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Microsoft Asks Court for Limits on Antitrust Trial

Court is asked to disallow new claims from Justice Department.

By Elinor Mills, PCWorld   

The filing to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Wednesday argues that the lawsuit should be limited to the issue of Microsoft's inclusion of Internet Explorer browser technology in Windows 98 and its promotion and distribution of the operating system, which were the focus of the original lawsuit.

The lawsuit, filed in May of this year, alleges that Microsoft is using its dominance of the PC operating system market to control other markets, including the Internet, in violation of antitrust law. The lawsuit accused Microsoft of illegally tying its browser to its operating system, forcing exclusionary contracts on Internet service and content providers and independent software vendors, and restricting computer manufacturers from removing features from Windows 98 so customers could not use Netscape Communications' rival Web browser.

The new allegations, raised by the U.S. Department of Justice and 20 U.S. states in a court filing on Monday, are not only unrelated to the original lawsuit, but are subjects of either separate lawsuits or ongoing Justice Department investigations and therefore shouldn't be included in the lawsuit, Microsoft said.

Including the new claims would delay the antitrust trial scheduled to begin September 23 and require Microsoft to call more witnesses than the court limit, Microsoft said. If the court allows the Justice Department to raise the new allegations at trial, the trial should be delayed for at least six months and there should be no limit on the number of witnesses, Microsoft's filing added.

"Plaintiffs are seeking to head down a path that would either transform this case into an IBM-like 'kitchen sink' monstrosity, with a greatly expanded (and therefore necessarily delayed trial), or would deny Microsoft procedural due process by permitting plaintiffs to expand the scope of their claims without warning on the eve of trial," the filing said.

The Justice Department on Wednesday countered with a filing of its own arguing that the new claims are within the scope of the original antitrust case and asking the court to force Microsoft to provide documents requested by the Justice Department that are related to the claims. The Justice Department is seeking Microsoft database records related to the following: PC makers and Windows; meetings with PC makers involving Apple's QuickTime audio and video technology; meetings between specific executives and Intel over the course of several years; and meetings between specific Microsoft executives and Apple during the past several years.

Possible Pressure Points

The new allegations include:

• The software giant tried to bully Apple into stopping the marketing of QuickTime for Windows, which competes with Microsoft's NetShow product; and pressured Apple to stop supporting Netscape Navigator and Java technology.

• When Apple refused and Netscape rejected Microsoft's alleged offer to divide the browser market, Microsoft retaliated by making products that either were, or appeared to be, inoperable with their technology.

• Microsoft similarly retaliated against Caldera over its DR-DOS product, which posed a threat to Microsoft's MS-DOS.

• The company tried to force Intel to stop developing its native signal processing software that would allow Windows 3.1 users to process audio and video data in real-time, and pressured Intel to stop developing applications in Java.

• Microsoft pressured RealNetworks to halt development of its streaming audio and video software and not share its technology with Microsoft rivals;

• In addition, it used its power to intimidate customers and distributors in general not to adopt or support Netscape's browser or Java, or Sun Microsystems' Java, but to support Microsoft's browser and Java tools.

• Finally, it succeeded in getting finance software maker Intuit to agree not to support Netscape's technology.

Microsoft responded that these allegations are outside the scope of the case, and in some instances part of a separate probe or of other lawsuits. Microsoft spokesperson Tom Pilla accused the Justice Department of trying to delay the case "by adding a wide range of unrelated issues at the last minute."

Oral argument in the case are scheduled for September 11, Microsoft said in its filing. Representatives at the Justice Department could not immediately be reached to comment on Microsoft's Wednesday filing.