Stories by: Simon Taylor

Opponents of attempts to allow software to be patented in the European Union warned Monday that new consultations on an E.U.-wide general patent could be used to reintroduce software patents through the back door.

Some of Microsoft's biggest rivals lodged a new complaint with the European Commission Wednesday over its Office applications suite and other, upcoming products, arguing that the company's business practices are shutting out competitors.

Sex.eu was the most sought after domain name using the European Union's own TLD (top-level domain) on the opening day for registrations. According to data supplied by EURid, the body responsible for registering .eu domain names, sex.eu received the highest number of applications.

The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) has asked to be allowed to make arguments against Microsoft in part of its appeal against last year's antitrust ruling against it by the European Union's competition authority, the European Commission, an FSFE attorney said Thursday.

Thirteen software and telecommunications companies are launching a consortium to work together to develop new software and services based on open standards.