As a part of the settlement and final judgment in its antitrust case with the Department of Justice (DOJ) and a number of State Attorneys General, Microsoft has made available for license elements of its Windows client/server intellectual property - called protocols - to other companies for use in their server products to interoperate with certain Windows clients. The Microsoft Communications Protocol Program (MCPP) was released in August 2002, and several companies have licensed various protocols since that time.
Since August, Microsoft has worked collaboratively with the DOJ, States and existing and prospective licensees to elicit feedback and to fine-tune its approach to making these protocols readily available to companies seeking to implement them in their products. Many of those changes have been implemented already. In the coming weeks, Microsoft will announce and implement an additional set of proposed changes that will further simplify entry to, and participation in, the program
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