NIZHNY NOVGOROD, March 27 (RIA Novosti) - A court in the Urals Mountains region overturned Tuesday a lower court ruling to drop copyright violation charges against a school principal who purchased pirated software for the school.
Alexander Ponosov, a school principal in a small town in the Perm Region, was charged last year after he bought a set of computers for his school containing unlicensed Microsoft software. He has maintained his innocence throughout the proceedings, saying he was unaware that the Windows software on the PCs was counterfeit.
The court in the regional center of Perm thereby upheld prosecutors' appeal and ruled the case be returned for retrial. Ponosov allegedly caused the multinational corporation damage worth 266,000 rubles ($10,200) and faces up to five years in prison if convicted.
The presiding judge, Vera Barakina, ordered February 15 the case be dropped as petty and insignificant. But the prosecution said the judge should have delivered a guilty or not guilty verdict.
Microsoft Russia Chairwoman Olga Dergunova said earlier the corporation had not filed any lawsuit against the Russian teacher, echoing earlier statements from Microsoft executives and former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who described the case as a "show trial."
Piracy had been a stumbling block in Russia's WTO accession talks with the United States until they reached an agreement in November, when Moscow promised a clampdown on intellectual property violations in the country, the second largest market for pirated material after China.
