Microsoft using WTO for enforcement

This is an interesting article about the tactics that may be used by Microsoft against Free Software. The author seems to be arguing that Free Software infringes several patents held by Microsoft, so that they may try to use the WTO’s enforcement mechanisms to attack countries that use Free Software.

However, the article seems to suffer from a deep misunderstanding of what the WTO’s enforcement mechanism actually does. A movement cannot be taken for patent infringement, it is more of a process where a country itself goes against the rules set in TRIPs. It also seems to fail to understand that most countries in the world do not recognise software patents, so how can you take to the WTO a conflict that is not covered by the TRIPs agreement? Besides, as far as TRIPs is concerned, software is protected by copyright.