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"...the Court of Appeal's judgment sketches some of the missing principles from UsedSoft, namely when a computer programme falls outside the bounds of a 'complex product' and whether subdivision is possible... the judgment uses the incidental feature test to preserve the balance between the Software Directive and Information Society Directive: this time, it was in favour of market and consumer interests."

While the Competition Appeal Tribunal has extended the stay of the main proceedings pending Microsoft's proposed appeal to the Supreme Court, it has allowed ValueLicensing's outstanding disclosure and confidentiality applications to continue. Those applications are expected to be considered at a further Case Management Conference in September, meaning the case continues to move forward despite the stay.

The path is now clear for preowned software reseller ValueLicensing’s market abuse case against Microsoft to go ahead.

The tech giant’s attempts to rely on copyright issues to escape a major abuse of dominance case has failed.

"Judgment was handed down by the Court of Appeal on 7th July in Microsoft’s appeal from two rulings of the Competition Appeal Tribunal (CAT) in JJH Enterprises Ltd v Microsoft Corp & Ors, where Matthew Lavy KC acted for the Respondent, JJH Enterprises (trading as ValueLicensing)."