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Technology Stocks : MSFT Internet Explorer vs. NSCP Navigator -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Harvey Allen who wrote (23810)	1/26/2000 11:22:00 AM
From: Daniel Schuh	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 24154

U.S. and 19 States Issue Stinging Reply to Microsoft nytimes.com Well, it looks like the prosecution wasn't much impressed by the Monty Python defense. I somewhat doubt if the judge was much impressed either, but that remains to be seen. Despite fresh signs that the plaintiffs have not yet agreed on what sanction to seek against Microsoft, they jointly issued a stinging and disdainful rebuttal yesterday to the company's legal arguments last week that it had not violated the nation's antitrust laws. In a 30-page document filed with Federal District Court in Washington, the Justice Department and 19 states suing the company characterized its arguments as a strained effort at knocking down legal "straw men" and an attempt to "apply to this case out-of-context passages from decisions involving patently different market circumstances." There may be a certain metaphorical similarity between Windows and Monty Python, but yes, it seems that there are patently different market circumstances involved. But it wouldn't be a Microsoft defense if there weren't humorous elements present. Meanwhile, the Register takes on the reply in greater detail. Oddly for the Register, I can't really find any funny bits in their story, they just bore into it. DoJ says MS guilty of monopolisation and exclusionary deals theregister.co.uk They don't get to the Monty Python angle till the end: Much of the DoJ's and the States' scorn at Microsoft's legal argument is reserved for Microsoft's arguments that it had a copyright defence to the restrictions it put on OEM licensing: "This argument is untenable". The Copyright Act was not intended to make it possible for Sherman Act constraints to be suppressed, and "as the Supreme Court has made clear, Congress 'has never accorded the copyright owner complete control over all possible uses of his work' but has instead limited the holder to those rights enumerated in the statute." Claiming that because IE and Windows were a single work because they were registered using the same form was perhaps Microsoft's most feeble argument: "The fact that a single copyright registration was employed for both Windows and Internet Explorer cannot support a claim that those two products are, for antitrust purposes or otherwise, one product. As the Copyright Office's regulations make clear, multiple copyrightable works may be registered on a single form, without thereby rendering them a single work. The number of distinct 'works' for purposes of the copyright law is determined not by the number of registration forms, but by the number of distinct copyrightable entities that are separately economically viable." The conclusion of the Reply was simple enough: "This Court should conclude that Microsoft has violated Sections 1and 2 of the Sherman Act and proceed to consider the appropriate remedy." Before that happens, Microsoft will be allowed to reply to the joint plaintiffs' Reply next week, and then have a day in court for legal argument on 22 February. We'll see what the Judge makes of this. Not that it matters, I'm sure Microsoft is poised and ready with the standard "the Judge is an idiot" defense after any ruling comes down. Then the most interesting part of the game will begin. Cheers, Dan.