The US Supreme Court has denied a Microsoft appeal aimed at defeating an antitrust lawsuit, writes the Associated Press. The suit was originally launched by Novell in 2004, and accuses Microsoft of having "deliberately targeted and destroyed" WordPerfect and Quattro Pro with the purpose of preserving the monopoly of the Windows operating system. Both applications continue to be sold under the aegis of Corel, but no longer hold the marketshare they once did.

Novell argues that Microsoft was worried about the applications, which were once able to run on diverse operating systems and thus presented a lure to non-Windows platforms. Microsoft has repudiated these statements by saying that since Novell did not produce operating systems at the time, it cannot claim to have been harmed by anticompetitive behavior from Microsoft.

Replying to the new Supreme Court decision, Microsoft lawyers say that it extends antitrust laws "far beyond their intended scope."