MS Hearing Set for Europe
Microsoft, fresh off favorable settlements with the U.S. government and private plaintiffs, now must face antitrust issues raised overseas.
The European Commission will conduct a hearing Dec. 20 to 21 to discuss whether Microsoft, by embedding proprietary audio and video software into its Windows operating system, was intentionally trying to hurt rivals.
The EC, which is the investigative arm of the European Union, is also investigating whether Microsoft made its Windows 2000 work better on its own servers than on others. The commissions investigation was launched in August.
File-Swapping Services Sued
After taking on napster, the music industry is taking aim at several other file-swapping services.
This time, its the National Music Publishers Association, which last week filed a federal copyright lawsuit against the parent companies of services Grokster, Kazaa and MusicCity.
The association said the suit is to protect songwriters and publishers from “flagrant piracy.”
The file-swapping services already face a lawsuit filed last month by the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America.
Broadcom Sues Intel—Again
Broadcom and Intel are at it again.
The chip makers have spent the past couple of years suing and countersuing each other over patent infringement issues.
Now, a year after settling their highest-profile squabble, Broadcom, which makes chips used in networking equipment and servers, last week filed another suit against Intel, accusing it of illegally using Broadcoms proprietary graphics technology in Intel chip sets.
At one point, Intel in March of last year sued to block Broadcom from hiring three former Intel employees, alleging its rival had recruited the workers to obtain confidential information. Broadcom countersued, asking the court to halt the sale of two types of Intel networking chips that it claimed used technology stolen from Broadcom. The two sides settled the case in November last year.