Court rejects Microsoft's bid to kill case

Microsoft's request to dismiss the antitrust case being pursued against it by nine states and the District of Columbia was denied by a federal judge on Wednesday.

Microsoft had asked U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly to dismiss the case in part because the Justice Department and nine other states had separately settled with the software giant. The plaintiff states and the District of Columbia rejected that settlement and chose to continue litigation. But Microsoft pointed to jurisdictional issues, arguing that only the Justice Department should determine national antitrust policy, and that the litigating states were trying to usurp that power.

"The Court concludes that Microsoft's motion is without merit and must be denied," Kollar-Kotelly wrote. Besides rejecting Microsoft's arguments, the judge concluded a court of appeals had already dealt with the jurisdictional issue last year.

In the 35-page memorandum accompanying her order, Kollar-Kotelly also questioned whether the software giant had veiled a different argument as one about jurisdiction. Microsoft's arguments "cannot be couched in terms of jurisdiction and instead appear to raise issues relating to judgment on the (case's) merits," Kollar-Kotelly wrote.

"Microsoft made its jurisdictional argument on constitutional grounds, that the judge essentially didn't have the right to hear the case," said Rich Gray, a Menlo Park, Calif.-based attorney closely following the trial. "Clearly, the judge didn't buy into Microsoft's arguments on their merits."

News source: ZDNet