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Court Ruling in Europe Could Affect Microsoft

Time: 03:13 EST/08:13 GMT | News Source: New York Times | Posted By: Todd Richardson

The European Court of Justice drew a legal line in the sand Thursday on the circumstances under which a dominant company must license its intellectual property for use by rivals. The ruling, involving two distributors of drugs, could have repercussions for the European Commission's antitrust case against Microsoft. The case involved one American drug distribution company, IMS Health, suing another, NDCHealth, for using its copyright-protected geographical breakdown of the German pharmaceutical market. Although the final word in this case rests with a court in Frankfurt, Thursday's judgment by Europe's highest court clarified European law in this field, where intellectual property law and competition law meet.