Use of pirated software paid 1.72 million damages in Qingdao

Shandong Higher People's Court recently made a final verdict against Qingdao Ultimate Transportation Equipment Co, Ltd. (Ultimate Co) for unauthorized installation and use of computer software. The court allowed Ultimate Co to withdraw its appeal and maintained the lower court’s decision, in which Ultimate Co was ordered to stop infringement, delete pirated software, and pay a compensation totaling 1.72 million yuan to Microsoft, Parametric Technology Corp and Autodesk. So far, this verdict records the highest financial penalty among China's foreign-related copyright infringement cases related to end-user software piracy, reflecting the trend that organizational end-user software piracy could trigger stringent legal penalties in the future.

Earlier, upon the complaint from software proprietors such as Autodesk and Microsoft, Qingdao Municipality Copyright Administration conducted an enforcement action in the premises of Ultimate Co in December 2005. Among those computers randomly chosen for inspection, nine sets of Windows, nine sets of Office, eight sets of PTC Pro/E Wildfire, 14 sets of AutoCAD software were found in installation. It was confirmed that these software had been illegally installed without licenses from Microsoft, Parametric Technology Corp and Autodesk.