Microsoft spokesman Jim Cullinan said: “These things should be
dismissed right out of hand.”
Over 100 class action suits have been brought against Microsoft
in the US following Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson’s finding that
the software giant broke antitrust law.
Microsoft is relying on a 1977 case against a company called
Illinois Brick in which the company was sued by the state of
Illinois for overcharging for concrete blocks in construction
projects. Illinois Brick won the case by successfully arguing that
it sold the blocks to contracting companies, not to the state, so
the state was only an indirect purchaser. On the same lines,
Microsoft argues that those bringing the actions were only indirect
purchasers. Most copies of the Microsoft operating system are sold
to computer manufacturers. The computers containing Windows are
then sold to retailers, then to the consumers. Recently, this
argument has helped Microsoft to dismiss cases in Hawaii, Iowa,
Kentucky, Nevada and Oregon.
Microsoft said in yesterday’s filing: “There is one principle of
federal antitrust law that has long been crystal clear and
uniformly aplied: indirect purchasers – those who did not pay the
alleged antitrust violator but instead paid anothers party in the
chain of distribution – may not bring a claim for damages.”
Cullinan said the remaining 25 cases, which are based on laws
that did allow claims by indirect purchasers, will be fought by
Microsoft on other grounds.
