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.