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Microsoft Wins WordPerfect Antitrust Battle With Novell

Posted by Soulskill on from the raise-your-hand-if-you-even-remember-wordperfect dept.

New submitter Psychotic_Wrath writes "After a long, drawn-out legal battle and a hung jury, a federal judge has dismissed Novell's antitrust case against Microsoft. The case involved allegations from Novell that Microsoft removed code from its Windows 95 operating system which created the need for further development to WordPerfect. Novell says this delayed the release of their product, giving Microsoft Word an unfair advantage. Groklaw has a detailed write-up on the decision."

4 of 124 comments (clear)

  1. RIGHT - Microsoft wins corrupt judge. Appeal next. by gavron · · Score: 5, Informative

    OP is right.

    Judge Motz (who flew out of his district to run this court) ignored an 11:1 "hung jury"
    and voted to say no jury could find against Microsoft. He's already once been handed
    his case back on appeal because he's too pro-Microsoft.

    There is no excuse to allow a JMOL (Judgment as a Matter of Law) -- implying no
    reasonable jury would find for Microsoft -- when the jury was 11 to 1 in favor of
    finding Microsoft guilty. This too will be returned to trial by the appeals court.

    There's no excuse for the article to be on slashdot. It's entire "summary" is biased
    and incorrect. The editors who approved it have no knowledge of facts. The
    moderators who modded down the parent are clearly part of Microsoft's encouragement
    of its staff to "read" slashdot (troll on articles) in the hopes they can mod down
    disparaging articles.

    Judge Motz is biased; he has flown from outside his district to judge this case; he
    has been overruled on appeal ON THIS CASE before. It will happen again. All but
    that last comment are facts.

    See http://www.groklaw.net./

    Ehud

  2. Groklaw provides FACTS. by gavron · · Score: 5, Informative

    Groklaw provides the rulings in PDF and text form. Whether they have a bias or not,
    the rulings are shown as is.

    In the instant case the jury was eleven to one against Microsoft. Judge Motz -- who
    flew in to handle this case from outside his district (!?!) -- ruled afteward that no reasonable
    jury would have found for Novell and against Microsoft.

    He has already been overturned on appeal once. He will be overturned again.
    Microsoft shils notwithstanding (they pay people to say Microsoft-does-no-evil on /.
    and other places), they will be found guilty.

    It may not be relevant to much nowadays, seeing as Windows 95, Wordperfect, etc.
    are all obsolete irrelevant things, but it's part of the legal process. Just like we don't
    excuse rape because "Well it happened to you ten years ago" the same is true of
    anticompetitive unlawful actions.

    Sorry, Microsoft Fanbois, time to man up and quit modding everything you don't like
    down. The truth is out there, and it will be set free. The Internet views censorship
    as damage and routes around it (--Gilmore). The same is true for biased modding
    and shil posting.

    Ehud
    Tucson AZ US

    1. Re:Groklaw provides FACTS. by postbigbang · · Score: 5, Informative

      You may be entitled to your opinions, but you're not entitled to your facts. Fanboi-ism aside, a jury voted 11-1 in favor of Novell's claims, a verdict that was overturned by a judge.

      The same judge had ruled in similar ways for Microsoft, and had been overturned on appeal.

      What part of the facts are you unclear about?

      --
      ---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
  3. Re:RIGHT - Microsoft wins corrupt judge. Appeal ne by Chrisq · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This case is irrelevant.

    Windows 95 is history.

    No this case is relevant because WordPerfect is history.