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Court orders DOJ response to Microsoft
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July 19, 2001: 4:03 p.m. ET
Appeals court orders government to file response by August 3
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NEW YORK (CNNfn) - A federal appeals court on Thursday gave the U.S. Justice Department two week to respond to Microsoft's request for a rehearing of a key finding in its antitrust case.
In a two-sentence order, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia told government lawyers to respond by Aug. 3 to Microsoft's request that the court re-examine its conclusion that the company illegally "commingled" computer code of its Internet Explorer browser and the Windows operating system.
The appeals court said it will then take the matter under consideration without accepting any further responses by Microsoft to whatever the government files.
"A reply to the (government's) response will not be accepted by the court," the two-sentence order says.
On June 28, the appeals court overturned a lower court's ruling that Microsoft be broken into two companies as a remedy for anti-competitive practices, and remanded other parts of the judge's decision back to the lower court for consideration by a different judge.
While the appeals court overturned the breakup order, it left open the question of whether Microsoft acted illegally when it tied its Web browser to its dominant Windows operating system, ordering the lower court to reexamine that issue.
Microsoft on Wednesday asked for a rehearing on that matter, arguing that the ruling on "commingling" code was based on "clearly erroneous" findings of a lower court judge.
Microsoft has expressed a clear desire to settle the case, already resolving the matter with New Mexico, one of the 19 states that joined the Justice Department in the antitrust suit.
But at the same, some experts said its request for the rehearing suggests the company may be preparing to ask for a Supreme Court to review of appeals court's decision.
The Justice Department and all the states have said they do not intend to seek a Supreme Court review. 
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