EU의 지적재산권의 보장과 경쟁법상의 제문제 - EU 마이크로소프트 사건을 중심으로 - = Legal Issues on the EU competition law and intellectual property rights - Focused on the EU Microsoft case -

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The EU Commission took an action against Microsoft(MS) for abuse of its market dominant position. The Eurpean Court of 1 Instance made a preliminary decision in the case 2003 and ordered the MS to offer a Windows-version without WMP(Windows Media Player). The information of server operating system should be open for interacting fully with the competing networking softwares. The EU Commission ordered MS to pay penalties 497 million, at the same time to divulge the server information and to supply a version of Windows without WMP. In September 2007, Microsoft appealed against the EU Commission, but in February 2008, the Commission fined MS an additional 899 million for failure to comply with last 2004 antitrust decision. Traditionally, intellectual property rights need to be protected in spite of the general awareness of competition. The market can not be functioned by such as blocking the entry of new competing companies. Law against unfair business practices are necessary to secure effective competition in the market. Therefore, intellectual property and related markets by lowering barriers to entry in the competition are desirable to maintain adequate intellectual property protection and competition policy in harmony with the more detailed policies to reflect the needs to create standards for specific information. But it needs further discussions.
The protection of intellectual property rights and the market competition is to adjust conflicting interests for the both sides. By way of the disclosure of Windows operating system interface and the separation of Windows Media Player and operating system the MS could meet the appropriate regulatory principles in the field of intellectual property rights in EU. European court s ruling shows, that it does not clarify the relationship between competition law and intellectual property rights and resulted in one simple resolution. Intellectual property and competition law are in a very complex relationship, and conflict-related decision also is to be more discussed in the further studies, which still remains on.