Microsoft once again petitioned the US Supreme Court yesterday, asking the court to hear the appeal of its antitrust case. The company wants the Supreme Court to throw out Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's verdict against it, in which he ruled that Microsoft is a monopoly that has maintained and extended its power through illegal means. Microsoft noted that Jackson seemed to be biased against the company and cited the judge's frequent disparaging remarks in court and during interviews with reporters before the case closed.
"\[Jackson's\] violations here were so profound that it is difficult to imagine a case in which a new trial would be more appropriate," the company wrote in a filing issued yesterday. Microsoft noted that it would have preferred to delay the filing out of respect for the victims of this week's national tragedy, but that a court-ordered deadline forced the company to issue the filing to make it part of the record.
Microsoft's insistence that it isn't a monopoly comes only a week after the US government dropped the product-tying charges at the center of the case and decided not to seek a breakup of the company. Legal experts doubt that the Supreme Court--which doesn't reconvene until October--will elect to hear Microsoft's appeal.
