UNCLAS SARAJEVO 001879
SIPDIS
COMMERCE FOR 4232/ITA/MAC/EUR (BURGESS AND SAVICH)
DEPARTMENT PLEASE PASS TO USTR (MORROW, YANG)
DEPARTMENT FOR EUR/SCE, EEB/IPE, EUR/PPD (HANNAN),
EUR/PPD-PA,IIP/S
TREASURY FOR LINDQUIST
COMMERCE PLEASE PASS TO MCCAFFREY AND SMITH AT USPTO
JUSTICE FOR CARL ALEXANDRE
MOSCOW FOR REGIONAL IPR ATTACHEE.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: ECIN KIPR BK
SUBJECT: BOSNIA: MICROSOFT AND PM SPIRIC SIGN STRATEGIC
PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENTREF: SARAJEVO 1351
¶1. On December 18, the BiH Council of Ministers and Microsoft finally signed a Strategic Partnership Agreement for access to legal Microsoft applications for all state-level government ministries. Prime Minister Nikola Spiric signed
the agreement on behalf of the BiH Government. The agreement
obligates the BiH Government to use licensed software, but is
only the first step in strengthening the state government’s
intellectual property regime. Microsoft will now begin
negotiations with BiH to purchase licenses for the software
applications under the state’s purview. This marks a huge success for the U.S. Embassy, which has been working with state-level officials for three years to push for action to ban pirated and unlicensed software from ministry offices.
(Note: Federation and RS-entity governments signed separate
strategic partnership agreements with Microsoft in 2006. End
note.)
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WikiLeaks certainly deserves the Nobel Peace Prize a lot more than BHO did. I mean, there are a LOT of people on Earth who are not George W. Bush.
I don’t get the issue here. Seems to me that various federal agents were working to support intellectual property rights of US corporations. Assuming Bosnia and Herzegovenia has little or no established ability or interest in enforcing copyright due to its recent history, it seems to me to be a very appropriate matter for the State Department to deal with.
“Microsoft will now begin
negotiations with BiH to purchase licenses for the software
applications under the state’s purview.”
I doubt Microsoft is brokering non MS software or OpenSource software.
Really Greg? A State Department memo REPORTS on negotiations between a corporation and a nation on an issue of interest to U.S. interests and now ” US Government Agents = Microsoft Sales Staff” Sometime you shoot your credibility in the foot.
Indeed Greg, I too doubt that Microsoft’s shareholders would look kindly on Microsoft brokering their competitor’s software. That, however, is not the issue you raised.
State Department officials working with newly established foreign governments to create a culture of respect for intellectual property rights seems to me to be exactly the sort of thing the State Department is for. Nowhere in this report do I see any support for your claim that federal employees acted as Microsoft salesmen.