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The U.S. Department of Justice has issued an appellate court brief in the government's antitrust case against Microsoft, defending both U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's ruling and the judge himself.

"The government proved at trial that Microsoft had engaged in a broad pattern of anticompetitive conduct to eradicate a developing threat to its monopoly power in its core business--personal computer operating systems--and that Microsoft's conduct harmed consumers," states the brief, released Friday to the U.S. Court of Appeals.

The Justice Department also addressed the issue of whether Judge Jackson's comments out of court, to the press, tainted the proceedings.

"Judge Jackson's out-of-court comments do not merit vacating the judgment or removing him from further proceedings," the brief says.

Appeal Is Under Way

In a brief filed with the same court in November, Microsoft blasts the lower court's decision in the government's antitrust case. The company asserts Judge Jackson's ruling to break up the software giant was based on a misunderstanding of antitrust issues.

The company argues in the brief that because of a variety of factual, legal, and procedural errors, the ruling should be reversed. Microsoft says the ruling would harm--rather than encourage--innovation. The Microsoft brief also argues that the judge's comments out of court show he is biased against the company. Since the November brief by Microsoft, Judge Jackson has continued to publicly comment, most recently in the New Yorker.

Judge Jackson ruled on June 7 that Microsoft has used its dominance in operating systems to quash competition. Adopting the proposal of U.S. Department of Justice prosecutors, he ruled Microsoft must be broken up into two separate companies.

One company would own the Windows operating system--subject to conduct restrictions--while the other would own applications, including the Microsoft Office suite of software applications and the Internet Explorer Web browser. Jackson's final judgment stayed the breakup until the end of the appeals process.

The two sides are set to present oral arguments to the appeals court in February.

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