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Below are some key developments in the Microsoft battle with regulators both in the USA and Europe. In a nutshell Microsoft got into trouble by using their dominant market position to unfairly suppress competition.

May 1998: Justice Department and 20 state attorneys general sue Microsoft, charging it illegally thwarted competition to protect and extend its monopoly on software.

October: Justice Department sues Microsoft for allegedly violating a 1994 consent decree by forcing computer makers to sell its Internet browser as a condition of selling its popular Windows software.

April 3, 2000: U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson finds that Microsoft violated the Sherman Antitrust Act, "maintained its monopoly power by anticompetitive means" and attempted to monopolize the Web browser market. The judge also rules that Microsoft unlawfully tied its Web browser to Windows.

Jan. 23, 2002: AOL Time Warner sues Microsoft, seeking damages for Microsoft's actions against the Netscape browser, which AOL had acquired.

Mar. 8: Sun Microsystems files antitrust suit against Microsoft, alleging extensive anticompetitive practices.

Dec. 18: RealNetworks sues Microsoft, accusing it of illegally monopolizing the growing field of digital music and video.

March 24, 2004: European Union fines Microsoft a record €497 million (about $666 million) for antitrust violations and orders it to divulge some trade secrets to competitors and produce a version of Windows without a bundled program that plays music and video files. The sanction is later suspended while a judge hears Microsoft's appeal for immediate relief.

April 2: Sun settles for $1.6 billion from Microsoft.

Nov. 8: Novell, which had raised antitrust claims in Europe, settles them for $536 million.

Dec. 22: An EU court rejects Microsoft's appeal of the March order that it disclose trade secrets and produce a version of Windows without the Media Player program. The decision effectively thwarts Microsoft's attempt to delay implementation.

June 7: EU regulators and Microsoft reach a compromise that delays the imposition of large daily fines for the company's failure to comply with some of the EU's demands. But several major issues, including Microsoft's sharing of technical information with rivals, remain unresolved.

Dec. 23: European regulators formally move to seek fines of as much as €2 million ($2.4 million) a day against Microsoft for failure to comply with longstanding orders to open software markets to competition.

Jan. 26, 2006: Microsoft offered to allow rivals some access to the proprietary source code of Windows, a move designed to head off the daily fines in Europe and mollify increasingly impatient antitrust authorities in the U.S.

Feb. 23: Several big Microsoft rivals, including IBM and Sun, file a formal complaint to the EU that targets the company's word processing and other widely used office programs.

March 29: EU says it has sent Microsoft a letter detailing antitrust concerns with the company's new Vista operating system.

May 12: The U.S. Justice Department said it wants to extend until at least November 2009 its oversight of some of Microsoft's business practices, citing lapses under their landmark settlement.

March 1, 2007: EU accused Microsoft of setting royalty fees too high for interoperability information, thus threatening more fines.

Oct. 22: Microsoft said it won't appeal the judgment, and agreed to slash royalty charges on licenses that EU regulators had forced the company to supply so that competitors could link their products effectively to Windows.

Dec. 12: Opera Software, the Norwegian company behind the Opera Web browser, filed a new complaint with EU regulators, claiming Microsoft shouldn't bundle Internet Explorer and Windows.