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"Following a trial of preliminary issues at the Competition Appeal Tribunal on 9th & 10th September, Judgment was handed down on 12th November with a unanimous decision in favour of the Claimants, JJH Enterprises Limited (trading as ValueLicensing) against Microsoft."

"A software reseller overcame its first hurdle in itsbid to claim £270 million ($355 million) from Microsoft, with a tribunal rejecting Microsoft's argument'sthat resellers do not have the right to sell on products they have licensed from the tech giant."

"Microsoft has failed to persuade the UK’s specialized competition court that ValueLicensing breached copyright rules through its bulk resale of the tech giant’s software licenses. Four years ago JJH Enterprises, trading as ValueLicensing, filed a lawsuit after it said Microsoft had broken UK and EU competition rules through customer deals that stifled the supply and resale of pre-owned licenses for, primarily, its best-selling Windows operating system and the Office productivity suite."

"The CAT ruled in favour of VL on both issues, determining that contractual terms do not restrict exhaustion and that the non-program elements relied upon by Microsoft were ancillary or incidental to the primary computer program, thus not preventing the exhaustion of rights in all elements of the software upon first sale."

Microsoft has failed in its attempt to use copyright and intellectual property law to fend off a £270 million standalone abuse of dominance claim before the UK’s Competition Appeal Tribunal.