Bizbits

US court strikes down suit on Microsoft
NEW YORK: In a victory for Microsoft Corp, a federal appeals court Tuesday struck down a preliminary injunction against the software giant, a move that could have far-reaching effects on the government’s broader antitrust case against Microsoft.

A 1997 injunction issued by a US district court judge prevented Microsoft from forcing PC makers to include the Internet Explorer Web browser in the Windows 95 operating system. However, the US court of appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruled US district court Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson erred by granting the injunction even though the government had not asked for it.Moreover, the court said he should have provided more notice to Microsoft before issuing the injunction so the company could mount a defense."We find that the district court erred procedurally in entering a preliminary injunction without notice to Microsoft and substantively in its implicit construction of the consent decree on which the preliminary injunction rested," two of the three appellate court judges said in their majority opinion.

Microsoft hailed the decision, saying the company was "obviously gratified" with the court’s decision. Microsoft’s general counsel William Neukom said the appellate court’s ruling validated Microsoft’s arguments that it has the right to integrate what it wants into its products and that it could have far-reaching implications in its current antitrust suit against the government.