Microsoft ruling looms

The verdict is expected on September 17, which is, according to. Out-Law.com, the last working day before Bo Versterdorf retires. Versterdorf is President of the Court of First Instance and the presiding judge in the 13 judge Grand Chamber of that Court, which is deciding the Microsoft case. The European Commission found Microsoft guilty of antitrust offences in 2004 and fined it €497m. It said that Microsoft failed to allow small business server software makers the chance to compete, and unfairly included media software in its operating system, thus stifling competition in that market. Microsoft appealed against the ruling, and that appeal is to be heard by the Court of First Instance. It is the highest court that can make a finding of fact. Full Out-Law.com report

Google has accused Microsoft of breaching a US legal settlement that was supposed to reduce the dominance of the Windows operating system. According to a report on the News24 site, the two companies are at odds over desktop searches, or software that allows a personal computer user to rapidly find information on their own hard drives. Google offers a program to do this, and so does Microsoft as part of Windows Vista. Google had filed a complaint in April with the US Department of Justice charging that users of Vista are disadvantaged if they install the Google tool, the Wall Street Journal reported. It said Microsoft rejected the complaint. In a document filed on April 18 with the US Justice Department and state Attorneys-General, Google alleged that the latest version of Microsoft’s Windows operating system impairs the performance of \'desktop search\' programs that find data stored on a computer’s hard drive. According to an MSNBC report, the Vista operating system, which became widely available in January, includes a desktop search function that competes with a free program Google introduced in 2004. Several other companies also offer desktop search applications. Besides bogging down competing programs, Google alleged Microsoft had made it too complicated to turn off the desktop search feature built into Vista. Full report on the News24 site Full MSNBC report

In a separate case, a French television executive said he had taken legal action against Microsoft for breaching his right to the trademark \'Vista\', which the US software giant uses for its new operating system. \'A writ has been served in both France and the US,\' said Philippe Gildas, a former presenter on French cable television channel Canal+. Gildas accuses Microsoft of violating his intellectual property rights after he registered the trademark \'Tele Vista\' for use worldwide in March 2003. According to a report on the News24 site, the name is to be used for a new satellite and cable television channel that Gildas is to launch in the next few weeks in France. Full report on the News24 site