SCOTUS Ends Novell's Anti-Trust Cast Against Microsoft 174
walterbyrd (182728) writes in with news about the end of the line for a Novell anti-trust claim against Microsoft. "The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday brought an end to Novell Inc's antitrust claims against Microsoft Corp that date back 20 years to the development of Windows 95 software. By declining to hear Novell's appeal, the court left intact a 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling from September 2013 in favor of Microsoft. The court of appeals unanimously affirmed the dismissal of Novell Inc's claims that Microsoft violated the Sherman Antitrust Act when it decided not to share its intellectual property while developing its Windows 95 operating system. Novell was seeking more than $3 billion."
Re:way to over simplify the issue win the summery (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What would this ruling have changed, today? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:way to over simplify the issue win the summery (Score:1, Insightful)
The current Supreme Court is very friendly towards businesses acting badly.
The current Supreme Court is very friendly towards businesses paying them well.
Welcome to the New Oligarchy (Score:3, Insightful)
Same as the Old Oligarchy
We won't get fooled again
Meanwhile Google hasn't paid more than $1 billion in taxes to France, and almost all tech firms have done the same thing, not paying taxes to the US, based on legal fictions and tax havens (a fancy term for a way they can make the middle class pay for their infrastructure and legal protections without paying even 1/3 the tax rate you do).
Re:way to over simplify the issue win the summery (Score:3, Insightful)
They ruled unanimously against the NFL in their antitrust suit. This SCOTUS is very business friendly, but they aren't monolithic.
Re:Case was a joke. (Score:4, Insightful)
Who said anything about expecting one company to help another out? What I except is that when I am working with a company they are not going to actively stab me in the back.In this case MS told them what they APIs were, then pulled it out from under them at the last second, to intentionally sink their product. If they would not have not given them the APIs there would not have been an issue, as then MS would not have been working with them and they could have developed something else, however by working with them and then pulling the APIs they intentionally sabotaged the product. By itself that still would not have been an issue, except they intentionally planned that.
As for a monopoly, there certainly was in the desktop, and the current state, after losing the antitrust and having to change practices, is not proof that there was not at the time.
Re:way to over simplify the issue win the summery (Score:5, Insightful)
.
Bottom line: If you shake hands with Bill Gates you had better count your fingers.
Re:way to over simplify the issue win the summery (Score:2, Insightful)
Microsoft is a very old and established enormous corporation. Microsoft has behind it decades and literally hundreds of billions of dollars of lobbying efforts. Political donations to both established parties combined with the politicized nature in the selection of judges and you got yourself a favorable judicial system.
In Europe, it's mostly illegal for any business to directly donate to any political party. The parties are often funded directly from tax revenue in relation to their seats in the parliament. This is to keep them and legislative processes non-biased and democratic.
It would be impossible to think either the Democrats or Republicans would want to change the current system. The only way out towards a non-oligarchic government is to vote for more parties into Congress. Be it left, right, center or whatever, the fact that more parties are included in legislative processes, makes it helluva more transparent.
Re:way to over simplify the issue win the summery (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not surprised by this ruling at all. The current Supreme Court is very friendly towards businesses acting badly.
The Supreme Court is interested only in cases which offer the best opportunity to debate and decide substantial issues of federal constitutional law. The court receives around 10,000 petitions for a writ of certiorari each year. Seventy to eighty will go on to oral argument,
Re:way to over simplify the issue win the summery (Score:3, Insightful)
The current Supreme Court is very friendly towards businesses paying them well.
Bribery remains the geek's all-purpose explanation for any legal or political decision he doesn't like. It's a sign of laziness if not impotence.