Here is the second in a series of weekly round ups of the tech industry's various antitrust cases and "potential" antitrust concerns. Recent antitrust news has increasingly focused on European Union moves to curb American domination of the global tech market with some Stateside stories thrown in for good measure.

Microsoft – Microsoft's chief counsel Brad Smith sharp, able to relate to people | The Seattle Times - Business & Technology

Microsoft's general counsel, Brad Smith, brought not only a wealth of pertinent legal and antitrust knowledge to the table during the long, drawn-out negotiations with the European Union over the company's alleged monopolistic practices, but also offered a much-needed sense of humor and a penchant for putting a human face on an otherwise stark series of interactions. Sharon Pian Chan reports:

A joke can help even a billion-dollar fine.

Even when Microsoft was facing major antitrust sanctions from the European Union, legal counsel Brad Smith was laughing with Europe's antitrust lawyer about the similarities between the negotiations to the end of the movie "Fatal Attraction."

Each time they thought they had reached a settlement to resolve monopoly concerns about Microsoft Windows and Internet Explorer, someone would come back and try to kill the agreement, like psychopath Alex Forrest rising from the bathtub with a knife.

Settling the case was crucial, because in a previous ruling the European Commission had fined Microsoft $1.4 billion.

Although Microsoft has implemented a kind of user voting system for browser choice in its popular Windows operating systems in response to a separate EU case, the tech giant has yet to see how its appeal of the stunningly huge fine will play out. Surely Smith's easy style, combined with his solid legal arguments, will help ease things in a favorable direction.

Google – Digital book fight pits Google against Justice Department | The Buffalo News – Business Today

Online search and advertising titan Google is hoping it can overwhelm the powers-that-be with the depth of its antitrust knowledge and gain the upper-hand in a class action lawsuit over the company's on-going book scanning project, Google Books. From San Francisco, the Associated Press' Michael Liedtke provides more details on Google's upcoming battle with the US Department of Justice.

Determined to create the world’s largest digital library, Google Inc. is betting it knows more about U. S. antitrust and copyright laws than the government regulators enforcing them.

The Internet search leader took an audacious step toward realizing its book ambitions late Thursday with a 67-page brief filed in New York federal court.

Among other things, the documents dismissed the legal concerns that the U. S. Department of Justice has raised about a class-action settlement proposing to give Google the digital rights to millions of hard-to-find books.

The DOJ is calling the recent approval of the Google Books effort by U. S. District Judge Denny Chin "a bridge too far" and asserts its belief that Chin "lacked authority" to give the massive digital library the "all clear." That's not to say the DOJ isn't trying to slyly endorse Google's efforts with a bit of subtle nudging in the right direction. "Despite those red flags, the Justice Department endorsed the concept of Google’s digital library. The agency also outlined ways Chin could dictate changes that would satisfy some of its concerns." Every antitrust case has at least two sides but strangely enough, the DOJ is playing both good cop and bad cop in this particularly acrimonious instance.

Microsoft/Yahoo! – Microsoft Plus Yahoo vs. Google, So It Begins | Hitsgarden.com

Microsoft's CEO Steve Ballmer and Chief Council Brad Smith are quite excited at the recent decision by both the US Department of Justice and the European Union's Antitrust Commission, as evident in their quoted responses courtesy of article author, Jason. Ballmer offers his enthusiastic PR spin for the gentle reader:

“Although we are just at the beginning of this process, we have reached an exciting milestone,” said Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Steve Ballmer. “I believe that together, Microsoft and Yahoo! will promote more choice, better value and greater innovation to our customers as well as to advertisers and publishers.”

Then Microsoft General Counsel Brad Smith weighs in on the good news:

“We appreciate the thorough reviews conducted by the DOJ and the Commission and we welcome the thoughtful decisions reached by each agency. We also commend the collaborative efforts the regulators undertook to understand the search advertising market. Likewise, we are grateful for the efforts of regulators in Australia, Brazil and Canada who previously cleared the agreement, as well as those regulators we continue to work with in Korea, Taiwan and Japan,” noted Brad Smith, Microsoft senior vice president and general counsel.

Microsoft will offer its search engine, Bing, for use by Yahooligans while Yahoo will maintain control over the "relationship sales force for the duo’s premium search advertisers worldwide." Currently, the search market overseas is massively dominated by one player, Google, who controls more than 90 percent of the European market, and the MicroHoo deal aims to change that.

“We’re hopeful that this agreement is a first step for a viable competitor to emerge,” Smith added. “As we said when we announced the deal last July, the agreement required regulatory clearance in the U.S. and Europe before it could close. Now that we’ve received those approvals, we will begin the work of implementing the agreement. And we will continue to work with regulators in other relevant jurisdictions to ensure they have the information they need to evaluate the deal before it takes effect in those specific markets.”

Micron/Hynix/Infeon et al. - Long-Running Antitrust Litigation Against Computer Memory Manufacturers Nears an End | Law.com

In other antitrust news, a lengthy, and complicated legal case is drawing to a close. Dan Levine at The Register, explains how a ruling by Northern District of California Judge Phyllis Hamilton dealt a stunning blow to the 'indirect' plaintiffs in the case.

[Hamilton] ruled that the plaintiffs did not have standing to pursue a swath of claims against the companies. Under antitrust law, indirect customers did not participate in the same market as the DRAM manufacturers, Hamilton ruled.

"A contrary conclusion runs the risk of opening the floodgates to potential litigation," Hamilton wrote in 2008. "In today's current business climate, and with increasingly globalized markets, nearly all markets that service one another can be said to be 'related' to such a degree that the impact of one upon another could allegedly be 'proven' with the use of econometrics."

Hamilton acknowledged the "devastating" effect of her ruling on the plaintiffs' case. They appealed, but it was a risk: Should the 9th Circuit affirm Hamilton, her holdings would extend far beyond the DRAM case.

There still remains the matter of a final agreement by the indirect purchasers of the memory chips with the defendants in question, but as soon as Hamilton approves the contents of the final document, the criminal case will finally come to an end.