BOSNIA: MICROSOFT AND PM SPIRIC SIGN STRATEGIC

UNCLAS SARAJEVO 001879 SIPDIS COMMERCE FOR 4232/ITA/MAC/EUR (BURGESS AND SAVICH) DEPARTMENT PLEASE PASS TO USTR (MORROW, YANG) DEPARTMENT FOR EUR/SCE, EEB/IPE, EUR/PPD (HANNAN), EUR/PPD-PA,IIP/S TREASURY FOR LINDQUIST COMMERCE PLEASE PASS TO MCCAFFREY AND SMITH AT USPTO JUSTICE FOR CARL ALEXANDRE MOSCOW FOR REGIONAL IPR ATTACHE E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: ECIN KIPR BK SUBJECT: BOSNIA: MICROSOFT AND PM SPIRIC SIGN STRATEGIC PARTNERSHIP AGREEMENT REF: SARAJEVO 1351 ¶1. On December 18, the BiH Council of Ministers and Microsoft finally signed a Strategic Partnership Agreement for access to legal Microsoft applications for all state-level government ministries. Prime Minister Nikola Spiric signed the agreement on behalf of the BiH Government. The agreement obligates the BiH Government to use licensed software, but is only the first step in strengthening the state government's intellectual property regime. Microsoft will now begin negotiations with BiH to purchase licenses for the software applications under the state's purview. This marks a huge success for the U.S. Embassy, which has been working with state-level officials for three years to push for action to ban pirated and unlicensed software from ministry offices. (Note: Federation and RS-entity governments signed separate strategic partnership agreements with Microsoft in 2006. End note.) ENGLISH