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The decision of the EU Court of First Instance denying the application of PFF and others to intervene in the Microsoft affair is now available. (We are at paras 37-44.)
As noted last week, we have no serious complaint about the court's interpretation of its precedents on standing, but one comment in the opinion is deeply troublesome:
Whether the Court upholds the substance of the contested decision or whether it annuls it in whole or in part, [PFF] . . . will be fully able to continue to promote their theory that the existence of strong intellectual property rights in the information technology field promotes innovation and economic development.
The interest which . . . PFF claim[s] is in fact merely an indirect, and purely abstract and academic, interest. If Europeans think that the connection between IP and "innovation and economic development" is merely our "theory," and of only "abstract and academic interest," then that battered old continent is truly "devot[ed] to . . . 'stasis,' a controlled, uniform society that changes only with permission from some central authority."
posted by James DeLong @ 9:51 AM | International
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