Judge in Java Headings Suggests Sun Go to Trial

With a second day of hearings completed in Sun Microsystems lawsuit again Microsoft, a federal judge unexpectedly recommended that Sun to consider easing its complaint against the software giant and let the case go to trial. Though he didn’t explain the comments further, Judge J. Frederick Motz said that Sun might consider dropping its preliminary injunction to force Microsoft to bundle Java with Windows, and set aside its claim for over S1 billion in damages. Sun said it would consider the advice. If Sun had been granted a preliminary injunction, Microsoft would have been force to bundle Sun’s Java version with Windows immediately. But doing so would require Sun to show that Java will suffer immediate and irreparable damage because of Microsoft’s actions toward the Sun technology.

Legal experts believe that Motz is basically providing Sun with a way to fast track its case against Microsoft, since the damage claim would require lengthy hearings. Besides, as Motz noted in a previous decision, Microsoft’s liability was already established through the Findings of Fact in the software giant’s wider antitrust case, much of which Motz ruled is applicable in the Sun case.

In two short days of hearings, Motz has been decidedly friendly to Sun’s request that Microsoft be forced to bundle Sun Java with the monopoly Windows operating system. Tuesday, for example, Motz said the bundling plan was an “elegant solution.”

In the Wednesday hearings, economist Dennis Carlton, a Sun witness, said that Microsoft was overstating Java usage in the market, because much of the installed base was Microsoft’s outdated, incompatible version. Interjecting at this point, Motz did a decent.