Microsoft plans to work more closely with publishers on the development of a new technological standard, called the Automated Content Access Protocol, that would give them more control over what happens to their material after it has been referenced by search engines like Microsoft's Live Search, Google and Yahoo.

In a move to redefine the often testy relationship between online publishers and search engines, Microsoft plans to help European media owners protect and profit from copyrighted material online, the company's top intellectual property lawyer, Thomas Rubin, said Wednesday.

Rubin said Microsoft planned to work more closely with publishers on the development of a new technological standard that would give them more control over what happens to their material after it has been referenced by search engines like Microsoft's Live Search, Google and Yahoo.

The standard, called the Automated Content Access Protocol, "has the potential to be an important element of more vibrant business models for publishers in the future," Rubin said, in the text of a speech prepared for delivery Thursday in London.

His comments, while stopping short of a full embrace, are the strongest endorsement of the new standards by any of the major search engines, which follow fierce clashes between Google and publishers over copyright issues.

The Automated Content Access Protocol was introduced a year ago, and is supported by hundreds of publishers, said Angela Mills Wade, executive director of the European Publishers Council.

So far, though, no major search engines have adopted the system. Instead, they use a 15-year-old program called robots.txt. To ensure that their articles turn up in searches, publishers also have to keep using robots.txt, which gives them little control over what happens to their material after it has been released on the Internet.

Rubin said adoption of the new protocol could encourage publishers to make additional information available in digital form. Some newspaper publishers, for instance, have been reluctant to open their archives online.

Complicating the battles between search engines and copyright owners is a disagreement over how best to profit from the rise of the Internet. Some newspaper publishers, for instance, try to make it as easy as possible for search engines to find their articles in an effort to attract more Web traffic and to sell more online advertising.

Critics of the Automated Content Access Protocol have compared it to the "digital rights management" systems imposed on some online music services, saying such restrictions inhibit the development of Internet business models.

But Rubin said the practice of offering virtually unrestricted, free access to newspapers online had its limits because Internet ad revenue has not made up for a loss of readers and advertising in print versions of papers.

"The newspaper industry has tried free for a decade and it hasn't worked," Rubin said in an interview before his speech to the Association of Online Publishers in London.

But Google has been unenthusiastic about the new protocol.

"We encourage initiatives that aim to help search engines and Web publishers work better together, but it's important that such initiatives work for the entire Web -- meaning millions of Web publishers, not just the needs of a small minority," Google said.

Among other things, Google is concerned that under the new protocol, publishers would have control over what snippets of text appeared in Google searches, allowing spammers to abuse the system.