High court takes no action on Microsoft's appeal of a ruling that it violated antitrust laws; now a decision might not come until October.
WASHINGTON -- The US Supreme Court did not act on Microsoft's appeal when it issued its orders Friday, omitting any mention of whether or when it might hear the landmark antitrust case.
Outsiders had speculated that the court could make a decision when it issued the orders -- a kind of court schedule -- on Friday.
But no one outside the court knows when it will decide whether it will hear Microsoft's appeal of a ruling that the software giant violated America's antitrust laws or send the case back to a lower appeals court.
Now early October?
Although the high court could act at anytime on the case, based on its past actions, likely times are the week before it formally opens its new term on October 2, or on October 2 itself, experts said.
Sometimes, however, the court wants to give further consideration to cases that have piled up over the season and waits until one of the weeks after it convenes, the experts said.
But Friday had been one of the possible days.
The Justice Department wants the Supreme Court to take up Microsoft's appeal of a US District Court ruling in June that Microsoft broke the nation's antitrust laws.
But Microsoft has asked the Supreme Court to send its appeal back to a lower appellate court.
After appeals exhausted
A District Court judge found in June that Microsoft had used its monopoly power in personal computer operating systems to compete illegally, and said the software giant should be split in two to prevent future violations.
But the order, by District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson, takes effect only after all appeals are exhausted.
In the ordinary course of events, cases are heard by an appeals court and then either side may ask for the Supreme Court to hear the case.
But Judge Jackson, acting at the request of the Justice Department, certified the case directly to the Supreme Court under a law allowing major antitrust cases to bypass lower appeals courts.
The Justice Department told the high court in August that the case had "immense importance to our national economy," meeting the standard of the act, which provides for high court review of major government antitrust cases directly after decision by a trial court.
Fast action sought
"If this case does not qualify for direct review under the Expediting Act, it is difficult to imagine what future case would," argued the government, invoking the act for only the third time in 26 years.
But Microsoft asked the Supreme Court in July to let the case be heard first by the US Court of Appeals -- a court that ruled for the company in a related 1998 government-initiated antitrust case.
A panel of the Court of Appeals has already agreed to hear the case if it is remanded to them.
Microsoft argued that the appeal would entail "a morass of procedural and substantive issues that can be resolved only through a painstaking review of a lengthy and technologically complex trial record."
The Justice Department said that route would add a year or more to the appeals process.
The two sides have disagreed over what matters needed to be discussed.
