Microsoft loses antitrust appeal
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Microsoft Corp. , bowing to a court order sending shock waves through the personal computer industry, is readying an alternative version of its Windows operating system for the European market that's stripped of its media player for music and video.
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Microsoft Corp. failed Monday in its bid to overturn a European Commission antitrust ruling against it, when the European Union's second highest court dismissed the company's appeal and ordered it to pay the bulk of the Commission's legal expenses.
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Microsoft has decided not to appeal&#160;last month&#39;s appeal ruling&#160;against it from the Court of First Instance (CFI) and has finally&#160;agreed to comply&#160;with the European Commission&#39;s&#160;2004 antitrust ruling&#160;that sparked the company&#39;s appeal.
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A European court today upheld a record $689 million antitrust fine against Microsoft, another in a string of defeats for the company's business practices and one which narrows the options in its decade-long battle with continental regulators.
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Microsoft has lost its appeal to delay a fine and anti-competitive penalties set by the European Commission.
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Microsoft Corp. said on Monday it had  decided not to appeal a December ruling by a European Union  court ordering it to immediately implement EU antitrust  sanctions imposed last March.
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The European Commission won an appeals court challenge from MicrosoftÂ on Monday, but its 2004 antitrust decision has done little to change the competitive landscape for media players in Europe.
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MicrosoftÂ has filed an appeal against the latest antitrust fine imposed on it by the European Commission, a Microsoft spokesman said on Tuesday.
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WASHINGTON - An appeals court should throw out a half-billion-dollar patent infringement judgment against Microsoft Corp. because a lower court failed to recognize that the Web browsing patent was based on a technology that was not invented by the company awarded the money, a Microsoft lawyer argued Thursday.
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Microsoft lost a major appeal Wednesday when a European court ruled that the world&#39;s largest software company must comply with sanctions imposed by regulators and strip features from its Windows product.
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft suffered a humiliating legal defeat Monday when it lost a court appealÂ to overturn the European Commission's 2004 antitrust ruling against it. The decision took most observers by surprise. The Court of First Instance, Europe's second highest court based in Luxembourg, sided squarely with Europe's top antitrust regulator on the two central issues in the case. Most commentators expected a mixed verdict. While the details of the lengthy court decision are still being examined in their minutiae, some consequences are already clear: The ruling pulls a legal rug from under Microsoft's strategy of bundling software onto its Windows operating system, providing a powerful legal reference point for any future antitrust litigation against the company, and it strengthens the Commission's authority, especially when dealing with antitrust abuse in the fast-moving information technology industry. The Commission was right to rule against Microsoft's strategy of bundling its Media Player application into the Windows operating system, the court concluded, after three years deliberation. Similarly, Microsoft acted illegally by refusing to share the required interoperability information needed by rivals to build server operating systems that work smoothly with Windows, the court said. Microsoft's most senior lawyer, Brad Smith said the court decision was "disappointing." He hasn't decided whether to appeal it to the top court, the Court of Justice. If Microsoft does this, it can only dispute points of law, not facts established in Monday's ruling. Smith said Monday's court ruling has important implications for Microsoft's strategy of bundling together a range of applications with the Windows operating system. This strategy has proved effective in the past. Microsoft eclipsed Netscape in the mid 1990s when it bundled in its Internet Explorer application into the operating system. And RealPlayer dominated the market for streaming media applications until Microsoft started bundling its Media Player into Windows in 1999. The Commission initially hoped to save RealPlayer from Netscape's fate by ordering Microsoft in 2004 to sell a second unbundled version of Windows, but it was too late. The market had tipped irreversibly in favor of Microsoft even before the 2004 ruling. The Commission's remedy to restore competition to the streaming media software market in 2004 was to order Microsoft to sell a second version, later dubbed Windows N, with Media Player stripped out. But the remedy has had no impact on the market. Nevertheless, winning the bundling argument in court was the most important victory of the day for the Commission, and for other companies that believe they suffered from Microsoft's unfair bundling strategy, according to Commission officials and lawyers following the case. "This is an important precedent, not just for this particular product on this particular market," said Competition commissioner Neelie Kroes at a press conference Monday. There isn't a queue of complainants lined up, she said, but she added that "they are welcome." Thomas Vinje, legal counsel for the European Committee for Interoperable Systems, (ECIS) a Commission ally in the case, said the Commission's authority to regulate competition in the IT industry has been strengthened by the court ruling. "It has strengthened their hand," he said, adding that he will encourage the Commission to move swiftly ahead with the antitrust complaint ECIS filed to the European regulator two years ago. However, he dismissed claims made during the day that the ruling would be a threat for all successful companies. "The Microsoft case is very rare in that it concerns a super-dominant company," he said. "The Commission may be emboldened by the endorsement of the court to take action against other companies in the IT industry -- There may be issues to be addressed concerningÂ Google's dominance of search, or with its plans to take over DoubleClick, but they bear little resemblance to the specific issues in the Microsoft case. The only real implications from the Microsoft case are for Microsoft itself," he added.
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Microsoft  suffered a decisive  antitrust defeat on Monday when a European Union court upheld a  landmark ruling that the world's largest software maker had  abused its dominant market position to crush rivals.
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A European court has upheld the bulk of an antitrust ruling against Microsoft Corp. made by the European Commission in 2004
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The antitrust sanctions imposed by the European Commission against Microsoft were upheld by a senior European judge on Wednesday, dealing a further blow to the US software giant in its long-running feud with the Brussels regulator.
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US software giant Microsoft on Wednesday said it has withdrawn its two remaining appeals from European courts, after throwing in the towel in a long-running competition row with the European Commission.
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Airbus has withdrawn its challenge to a European Union antitrust ruling against Microsoft Corp. only days after the aircraft maker's intervention became public, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing unnamed sources.
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Europeâs second-highest court upheld today a 2004 antitrust ruling that found the software company had abused its dominance in operating systems.