One of the flaws with antitrust law is that once a monopoly is allowed to reach a certain critical mass, it becomes immune to antitrust laws. MS is well beyond that level. Antitrust laws simply do not apply to it. The only thing that can be done is to break up monopolies before they reach this critical mass. Whatever this judge may say tomorrow is irrelevant and will not affect MS in the slightest way. The government will win the "war on drugs" before it will ever be able to break up Microsoft.
If you read PanIP's initial complaint setting forth the "grounds" for its lawsuit, it is pretty clear that all the allegations are mere conclusory statements. "Defendant is infringing on our patent #whatever and continues to do so."... stuff like that does not give adequate notice per Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 8(a)(2). Just saying "you're infringing my patent #1234567" isn't enough. Gotta give some minimal explanation as to how they are infringing your patent.
Check out Gen-Probe, Inc. v. Amoco Corp., Inc., 926 F.Supp. 948 S.D.Cal., 1996 for a good description on this vis a vis patent infringement suits. California federal court, no less.
Keep in mind that the patent office is the second most profitable government organization, right behind the IRS. They are in the business of selling patents. For them to say "no, we're not gonna grant you a patent for that because that's a load of bullshit" is like Walmart kicking out customers because they aren't well-dressed enough to shop there.
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One of the flaws with antitrust law is that once a monopoly is allowed to reach a certain critical mass, it becomes immune to antitrust laws. MS is well beyond that level. Antitrust laws simply do not apply to it. The only thing that can be done is to break up monopolies before they reach this critical mass. Whatever this judge may say tomorrow is irrelevant and will not affect MS in the slightest way. The government will win the "war on drugs" before it will ever be able to break up Microsoft.
If you read PanIP's initial complaint setting forth the "grounds" for its lawsuit, it is pretty clear that all the allegations are mere conclusory statements. "Defendant is infringing on our patent #whatever and continues to do so." ... stuff like that does not give adequate notice per Federal Rules of Civil Procedure Rule 8(a)(2). Just saying "you're infringing my patent #1234567" isn't enough. Gotta give some minimal explanation as to how they are infringing your patent.
Check out Gen-Probe, Inc. v. Amoco Corp., Inc., 926 F.Supp. 948 S.D.Cal., 1996 for a good description on this vis a vis patent infringement suits. California federal court, no less.
Keep in mind that the patent office is the second most profitable government organization, right behind the IRS. They are in the business of selling patents. For them to say "no, we're not gonna grant you a patent for that because that's a load of bullshit" is like Walmart kicking out customers because they aren't well-dressed enough to shop there.