Microsoft Remedies Will Endure, Official Says

Any remedy that the Justice Department proposes for Microsoft Corp.’s anticompetitive behavior will be designed to prevent the company from unfairly wresting control of markets for new products, the department’s antitrust chief said Friday.

While a judge’s ruling that Microsoft illegally defended its monopoly on the dominant Windows operating system comes five years after the company embarked on the activities, the passage of time won’t render proposed remedies obsolete or ineffectual, Assistant U.S. Atty. Gen. Joel Klein said.

A remedy against the world’s biggest software company can be fashioned to ensure that “yesterday’s problem won’t be replicated as tomorrow’s problem,” Klein said during a panel discussion at an American Bar Assn. antitrust conference in Washington.

When antitrust enforcers identify a “durable monopoly,” they can seek a remedy to make sure a company can’t “use some mechanism to effect the same outcome with new products,” Klein said.

U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson, who ruled Monday that Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft violated federal antitrust laws, has asked the government to submit proposed remedies no later than April 28. It will be up to the judge to decide what remedies to impose.

Klein made his appearance during a week that began with the resounding victory in court and ended with political criticism on Capitol Hill.

Some congressional leaders have accused the Justice Department Antitrust Division of being overzealous in pursuing its case against Microsoft, a company they credit with fueling the technology-driven economic boom.

Klein’s critics have promised to hold congressional hearings.