Chinese Firm Found Guilty in Copyright Case : Asia: Microsoft is hoping for punitive damages and more action to end software piracy.
BEIJING — A Beijing court has found a Chinese company guilty of copyright infringement for the first time, and executives of Microsoft Corp. said Monday that they are hoping for punitive damages.
Chinese and U.S. negotiators met earlier this month in Beijing to review progress under a March accord in which Beijing pledged to crack down on rampant copyright piracy--an issue that had sparked a threat of U.S. sanctions.
U.S. officials and software makers had expressed their disappointment in the wake of Chinese government promises to clamp down on piracy, saying that progress had been too slow.
The latest court decision, handed down Oct. 12 and reported in the Chinese media Monday, found a major Chinese computer dealer guilty of copying software illegally.
“We hope this is a very strong precedent,” said Valerie Colbourn of Microsoft, who is also vice president of the Business Software Alliance.
“We are very pleased that the court made this decision--although we are not so pleased with how long it took,” Colbourn said by telephone from Hong Kong.
The Beijing Intermediate People’s Court found that Ju Ren Computer Co. unlawfully duplicated and distributed Autocad, Lotus 1-2-3, Windows 3.0, Microsoft Word, WordPerfect 5.2 and other software programs, a Microsoft executive in Beijing said.
The case was filed in February, 1994, by Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft, by Autodesk Inc. and by Word Perfect Application Group, Colbourn said.
The court is expected to deliver its decision on damages in early November, Colbourn said.
She was unable to give the amount of damages the three companies demanded but said it is substantial.
Ju Ren was found to have given customers their choice of software with every purchase of a personal computer since at least the second half of 1993, the Economic Information Daily said.
“The software was all duplicated by [Ju Ren] in violation of China’s copyright law and its clause on computer software protection,” the Economic Information Daily quoted Business Software Alliance lawyers as telling the court.
Ju Ren’s lawyers told the court their salespeople were tricked into giving away the unlicensed software, the paper said.
The plaintiffs demanded damages calculated on the retail price of the software and possible punitive damages since Ju Ren was charged with continuing its giveaways after the case was filed, Colbourn said.
“This is a very big company engaged in this activity for a long time,” she said.
Colbourn said Microsoft was not as interested in damages as in fighting piracy in China. She said the company may soon file similar cases in five other Chinese cities.
