Andrew Chin on missed opportunities in US v Microsoft:

But freedom of contract is expressly limited by the antitrust laws. The courts therefore had authority to order Microsoft to license and distribute its software so as to offer a neutral choice of Web browser. Microsoft could easily have done so without undoing its programming innovations.
Instead, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals created a special antitrust immunity to license Windows and other “platform software” under contractual terms that destroy freedom of competition.
The security hazards that have resulted from Microsoft’s unredressed actions are serious, and already being felt. Equally serious, but perhaps less tangible, is the D.C. Circuit’s waste of judicial resources in issuing precedential opinions that fallaciously treat Microsoft’s flagship software product as consisting of lines of code rather than intellectual property rights. The courts have missed a golden opportunity to affirm the freedom to compete in the information age.

Chin is an associate professor at the UNC School of Law and a former legal extern to Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson, the trial judge in U.S. v. Microsoft.
Related Article on Microsoft’s now dormant and flawed Internet Explorer browser. (use firefox)