The Dubious Search for Integration in the Microsoft Trial
![handle is hein.journals/conlr31 and id is 1261 raw text is: The Dubious Search for Integration
in the Microsoft Trial
WILLIAM H. PAGE' & JOHN E. LOPATKA
I. INTRODUCTION
The Microsoft litigation has focused on whether Microsoft's Web
browser, Internet Explorer (JE), is integrated with its operating system,
Windows 98. The government contends that the combination of IE 4 and
Windows 98 is a predatory act designed to exclude Netscape Navigator,
IE's competitor in the browser market, and ultimately to protect Micro-
soft's operating system monopoly from the threat that Netscape's browser
would become a competing platform.' Microsoft's claim of integration is
one of its defenses to the charge of illegal exclusion.
The dispute over integration arose initially in the government's 1997
suit? to enforce a provision in an earlier consent decree that prohibited
Microsoft from tying products to Windows, but specifically permitted it to
develop integrated products.4 In June of 1998, the D.C. Circuit reversed
the district court's preliminary injunction that had required Microsoft to
permit OEMs to remove Internet Explorer functionality from Windows
* .1. Will Young Professor of Law, Mississippi College School of Law.
** Alumni Professor of Lav, University of South Carolina School of Lm.
1. See Complaint 6-12, 113-23, United States v. Microsoft Corp., No. 98-1232 (D.D.C. filed
May 18, 1998), available at Department of Jusice Antitrust Division (visited Apr. 21, 1999) <http.//
www.usdoj.govlatrlcaseslfl700lI763.htm> [hereinafter Complaint].
2. See Defendant Microsoft Corp.'s Answer U 20, 109, 115-16, United States v. Microsoft
Corp., No. 98-1232 (D.D.C. filed May 18, 1998), available at Microsoft PressPass (visited Apr. 21,
1999) <http.//www.microsoft.com/presspass/ dojl-28answerdoj.htm> [hereinafter Answer]; Setting
the Record Straight: Microsoft Statement on Government Lawsuit (Oct. 13, 1998), available at Mi-
crosoft PressPass (visited Apr. 21, 1999) <httpJ/www.microsofL.comlpresspassldoj/10-13record.
htm>.
3. See Division Accuses Microsoft of Violating 1995 Decree, Seeks $1 Million a Day Fine, Anti-
trust& Trade Reg. Rep. (BNA) No. 1833, at 385 (Oct. 23, 1997).
4. The consent decree and the relevant provision, Section IV(E)(i), are reported at United States
v. Microsoft Corp., No 94-1564, 1995 WL 505998, at *3 (D.D.C. Aug. 21, 1995).](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/conlr31&div=42&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
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The Dubious Search for Integration in the Microsoft Trial
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