A Chinese court has found Microsoft Corp infringed a Chinese company’s intellectual property rights by including certain fonts in its operating systems.
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 (中易中標電子信息公司), Dow Jones Newswires reported, citing a judgment dated Monday.
SENSITIVE TIME
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.
Microsoft installed and used the fonts in eight of its operating systems without express permission from Zhongyi, the court said, ordering Microsoft to stop producing and selling those operating systems in China.
Microsoft officials were not immediately available for comment.
The case, which was filed in April 2007, apparently does not affect Microsoft’s latest operating systems, Vista and 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.
PAUL ALLEN
In related news, billionaire Paul Allen, who founded US software giant Microsoft with Bill Gates in 1975, has been diagnosed with cancer, technology blogs reported on Monday.
Allen, 56, has non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, CNET News and other technology news sites said, quoting a letter from Allen’s sister, Jody Allen.
“He received the diagnosis early this month and has begun chemotherapy,” Jody Allen said in the letter to employees of her brother’s company, Vulcan Inc.
“Doctors say he has diffuse large B-cell lymphoma, a relatively common form of lymphoma,” Jody Allen said.
She said her brother survived another bout with cancer 25 years ago.
Paul Allen left Microsoft in 1983 and is the founder and chairman of Vulcan Inc and the chairman of Charter Communications.
He owns the National Football League team the Seattle Seahawks and the Portland Trail Blazers of the National Basketball Association and is a part owner of the Major League Soccer team the Seattle Sounders.
STATE OF THE NATION: The legislature should invite the president to deliver an address every year, the TPP said, adding that Lai should also have to answer legislators’ questions The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) yesterday proposed inviting president-elect William Lai (賴清德) to make a historic first state of the nation address at the legislature following his inauguration on May 20. Lai is expected to face many domestic and international challenges, and should clarify his intended policies with the public’s representatives, KMT caucus secretary-general Hung Meng-kai (洪孟楷) said when making the proposal at a meeting of the legislature’s Procedure Committee. The committee voted to add the item to the agenda for Friday, along with another similar proposal put forward by the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP). The invitation is in line with Article 15-2
PLAN: Nations would receive US$5m a year if they could advance Taiwan’s international participation, diversify supply chains away from China or counter Beijing’s influence The US House of Representatives Select Committee on Strategic Competition Between the US and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on Friday introduced a bill that would approve US$120 million to be spent on supporting Taiwan’s international space and tackling coercion by China. The bipartisan legislation — the Taiwan Allies Fund Act — was proposed ahead of the inauguration of president-elect William Lai (賴清德) of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) on May 20. The committee said in a statement that the bill “strengthens Taiwan’s global network of friends by authorizing [US]$120 million over three years for the State Department and USAID [US Agency
SELF-SUFFICIENCY: The project would only be the beginning, as Taiwan needs at least 120 satellites to ensure uninterrupted communication, Wu Tsung-tsong said The Taiwan Space Agency (TASA) yesterday said it plans to launch six low Earth orbit satellites starting in 2026 as part of the government’s plan to boost the resilience of the nation’s communications. The development of the technology gained attention after Ukrainians were able to access the Internet through Space Exploration Technologies Corp (SpaceX) CEO Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite service, despite their infrastructure being severely damaged in the war with Russia. Two of the satellites would be built by the government, while four would involve cooperation between TASA and private contractors. “Over the past 30 years, the satellite technology in Taiwan has
‘DIGITAL SOLIDARITY’: Taiwan, the US, Japan, Australia and New Zealand are to install and operate a cable that would connect up to 100,000 people in the Pacific Islands Taiwan, the US, Japan, Australia and New Zealand are working together to install undersea cables as a demonstration of digital solidarity, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Monday. Blinken talked about the cooperation in a speech he delivered at the RSA Conference in San Francisco. He said that the US International Cyberspace and Digital Strategy launched by the US Department of State “treats digital solidarity as our North Star.” “Solidarity informs our approach not only to digital technologies, but to all key foundational technologies,” Blinken said. Under the strategy, the US is to work with international partners “to shape the design, development,