AP: Appeals court denies Microsoft request for rehearing. An appeals court refused on Thursday to reconsider its decision that Microsoft illegally mingled its Windows operating system and Internet browser, handing the software giant a setback in its four-year antitrust battle with the government.
Microsoft has now lost, totally and conclusively, on the central issue of the antitrust case. It cannot integrate applications and features for the purpose of slowing innovation from other people or preventing competition.
The company had, in effect, told the appeals court that it was misreading the trial record and the law when it ruled on the so-called “co-mingling” of code. The court said, in effect, “We knew what we were doing. Nice try.”
Microsoft’s request for a rehearing on this point was not a stupid move on the company’s part. It apparently had dawned on the smarter lawyers working there that the court had delivered some extremely bad news in its unanimous decision last month.