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ARTICLE · 08 MARCH 2013

Dismissal Of Microsoft Complaint Raises Software Licensing Fears

Dannemann Siemsen
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Microsoft filed a court action against Frigorífico Tamoyo Ltda alleging, among other things, that Tamoyo was overusing its Windows 3.1 operating system.

BrazilIntellectual Property
Mauro Ivan Ribeiro Dos Santos
Mauro Ivan Ribeiro Dos Santos

The Third Panel of the Court of Appeals of the State of Minas Gerais has ruled (Appeal 447.858-4) that the use of a computer program in a company's internal computer network system does not constitute copyright infringement.

Microsoft filed a court action against Frigorífico Tamoyo Ltda alleging, among other things, that Tamoyo was overusing its Windows 3.1 operating system. Tamoyo had purchased a licence to use one copy of this program. However, it then installed the program on its server and made it accessible to 28 other personal computers within the company.

Relying on Article 6(4) of the Brazilian Copyright Law (9.609/98), the judge held that this overuse did not amount to copyright infringement. Article 6 provides a number of fair-use exceptions to a titleholder's exclusive rights in a computer program, including where:

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