The Microsoft Case: Antitrust, High Technology, and Consumer Welfare
University Of Chicago Press | 2009-04-15 | ISBN: 0226644642 | 368 pages | PDF | 1.5 MB


In 1998, the United States Department of Justice and state antitrustagencies charged that Microsoft was monopolizing the market forpersonal computer operating systems. More than ten years later, thecase is still the defining antitrust litigation of our era. William H.Page and John E. Lopatka’s The Microsoft Case contributes to the debateover the future of antitrust policy by examining the implications ofthe litigation from the perspective of consumer welfare.

The authors trace the development of the case from its conceptualorigins through the trial and the key decisions on both liability andremedies. They argue that, at critical points, the legal system failedconsumers by overrating government’s ability to influence outcomes in adynamic market. This ambitious book is essential reading for business,law, and economics scholars as well as anyone else interested in theways that technology, economics, and antitrust law have interacted inthe digital age.

“This book will become the gold standard for analysis of themonopolization cases against Microsoft. . . . No serious student of lawor economic policy should go without reading it.”—Thomas C. Arthur,Emory University