Get Ready for Bill Gates and the Supremes!

Say what you want about Microsoft's attitude in court — the company's lawyers sure are quick on the draw. Getting a step ahead of the Justice Department in the race to get their appeal heard by their favorite court, the Redmond boys asked for, and instantly got, a promise from the U.S. Court of Appeals to hear the case. TIME legal correspondent Alain Sanders says that the software giant and the court of appeals want each other for different reasons. "Microsoft has gotten a favorable hearing from a panel of these judges before," he says. "The appeals court, on the other hand, wants a chance to show its competence on this case. It doesn't want to be skipped over." Justice, meanwhile, scoffed at Microsoft's maneuver, calling it "an ill-conceived attempt to end-run the Expediting Act" — which is itself an antitrust end run that Justice wants to use, with Judge Jackson's likely blessing, to send the case straight to the Supreme Court.

That will be up to the Supremes. Justice will argue that the case, in the interest of speed and because of its sheer importance, deserves a short cut to what will be its final destination in any case. "It's not that Justice feels the conservative high court will be much more favorable than the conservative appeals court," says Sanders. "They just want to get it over with." Microsoft, says Sanders, feels it has much more to lose — "an audience with the judges who have handed the company its only legal victories so far, and a chance to reap massive p.r. rewards if the court should go its way." The decision, says Sanders, may well turn on the impressions of John Paul Stevens, an old antitrust hand who's likely to be the Justice the other eight take their cues from. If Stevens feels strongly that the case should be heard quickly (and by quickly we mean within a year), they'll likely leave appeals out of the loop and take the case. Give them eight weeks — they'll get back to us.