I. Introduction
In July 1994, officials at the Department of Justice ("DOJ"), on behalf of the United States, filed suit against Microsoft, charging the company with, among other things, unlawfully maintaining a monopoly in the operating system market through anticompetitive terms in its licensing and software developer agreements. The parties subsequently entered into a consent decree, thus avoiding a trial on the merits. See United States v. Microsoft Corp., 56 F.3d 1448 (D.C. Cir. 1995) ("Microsoft I"). Three years later, the Justice Department filed a civil contempt action against Microsoft for allegedly violating one of the decree's provisions. On appeal from a grant of a preliminary injunction, this court held that Microsoft's technological bundling of IE 3.0 and 4.0 with Windows 95 did not violate the relevant provision of the consent decree. United States v. Microsoft Corp., 147 F.3d 935 (D.C. Cir. 1998) ("Microsoft II"). We expressly reserved the question whether such bundling might independently violate ss 1 or 2 of the Sherman Act. Id. at 950 n.14.
On May 18, 1998, shortly before issuance of the Microsoft II decision, the United States and a group of State plaintiffs filed separate (and soon thereafter consolidated) complaints, asserting antitrust violations by Microsoft and seeking preliminary and permanent injunctions against the company's allegedly unlawful conduct. The complaints also sought any "other preliminary and permanent relief as is necessary and appropriate to restore competitive conditions in the markets affected by Microsoft's unlawful conduct." Gov't's Compl. at 53, United States v. Microsoft Corp., No. 98-1232 (D.D.C. 1999). Relying almost exclusively on Microsoft's varied efforts to unseat Netscape Navigator as the preeminent internet browser, plaintiffs charged four distinct violations of the Sherman Act: (1) unlawful exclusive dealing arrangements in violation of s 1; (2) unlawful tying of IE to Windows 95 and Windows 98 in violation of s 1; (3) unlawful maintenance of a monopoly in the PC operating system market in violation of s 2; and (4) unlawful attempted monopolization of the internet browser market in violation of s 2. The States also brought pendent claims charging Microsoft with violations of various State antitrust laws.
The District Court scheduled the case on a "fast track." The hearing on the preliminary injunction and the trial on the merits were consolidated pursuant to Fed. R. Civ. P. 65(a)(2). The trial was then scheduled to commence on September 8, 1998, less than four months after the complaints had been filed. In a series of pretrial orders, the District Court limited each side to a maximum of 12 trial witnesses plus two rebuttal witnesses. It required that all trial witnesses' direct testimony be submitted to the court in the form of written declarations. The District Court also made allowances for the use of deposition testimony at trial to prove subordinate or predicate issues. Following the grant of three brief continuances, the trial started on October 19, 1998.
After a 76-day bench trial, the District Court issued its Findings of Fact. United States v. Microsoft Corp., 84 F. Supp. 2d 9 (D.D.C. 1999) ("Findings of Fact"). This triggered two independent courses of action. First, the District Court established a schedule for briefing on possible legal conclusions, inviting Professor Lawrence Lessig to participate as amicus curiae. Second, the District Court referred the case to mediation to afford the parties an opportunity to settle their differences. The Honorable Richard A. Posner, Chief Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, was appointed to serve as mediator. The parties concurred in the referral to mediation and in the choice of mediator.
Mediation failed after nearly four months of settlement talks between the parties. On April 3, 2000, with the parties' briefs having been submitted and considered, the District Court issued its conclusions of law. The District Court found Microsoft liable on the s 1 tying and s 2 monopoly maintenance and attempted monopolization claims, Conclusions of Law, at 35-51, while ruling that there was insufficient evidence to support a s 1 exclusive dealing violation, id. at 51-54. As to the pendent State actions, the District Court found the State antitrust laws conterminous with ss 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act, thereby obviating the need for further State-specific analysis. Id. at 54-56. In those few cases where a State's law required an additional showing of intrastate impact on competition, the District Court found the requirement easily satisfied on the evidence at hand. Id. at 55.
Having found Microsoft liable on all but one count, the District Court then asked plaintiffs to submit a proposed remedy. Plaintiffs' proposal for a remedial order was subsequently filed within four weeks, along with six supplemental declarations and over 50 new exhibits. In their proposal, plaintiffs sought specific conduct remedies, plus structural relief that would split Microsoft into an applications company and an operating systems company. The District Court rejected Microsoft's request for further evidentiary proceedings and, following a single hearing on the merits of the remedy question, issued its Final Judgment on June 7, 2000. The District Court adopted plaintiffs' proposed remedy without substantive change.
Microsoft filed a notice of appeal within a week after the District Court issued its Final Judgment. This court then ordered that any proceedings before it be heard by the court sitting en banc. Before any substantive matters were addressed by this court, however, the District Court certified appeal of the case brought by the United States directly to the Supreme Court pursuant to 15 U.S.C. s 29(b), while staying the final judgment order in the federal and state cases pending appeal. The States thereafter petitioned the Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari in their case. The Supreme Court declined to hear the appeal of the Government's case and remanded the matter to this court; the Court likewise denied the States' petition for writ of certiorari. Microsoft Corp. v. United States, 530 U.S. 1301 (2000). This consolidated appeal followed.
Before turning to the merits of Microsoft's various arguments, we pause to reflect briefly on two matters of note, one practical and one theoretical.
The practical matter relates to the temporal dimension of this case. The litigation timeline in this case is hardly problematic. Indeed, it is noteworthy that a case of this magnitude and complexity has proceeded from the filing of complaints through trial to appellate decision in a mere three years. See, e.g., Data Gen. Corp. v. Grumman Sys. Support Corp., 36 F.3d 1147, 1155 (1st Cir. 1994) (six years from filing of complaint to appellate decision); Transamerica Computer Co., Inc. v. IBM, 698 F.2d 1377, 1381 (9th Cir. 1983) (over four years from start of trial to appellate decision); United States v. United Shoe Mach. Corp., 110 F. Supp. 295, 298 (D. Mass. 1953) (over five years from filing of complaint to trial court decision).
What is somewhat problematic, however, is that just over six years have passed since Microsoft engaged in the first conduct plaintiffs allege to be anticompetitive. As the record in this case indicates, six years seems like an eternity in the computer industry. By the time a court can assess liability, firms, products, and the marketplace are likely to have changed dramatically. This, in turn, threatens enormous practical difficulties for courts considering the appropriate measure of relief in equitable enforcement actions, both in crafting injunctive remedies in the first instance and reviewing those remedies in the second. Conduct remedies may be unavailing in such cases, because innovation to a large degree has already rendered the anticompetitive conduct obsolete (although by no means harmless). And broader structural remedies present their own set of problems, including how a court goes about restoring competition to a dramatically changed, and constantly changing, marketplace. That is just one reason why we find the District Court's refusal in the present case to hold an evidentiary hearing on remedies--to update and flesh out the available information before seriously entertaining the possibility of dramatic structural relief--so problematic. See infra Section V.
We do not mean to say that enforcement actions will no longer play an important role in curbing infringements of the antitrust laws in technologically dynamic markets, nor do we assume this in assessing the merits of this case. Even in those cases where forward-looking remedies appear limited, the Government will continue to have an interest in defining the contours of the antitrust laws so that law-abiding firms will have a clear sense of what is permissible and what is not. And the threat of private damage actions will remain to deter those firms inclined to test the limits of the law.
The second matter of note is more theoretical in nature. We decide this case against a backdrop of significant debate amongst academics and practitioners over the extent to which "old economy" s 2 monopolization doctrines should apply to firms competing in dynamic technological markets characterized by network effects. In markets characterized by network effects, one product or standard tends towards dominance, because "the utility that a user derives from consumption of the good increases with the number of other agents consuming the good." Michael L. Katz & Carl Shapiro, Network Externalities, Competition, and Compatibility, 75 Am. Econ. Rev. 424, 424 (1985). For example, "[a]n individual consumer's demand to use (and hence her benefit from) the telephone network ... increases with the number of other users on the network whom she can call or from whom she can receive calls." Howard A. Shelanski & J. Gregory Sidak, Antitrust Divestiture in Network Industries, 68 U. Chi. L. Rev. 1, 8 (2001). Once a product or standard achieves wide acceptance, it becomes more or less en- trenched. Competition in such industries is "for the field" rather than "within the field." See Harold Demsetz, Why Regulate Utilities?, 11 J.L. & Econ. 55, 57 & n.7 (1968) (emphasis omitted).
In technologically dynamic markets, however, such entrenchment may be temporary, because innovation may alter the field altogether. See Joseph A. Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy 81-90 (Harper Perennial 1976) (1942). Rapid technological change leads to markets in which "firms compete through innovation for temporary market dominance, from which they may be displaced by the next wave of product advancements." Shelanski & Sidak, at 11-12 (discussing Schumpeterian competition, which proceeds "sequentially over time rather than simultaneously across a market"). Microsoft argues that the operating system market is just such a market.
Whether or not Microsoft's characterization of the operating system market is correct does not appreciably alter our mission in assessing the alleged antitrust violations in the present case. As an initial matter, we note that there is no consensus among commentators on the question of whether, and to what extent, current monopolization doctrine should be amended to account for competition in technologically dynamic markets characterized by network effects. Compare Steven C. Salop & R. Craig Romaine, Preserving Monopoly: Economic Analysis, Legal Standards, and Microsoft, 7 Geo. Mason L. Rev. 617, 654-55, 663-64 (1999) (arguing that exclusionary conduct in high-tech networked industries deserves heightened antitrust scrutiny in part because it may threaten to deter innovation), with Ronald A. Cass & Keith N. Hylton, Preserving Competition: Economic Analysis, Legal Standards and Microsoft, 8 Geo. Mason L. Rev. 1, 36-39 (1999) (equivocating on the antitrust implications of network effects and noting that the presence of network externalities may actually encourage innovation by guaranteeing more durable monopolies to innovating winners). Indeed, there is some suggestion that the economic consequences of network effects and technological dynamism act to offset one another, thereby making it difficult to formulate categorical antitrust rules absent a particularized analysis of a given market. See Shelanski & Sidak, at 6-7 ("High profit margins might appear to be the benign and necessary recovery of legitimate investment returns in a Schumpeterian framework, but they might represent exploitation of customer lock-in and monopoly power when viewed through the lens of network economics.... The issue is particularly complex because, in network industries characterized by rapid innovation, both forces may be operating and can be difficult to isolate.").
Moreover, it should be clear that Microsoft makes no claim that anticompetitive conduct should be assessed differently in technologically dynamic markets. It claims only that the measure of monopoly power should be different. For reasons fully discussed below, we reject Microsoft's monopoly power argument. See infra Section II.A.
With this backdrop in mind, we turn to the specific challenges raised in Microsoft's appeal.