Microsoft has pulled out of an international standards body because of concerns over control of intellectual property contributed to the group.

The United Nations Centre for Trade Facilitation and Electronic Business was created in 1996 to develop technology standards for facilitating trade globally and is comprise of governmental and industry organisations.

The group sponsors business standards like EDI and ebusiness XML (ebXML), but Microsoft's desire to control the patents that it creates appears to outweigh its desire to contribute to industry standards.

The company aims to significantly increase the amount of patents it produces from just more than 2,000 to over 3,000 next year.

In other news, EU competition regulators are expected to announce an investigation into plans by Microsoft and Time Warner to launch a joint venture into digital rights management (DRM) technology.

The two companies plan to work together to acquire ContentGuard, a US-based software provider that specialises in this field.

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