http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=716&e=3&u=/ap/20040630/ap_on_bi_ge/microsoft_antitrustCourt Approves Microsoft Deal With U.S.
By TED BRIDIS, AP Technology Writer
WASHINGTON - A U.S. appeals court on Wednesday approved the landmark antitrust settlement Microsoft Corp. negotiated with the Justice Department (news - web sites), setting aside objections by Massachusetts that sanctions in the agreement were inadequate against the world's largest software company.
In a significant victory for Microsoft and the Justice Department, the appeals court ruled that the settlement was in the public's interest. <snip>
The central question for the appeals court involved how much deference judges should show toward the settlement negotiated by the Bush administration and Microsoft lawyers. That agreement, approved in November 2002 by U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, was aimed at giving consumers more choices by, among other things, helping rivals develop competing software on computers running Windows. The provisions expire in 2007.
The trial judge and Justice Department lawyers have acknowledged that one of the disputed settlement's most important provisions — which compels Microsoft to license some of its technology to its rivals — is not working.