These are happy days in Redmond, Washington, with Microsoft having defeated, coopted, or survived the Department of Justice, depending on what side of the issue you stand. Microsoft shares are surging, and the future seems bright with only a few more legal speed bumps in the way. There are the private anti-trust suits from AOL/Netscape, Sun, and others. There are a few class-action lawsuits still pending in California, where Microsoft runs afoul of a state anti-trust law. And there are the inevitable patent infringement cases that have dogged Microsoft for years. These latter lawsuits are the topic of this column.
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