On the last day of the MS hearing at the European Court of First Instance, the topic du jour was the record fine the EC charged MS. Not surprisingly, MS wanted the fine dropped and the EC wanted to keep it in place. And while 497 million euros is a lot of dough, it’s really the intellectual property rights and software design freedom that matter. If Microsoft loses in its bid to reverse the EC’s penalties (removing media player from Windows and handing over key parts of its IP to rivals), it will be a dark day for the technology industry.Â
MS hearing about IP and freedom to innovate