Saturday marked the four-year anniversary of Microsoft's antitrust case, which, legal experts say, could still go on for quite some time to come. And the longer the case drags on, they say, the more likely it is that Microsoft would escape largely unscathed from its legal tangle with federal and state trustbusters. Many of the company's court-affirmed violations occurred at least five years ago. With appeals, the process now under way could stretch on for two more years or longer, which could make any remedy essentially meaningless.

"At some point, Microsoft could argue that the fast-changing technology sector has moved beyond the scope of the original case brought by the Justice Department," said Andy Gavil, an antitrust professor with Howard University's School of Law. On the other hand, the nine states that continued with litigation against Microsoft, despite a November settlement by their former comrades in arms, have been trying to use the flip side of that argument to wring a wide array of new concessions from the software giant. Their claim is that Microsoft committed further antitrust violations with newer technologies and later versions of its software, despite earlier rulings that found it at fault.