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Friday, March 12, 2004
RealNetworks lawsuit will be heard in San Jose
RealNetworks Inc.'s antitrust suit against Microsoft Corp. will be tried in Silicon Valley, not Seattle, a federal judge ruled yesterday.
U.S. District Judge James Ware denied Microsoft's motion to move the trial to Seattle from his courtroom in San Jose, Calif., where RealNetworks filed the suit Dec. 18. The action asserts that Microsoft has illegally tied its Windows Media Player to its operating system and has engaged in predatory pricing and exclusionary agreements.
"A key issue ... is whether Microsoft's conduct has had an unlawful ant-icompetitive effect on the digital-media market," Ware wrote in his nine-page opinion. "RealNetworks has satisfied this court that important ... evidence on this issue is concentrated in the Northern District of California."
The digital-media market involves several California-based companies, he wrote, giving that state "a more substantial interest (than Washington) in adjudicating this case."
Ware dismissed Microsoft's assertions that RealNetworks filed suit in California hoping a jury there would be more sympathetic.
Microsoft spokeswoman Stacy Drake said the company was disappointed by the ruling but was "determined to vigorously defend ourselves against these allegations."
Ware said the case is likely to be transferred to the Baltimore courtroom of U.S. District Judge Frederick Motz for pretrial evidence-gathering. Motz is already presiding over such discovery in two other antitrust suits against Microsoft.
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