United States v. Microsoft Corp.

United States v. Microsoft Corp.
Court	United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit
Full case name	United States of America v. Microsoft Corporation
Argued	February 26–27, 2001
Decided	June 28, 2001
Citation(s)	253 F.3d 34
Case history
Prior history	United States v. Microsoft Corp., 87 F. Supp. 2d 30 (D.D.C. 2000); 97 F. Supp. 2d 59 (D.D.C. 2000), direct appeal denied, pet. cert. denied, 530 U.S. 1301 (2000).
Subsequent history	Microsoft Corp. v. United States, 534 U.S. 952 (2001) (pet. cert. denied); 224 F. Supp. 2d 76 (D.D.C. 2002); 231 F. Supp. 2d 144 (D.D.C. 2002) (on remand), aff'd in part and rev'd in part, 373 F.3d 1199 (D.C. Cir. 2004)
Holding
Business practices conducted by Microsoft, when tying its Internet browser and operating system, was monopolistic behavior per the Sherman Antitrust Act.
Court membership
Judge(s) sitting	Harry T. Edwards, CJ; Stephen F. Williams, Douglas H. Ginsburg, David B. Sentelle, A. Raymond Randolph, Judith W. Rogers, and David S. Tatel, JJ.
Case opinions
Per curiam
Laws applied
Sherman Antitrust Act

United States of America v. Microsoft Corporation, 253 F.3d 34 (D.C. Cir. 2001), was a landmark American antitrust law case at the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. The U.S. government accused Microsoft of illegally monopolizing the web browser market for Windows, primarily through the legal and technical restrictions it put on the abilities of PC manufacturers (OEMs) and users to uninstall Internet Explorer and use other programs such as Netscape and Java.^[1]

At the initial trial, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that Microsoft's actions constituted unlawful monopolization under Section 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890,^[2] but the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit partially overturned that judgment.^[1] The two parties later reached a settlement in which Microsoft agreed to modify some of its business practices.^[3]