could seek compensation from Microsoft for damages.

"The case dragged on for a long time and the scale and impact of the case was very large. It involves a large figure. We are still checking and studying the form and amount (of the compensation)," Lan said.

The case, which was filed in April 2007, does not appear to affect Microsoft's latest operating systems, including Windows 7, which went on sale last month.

The court rejected Zhongyi's claim that Microsoft's use of Zhengma software, which enables computer users to type Chinese characters using Western keyboards, also violated its intellectual property rights.

I found this interesting, Microsoft is actually be sued by China (as oppose to the reversal of roles in which Microsoft has been suing China), it should be interesting to see how this plays out!

Aksin

  • Guest
Re: Court rules against Microsoft in China font case
« Reply #1 on: 2009-12-02, 03:11:47 »
Thanking you for the new and useful information!

ROFLcopter

  • Guest
Re: Court rules against Microsoft in China font case
« Reply #2 on: 2010-01-18, 08:39:52 »
Thats beautiful, just beautiful.
Microsoft gets the shaft!
Happy I'm on linux!

julia54

  • Guest
Re: Court rules against Microsoft in China font case
« Reply #3 on: 2010-02-14, 11:35:40 »
he he he! well, the US was pressing charges for tougher intellectual property law enforcement! LOL  :P

janschipper

  • Guest
Re: Court rules against Microsoft in China font case
« Reply #4 on: 2010-02-15, 02:29:45 »
great news!...I heard this story long ago...

TimothyCast

  • Full Member
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  • Posts: 2
Re: Court rules against Microsoft in China font case
« Reply #5 on: 2014-12-14, 11:07:58 »
comments on forum.fontlab.com apparently considered superfluous ?