Microsoft Trial Sent Back To Lower Court 294
nexex writes: "FoxNews is reporting that as expected, a federal appeals court sent Microsoft Corp.'s antitrust case Friday back to a lower court to determine what penalty should be imposed on the software giant. "Microsoft has failed to demonstrate any substantial harm that would result from the reactivation of proceedings in the district court," the appeals court ruled. "It appears that Microsoft has misconstrued our opinion, particularly with respect to what would have been required to justify vacating the district court's findings of fact and conclusions of law," the court wrote." Well, now we get to hear about Kollar-Kotelly instead of Jackson. Yay.
Clarification (Score:3, Informative)
While the /. article is factually correct, it missed the main point of the action today. The big thing that happened today is that they selected the judge (Kollar-Kotelly) who will be re-hearing the penalty phase. Kollar-Kotelly is a Clinton appointee. There's a biography of her here [uscourts.gov], but it doesn't tell much about her politics. Anyone know what her attitude is likely to be?
Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly (Score:4, Informative)
Obviously the most important fact about this announcement is that we have a new (and hopefuly more competent) judge involved.
First the good news, Judge Kollar-Kotelly [uscourts.gov] has worked as an attorney for the Department of Justice before and should therefore be sympathetic to the limited resources available to them compared to the big money behind Microsoft.
More good news, she's decided against the Big Banks before and in favour of the credit unions in one of her previous decisions [house.gov].
She also appears to have seen through the foolishness of some patents in another one of her judgements [google.com], this time against the pharmaceutical giant Bristol-Myers Squibb.
Anyone have any other pertinent info?
now we get to hear about Kollar-Kotelly (Score:5, Informative)
- Siding with Credit Unions on allowing them an expansive definition of who can qualify as a CU member in a civil decision against the American Bankers Association.
- Deciding that the FDA can regulate/label GM foods just like any other food additive. Not likely to make the Greens happy, but a reasonable, consumer/regulatory friendly decision. And,
- Finding against the CIA in FOIA suit brought by the National Security Archive, requesting bios the CIA prepared on Communist leaders. This was aparently the first decision that didn't uphold a doctrine held by the CIA that they didn't have to release documents if it they claimed to neither confirm nor deny the very existence of the documents, however, it was on a technicality that the CIA in fact already acknowledged the documents existed [gwu.edu]
Trying to find anything related to a previous antitrust decision was basically fruitless, though she aparently was the presiding judge that signed off on an agreement between the DoJ AntiTrust division and Fox Television.Preliminary injunction may stop it (Score:4, Informative)
DoJ can ask the judge for a preliminary injunction against XP, that is, an injunction that is issued *before* the trial. The judge will do it if 1) he/she thinks that there is high likelihood that he/she will come to the same conclusion after the trial, and 2) the plaintiff can demonstrate irreparable harm if the injunction is not issued immediately. In this case it's easy: MS is arrogantly using the same anti-competitive tactics they were sued for, and if injunction is not issued before XP is out, it will be too late.
Microsoft is well aware of that. This is why they are trying very hard to delay the case and push forwrard the release of XP. First they re-appealed to the appeals court (The Register had a funny title for this "Microsoft asks the court to find it a little bit not guiltier"
Two questions remain: will DoJ ask for preliminary injunction against XP? (so far they have given several indications that they will). Will the judge grant it? That remains to be seen....
Re:NOT old news (Score:3, Informative)