The Hindu Business Line : Microsoft to expand legal team here to combat piracy

INDIA faces the challenge of converting the large IQ (intelligence quotient) of its human resources into IP (intellectual property) with a focus on products, and not just services.

This will help the country garner a bigger chunk of the global market. However, for any company to win market overseas, its products must first make a mark locally, according to the Senior Vice-President and General Counsel for Microsoft Corporation, Mr Bradford L. Smith.

Answering Business Line queries, Mr Smith said, "With piracy ranging from anywhere between 21 per cent in the US and 73 plus per cent in India, the legal team at Microsoft Corporation is fully engaged addressing this complexity from a large corporation, functioning in 100-plus countries. Copy culture is a problem area."

"From the corporation's perspective, about 350 lawyers, who are part of a support team of 900-para legal staff, and assisted by 400 law firms worldwide help address issues relating to 102 subsidiaries across the world. We see India as a major market and expect to expand the legal team," he explained.

"It is challenge to tackle legal issues, protecting IP and addressing anti-trust issues brought up against Microsoft. Typically, local partners support the legal team at Microsoft headquarters. It is not easy to understand local issues unless we have partners, since every country has its own set of laws. Even in the US, we are articulating a case to bring reforms in the US patent regime," he said.

With regard to proprietary software versus open source, Mr Smith said, "Both will co-exist, we need to learn from one another. Till about a year ago, we used to compete with Sun in all aspects, we now work together on some areas."

Just look at a situation about 15 years ago. Spain was called a single-disk country. This meant that once a original CD entered Spain, it would be replicated. There won't be any further sale. This was the magnitude of piracy. This had changed, he said.

Referring to IP, Mr Smith said, "As a company, Microsoft is open to new ideas and learns from competitors too. Therefore, partnering brings down litigations. The other issue is to create products that are interoperable."

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Microsoft to expand legal team here to combat piracy