A federal judge on Monday rejected class-action status for more than 60 consumer lawsuits pending against Microsoft, but allowed a more limited lawsuit alleging overpricing to proceed.
According to the ruling issued by U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz in Maryland, Microsoft would not have to face a class-action consumer lawsuit because it would be difficult to identify a group of plaintiffs who would be considered typical buyers of Microsoft's software.
The ruling, which would make it more difficult for plaintiffs' lawyers to extract multimillion-dollar settlements from the software giant, comes after Microsoft settled its antitrust case with the federal government and most states in the past few months.
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