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Microsoft asks for time frame
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October 2, 2000: 5:12 p.m. ET
Software company requests a five-month period for filing appeal briefs
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - Microsoft Corp. on Monday asked a federal appeals court to allow a five-month period for the filing of briefs in the appeal of its landmark antitrust case.
In a filing made Monday with the U.S. District Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, Microsoft asked that the court allow each side to file principal briefs of not more than 56,000 words and that Microsoft be allowed to file a reply of not more than 28,000 words.
Microsoft (MSFT: Research, Estimates) proposed that each side be given 60 days to file its principal briefs and that the company be given 30 days to file a reply brief. The company also proposed that both sides be allowed to file an appendix to a document after that document is submitted to the court. Microsoft wants the court to allow 90 minutes or more per side for oral argument.
"Microsoft believes that such an order will give the parties a fair opportunity to present their arguments on the many factual and legal issues presented by this appeal and permit the court to consider those issues fully and expeditiously," the company's filing said.
The company conferred with the Justice Department and the 19 state attorneys general suing the company for antitrust law violations about its proposed schedule for the appeal. The company's opponents agreed only to allow the filing of appendices to documents to be deferred.
The Justice Department and the 19 state attorneys general are slated to file their proposed schedule for the filing of briefs on Thursday, Oct. 5
Parties in a federal appeals case normally are allowed 14,000 words for principal briefs and 7,000 words for reply briefs. Microsoft said it wants to exceed those limits because they are "insufficient for a case of this magnitude and complexity, in which Microsoft's very corporate survival is at issue."
On April 3, District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson concluded that Microsoft had violated federal antitrust law by maintaining its near monopoly over personal computer operating systems by anticompetitive means and by attempting to monopolize the Web browser market. He also found that the software maker violated federal antitrust law by tying its Web browser to its operating system when it released Windows 98.
Last June, Jackson issued a final order requiring Microsoft to separate its Windows operating system business from its applications business and bars the company from engaging in practices that the court found led to the antitrust law violations. However, Jackson's order doesn't go into effect until Microsoft has exhausted its appeals.
The Justice Department and the 19 state attorneys general suing Microsoft had wanted the appeal of Judge Jackson's decision to go directly to the Supreme Court, bypassing the Court of Appeals. However, on Sept. 26 the Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal until the Court of Appeals has considered it. 
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