A federal appeals court Thursday overturned a ruling that would have forced Microsoft Corp. to incorporate Sun Microsystems Inc.'s Java programming language in the Windows operating system.
The three-judge panel in Richmond, Virginia, said a lower court judge had erred by ordering Microsoft to carry its rival's software, a penalty the lower court judge said was necessary to make up for Microsoft's past misdeeds.
At the same time, the appeals judges upheld a lower court ruling that Microsoft had broken a 2001 legal settlement between the companies and infringed on Sun's copyrights. They sent the case back to the lower-court judge, U.S. District Judge J. Frederick Motz, for further proceedings.
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