Microsoft facing patent violation accusations in China

In the second such incident in as many months, Microsoft has been accused of using a foreign organization's intellectual property without proper compensation, this time over a proprietary method of inputting Chinese characters called ZhengMa. Following last month's copyright suit in the Philippines, Redmond is now facing accusations from Chinese tech firm Zhongyi Electronic that it has been using the latter company's technology "without commercial agreement for a decade." Microsoft, for its part, denies the claims, stating that there was in fact an agreement in place and that it was fulfilling its fiduciary duties as laid out in that agreement. According to Reuters, a lawsuit may be in the works once Zhongyi figures out how many infringing copies of Windows are in the wild.

[Jeff Bridges @ Jan 23rd 2008 3:38PM]

I wonder if Microsoft will have to compensate the patent holder for all of those illegal copies of Windows floating around in China. If it's just the legal ones, well, I'm pretty sure Redmond can afford to pay for both of 'em.

[John @ Jan 18th 2008 1:16PM]

Patent violations? China? Can't have it both ways.

[Flashpoint @ Jan 18th 2008 2:28PM]

China screaming PATENT VIOLATION?

that's like a careeer criminal denouncing the Bush administration

[John @ Jan 18th 2008 1:16PM]

Patent violations? China? Can't have it both ways.

[Evan @ Jan 18th 2008 1:16PM]

So they are getting sued for infringing on a Chinese patent.

Oh the irony.

[paragraph @ Jan 18th 2008 1:24PM]

Glorious People's Republic of China resents that remark!

Glorious People's Republic of China Prides it'self on bieng progressive, and Glorious People's Republic of China takes Patent Infringement Very Seriously!

Glorious People's Republic of China never breaks Patent Laws!
Glorious People's Republic of China only breaks Copywright Laws!

[Trent @ Jan 18th 2008 1:22PM]

So if they actually did something wrong they will have to pay them what? One legitimate copy? Can't charge em for the pirated versions.

[crow610 @ Jan 18th 2008 1:24PM]

To China:
Please crack down on software piracy and we will then consider this lawsuit.

From,
Microsoft

[llren @ Jan 18th 2008 2:32PM]

To microsoft:

Pls lower the ridiculous price of the softwares in China and then we'll talk about piracy issues.

A guy in China who has to use computer everyday

[StrangeBum @ Jan 18th 2008 4:26PM]

It's funny how a clever remark (crow610) can be rebutted by such an asinine remark as that made by first replier (Ilren)

In other news, the Chinese people are friggin hilarious, haha.

[ethana2 @ Jan 18th 2008 5:27PM]

American Linux user: you chinese people have choice of operating system, right out of retail. How DARE you throw that away? You're wiping linux installs left and right for pirated windows just because you're too frigging lazy to take a bit of time to learn something new. I dare say there's a reason you have the government you do today. In the mean time, we're just now getting the choice you had, from fine companies like Dell, system76, and emperorlinux, and you better believe we're going to take it more seriously than you did. ~Fin

[metal @ Jan 18th 2008 9:48PM]

IIREN
just because something overpriced doesnt mean you automatically are justified in pirating it.

maybe I want an infinity g35 but its overpriced. Does that mean me stealing it is justified? No. If you cant afford it dont use it.

If you need a free operating system go get ubuntu.

[Eric H @ Jan 18th 2008 1:31PM]

Lets see $5 per violation. 100,000,000 million copies of windows in China. Minus the pirated copies... Looks like Microsoft owes the 15 dollars.

[Blake @ Jan 18th 2008 3:55PM]

LOL.. that was pretty good.

[Will @ Jan 18th 2008 1:32PM]

China does indeed have an abysmal record on protecting intellectual property. However, this is a single Chinese firm in question, which may play by the rules, and therefore they should be free to take recourse if Microsoft is indeed guilty.

However, if the company is in some way controlled by the Chinese state (as many Chinese firms are), then I think Microsoft should make them suffer.

[r3loaded @ Jan 18th 2008 1:37PM]

Will, you've hit the nail on the head. The majority of piracy in China is by state-owned companies because they can get away with it. Private companies on the other hand want to keep a good image internationally.

[drakono @ Jan 18th 2008 1:59PM]

Well said. This isn't about China, nor is it about piracy.

Did you ever get in trouble as a kid for hitting someone? Did you try the "he hit me first" defense? I'm guessing it didn't work. And it certainly wouldn't work if you said, "Someone in that general direction hit me first." You'll notice that MS isn't going to touch the piracy issue with a ten-foot pole in this case. It would benefit them nothing. If they tried to defend shady practices with that claim, it would be at best hypocrisy. At worst, it's racism/nationalism.

But the real issue here is whether MS did anything wrong at all. They say they had an agreement and acted accordingly. ZE doesn't even mention an agreement. So either MS is flat-out lying, or ZE is money-grabbing.

[Andrew @ Jan 18th 2008 1:34PM]

I have to agree with the majority of comments posted above. China has showed a total disregard for intellectual property, patents, and copyrights owned by businesses in every other country in the world.

Fuck that.

[ethana2 @ Jan 18th 2008 5:31PM]

Patents can go die. When you stand on the shoulder of giants, it's rapid /implementation/ that matters most, as the advent of one idea oft depends on the use of another. Besides, nerds like me will do R&D for fun; stuff like curiosity and fame.
Patents hold back progress. Take every good idea out there, and /use/ it.

[drakono @ Jan 18th 2008 1:36PM]

I can see that there are going to be many comments about piracy in China. But I'm more interested in learning about the arrangement between MS and Zhongyi Electronic. MS says that they had a deal and were meeting its terms, and the article has no response from ZE. Does ZE think that they should've been given more, and are now calling the terms unfair? Or is MS using the technology in ways/frequencies exceeding the terms? I suppose we won't find out unless one of them actually discloses the terms of the deal.

[BrotherhoodOfNod @ Jan 18th 2008 1:39PM]

Pot. Kettle. Black.

[Jason Cox @ Jan 18th 2008 1:44PM]

China has patents? Dugg.
...
Oh wait, wrong site.
:-P

[Joe @ Jan 18th 2008 1:47PM]

Read the article closer folks; this is a contract dispute over a patent license.

I'll guess that Zhongyi believes the license they granted to Microsoft was more limited than Microsoft believed it was and is.

[andy @ Jan 18th 2008 1:55PM]

Or they've now decided that they should have gotten more money for it.

[Dave @ Jan 18th 2008 11:59PM]

This is the one time if i was MS I would tell China to take their lawsuit and shove it up their ass. MS makes almost no money in China anyways, so why even give a shit? This is when being a multinational company based in the US could get very interesting/fun. I would just tell China to fuck themselves and hide behind the good old USA.

[m @ Jan 18th 2008 2:07PM]

all very funny, until you think about how microsoft squeezes their own customers over issues of intellectual piracy. think of "genuine advantage" (what a laugh!) or that goddamn business software alliance. and whatever the truth in this case, they've been doing crap like this for years. you don't even need to go into the mac/windows issue: they stole Stacker's compression patents, for one, and ran them out of business before they could even sue. innovation my ass! they're the worst pirates on earth. there's a chinese character set built into every copy worldwide, most people just don't install it. so that's, what, several billion x something like $300 on average? hang 'em high, not that they'll learn anything from it.

[John @ Jan 18th 2008 3:16PM]

one of the reasons that Windows has Genuine Advantage is because they're trying to stop the rampant piracy in places like... China.

[ethana2 @ Jan 18th 2008 5:40PM]

False. They want to stop piracy in first world nations. If everyone in poor countries was forced financially to switch to Ubuntu and realized it was actually better they're cash cow would basically die. They want to make piracy too hard for us relatively rich folks to bother, but still possible where people honestly cannot afford licenses. Remember this simple method:
World domination first,
Money second, third, and forth.

[The Blotch @ Jan 18th 2008 4:52PM]

As much as I hate Microsoft, software patents are BS. Unless Microsoft directly took their code without an agreement, I say this whole thing is stupid. Besides, WTG THIS IS CHINA!!!!!

[ethana2 @ Jan 18th 2008 5:42PM]

Agreed.

[The Big R @ Jan 21st 2008 12:53AM]

Better yet, Microsoft should just audit that company first. I will bet they are running illegal copies of Windows and Office.

[FRiC @ Jan 18th 2008 8:12PM]

Ha, the dispute is probably over the number of people actually using ZhengMa. Exactly zero?

[xuyaoyork @ Jan 18th 2008 11:24PM]

Could you smart US guys think about where the pirated versions of Microsoft OS come from? XP was pirated by the Russians, and the first Vista pirate was from the US. None of the largest pirate sites and tools, such as mininova, pirate bay, demonoid, and of course eMule, are invented by the Chinese. Funny when you guys talking about Chinese without considering about what yourself did. All you have is stupid intuition that pirate does not exist on the great land of the free.

[sitruc @ Jan 19th 2008 1:11AM]

You're pretty much, completely missing the point of other posters.

[xuyaoyork @ Jan 18th 2008 10:28PM]

Did you know that a Microsoft OS cost a whole month's salary of a common Chinese worker? The education level of China is way much behind the US and they deserve to use a more popular operating system for easier learning and sharing. They deserve to buy this operating system at a price below 10% of monthly salary as the US citizens do. Otherwise they have no choice but use the pirated version. Time for Microsoft have a change of their stupid pricing policy.

[Luke D @ Jan 18th 2008 10:43PM]

Why do they 'DESERVE to use a more popular operating system...'?

Why do they 'DESERVE to buy this operating system at a price below 10% of monthly salary as the US citizens do'?

Why the deserve?

[xuyaoyork @ Jan 18th 2008 10:45PM]

And why not?

[Luke D @ Jan 18th 2008 11:05PM]

You're the one giving the propositions, so you should be giving the reasons.

But I'll be generous here -
i) Microsoft is a company that seeks to maximise profit and it should determine the prices for its products based on that and not have to exercise charity or whatever to certain customers.
ii) No one NEEDS to use Windows. If one cannot afford it one can still get by in life. If your reason is because the common Chinese cannot afford it, then why not use free operating systems?

Your turn.

[xuyaoyork @ Jan 18th 2008 11:24PM]

Thanks for your reply!
I agree that seeking maximise profit is the goal of any company, but the question is how. For the Chinese market, a more reasonable pricing structure will significantely reduce piracy rate and helps Microsoft make more money as well.
You are right, there are many free OS now. However it is almost impossible for most Chinese guys since they are not so educated as you are, though many of my Chinese friends are using Linux now because most of them are in colleges.
I think that patent rights should be respected, that is no doubt. China needs time and respect.

[metal @ Jan 19th 2008 2:06AM]

they have no choice but to use a pirated operating system? isnt ubuntu a choice? isnt linux a choice? isnt not using a computer a choice? "I cant afford it" isnt a reasonable rationale to steal something if its a luxury. Humanities existed for hundreds of thousands of years without computers so you telling me that "they have no choice" is completely ridiculous. If you want to steal it then thats fine by me, just dont pretend you're some robin hood trying to make the world right by stealing something you dont even need.

[tobefair @ Jan 19th 2008 10:21PM]

Wrong is wrong. It is nothing to do with China. If you guys keep insulting Chinese, you are just racialists. I studied in the US, lots of my so-called A
merican classmates use pirated software while I bought educational versions. Be focusing on the subject. A pirate is a priate.It has been Microsoft.

China should ban Microsoft and opt for Linux.