The U.S. Supreme Court turned away a Microsoft Corp. appeal, refusing to stop a multibillion-dollar Novell Inc. lawsuit that accuses the world's largest software maker of undermining the market for the WordPerfect program.
The justices, without comment, today left intact a lower court decision that said Novell can sue Microsoft under federal antitrust law. Novell says Microsoft used the dominance of its Windows personal computer operating system to destroy the market for WordPerfect, the word processing program Novell owned during the mid-1990s.
The U.S. Supreme Court Monday rejected a plea from Microsoft Corp. (MSFT) to stop an antitrust lawsuit brought by Novell Inc. ( NOVL), which has sued over 1990s practices by Microsoft in the word processing and spreadsheet software markets.
Novell sued Microsoft in 2004 in a case that is related practices at the heart of the federal government's landmark antitrust settlement with the computer software giant. Novell sold WordPerfect and Quattro Pro - the software products at issue in the case - to Corel Corp. (CREL) in 1996.
It's a very quiet ending for one of the important antitrust cases in the history of the software industry, as justices were apparently satisfied that a decision in Novell's favor on the WordPerfect matter was justified.
The U.S. Supreme Court denies request by Microsoft to halt an antitrust suit that Novell filed against the company for anticompetitive behavior
The Supreme Court rejected an attempt today to throw out a claim by Novell that Microsoft tried to undermine the market for Novell's WordPerfect in the mid-90s.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday denied a Microsoft appeal to an antitrust case that dates back to Novell's desktop PC software business in the mid-1990s.