EU Judges Asked to Toss Out Microsoft Fine

Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer speaks during his keynote adress as part of the MIX 06 conference in Paris, Thursday, April 27, 2006. The MIX 06 is a conference for web developers and designers and explores how to build a more interactive Web. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena) (Christophe Ena - AP)

But Anthony Whelan, a lawyer for the commission, said the case was about enabling companies to compete in a fluctuating market where innovation drives changes.

"It is not an ordinary case. It is exceptional in many ways," he said, adding that Microsoft entered the server market later than its rivals, such as Novell Inc. and Sun Microsystems Inc., and became dominant by denying "repeated requests" for information to keep rivals' products compatible with its own.

"Competitors are denied interoperability who have concrete innovation to offer their customers," Whelan said.

The hearing began Monday centering on Microsoft's bundled Media Player. Later in the week, it focused on a challenge to the order Microsoft give information to rivals to make its server software work more smoothly with the ubiquitous Windows operating system.

Judge John D. Cooke, in a terse exchange with Whelan on Thursday, asked whether Microsoft's proprietary information should be given away to its rivals, including patent information.

"The information which forms interoperability is hugely valuable commercial information ... that's why it's difficult to understand the attitude of the commission that these are mere trade secrets," the judge said _ a reflection of Microsoft's assertion that to give over the code would be forfeiting the hundreds of years in manpower that went into devising it.

Cooke, who will write the draft ruling, wanted to know if "competition rules require that be taken away from Microsoft, conveying a huge commercial advantage."

Whelan said the value Microsoft placed on the code was merely a reflection of the amount of time and effort it had put into creating it, nothing more.

The commission has never asked Microsoft to open up its source code _ the recipe for Windows _ but Microsoft offered earlier this year to grant some access to rivals under certain conditions if it would appease both EU and U.S. regulators.

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AP Business Writer Aoife White contributed to this report.