[6][7][8] The next month Microsoft released a paper containing scathing commentary on the ruling including: "The commission is seeking to make new law that will have an adverse impact on intellectual property rights and the ability of dominant firms to innovate.

It must not rely on one vendor, it must not accept closed standards, and it must refuse to become locked into a particular technology – jeopardizing maintenance of full control over the information in its possession[relevant?]

[17] The US court's fear of false positives was seen in the case of Verizon Communications Inc. v. Law Offices of Curtis V. Trinko, LLP (2004) which was about refusal to supply.

It stated that mistaken conclusions and false condemnations are very costly and that they negate the purpose which antitrust laws are designed to protect.

[18] In the EU, the case relevance is IMS Health GmbH & Co. OHG v NDC Health GmbH & CO. kg, in which the Court of Justice laid down limited conditions under which a dominant firm's refusal to license IP to a competitor constitutes an abuse of a dominant position in violation of Article 82 of the Treaty establishing the European Community (now Article 102 TFEU).

The commission's findings showed that Microsoft had tied its Windows Media Player to its personal computer operating system.

[20] Neelie Kroes, the then Commissioner for EU Competition Policy, stated that Microsoft had continued to abuse its powerful market position and hindering innovation by charging extraordinary royalties to companies for providing crucial data to computer users around the world.

[21] However, the Assistant Attorney General at that time for Antitrust, R. Hewitt Pate issued a statement on the EC's decision in its Microsoft investigation.

Microsoft argues that tying of WMP allowed the consumers to have their personal computers running with default options, out of the box, which lowered the transaction cost by reducing time and confusion.

However, the appeal court rejected the Commission ruling that an independent monitoring trustee should have unlimited access to internal company organization in the future.

[29] On 27 February 2008, the EU fined Microsoft an additional €899 million (US$1.44 billion) for failure to comply with the March 2004 antitrust decision.

competition commissioner Joaquín Almunia has said that such fines may not be effective in preventing anti-competitive behavior and that the commission now preferred to seek settlements that restrict businesses' plans instead.

Almunia called the ruling a vindication of the crackdown on Microsoft and warned "The judgment confirms that the imposition of such penalty payments remains an important tool at the commission’s disposal.

"[33] He also claimed that the Commission's actions against Microsoft had allowed "a range of innovative products that would otherwise not have seen the light of day" to reach the market.

[36] In January 2009, the European Commission announced it would investigate the bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows operating systems from Microsoft, saying "Microsoft's tying of Internet Explorer to the Windows operating system harms competition between web browsers, undermines product innovation and ultimately reduces consumer choice.

[39][40][41][42][43][44] On 16 December 2009, the European Union agreed to allow competing browsers, with Microsoft providing a "ballot box" screen letting users choose one of twelve popular products listed in random order.

[45] The twelve browsers were Avant, Chrome, Firefox, Flock, GreenBrowser, Internet Explorer, K-Meleon, Maxthon, Opera, Safari, Sleipnir, and Slim,[46] which were accessible via BrowserChoice.eu.

As a result, in March 2013 the European Commission fined Microsoft €561 million to deter companies from reneging on settlement promises.