One of the dissenting judges said the legislature should either be required to adopt civil unions or marriage. The other two said that the case should be sent back to the lower court for a trial to see if government has a good enough reason to bar same-sex couples from marriage.

The majority opinion said that while the court agrees that marriage is a fundamental right, it says there is no fundamental right to marry someone of the same sex.

The court also said that although there has been a history of unfair discrimination against gay people, as a group gay people are not politically powerless.

"Our opinion should by no means be read to imply that the General Assembly may not grant and recognize for homosexual persons civil unions or the right to marry a person of the same sex," Judge Glenn T. Harrell Jr. wrote for the majority.

"The court refused to recognize that lesbian and gay couples form committed relationships and loving families just like heterosexual couples," said Ken Choe, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Project who argued the case before the court.

The suit originally was filed two years ago by the ACLU on behalf of the nine same-sex couples and a man whose partner passed away and who would like to be able to marry one day.

In January Baltimore Judge M. Brooke Murdock said that the 1973 law defining marriage as a union between one man and one woman "cannot withstand constitutional challenge."

The ruling was stayed to allow the state to appeal.

In oral arguments last December before the Court of Appeals the state argued that the matter of same-sex marriage should be decided by the legislature not the courts.

"The General Assembly is the proper forum to weigh these issues," said Robert Zarnoch, counsel to the General Assembly.

Ken Choe, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Project disagreed, telling the court that the issue was the state constitution and basic fairness. 

"Lesbians and gay couples, who form loving and committed relationships, and who raise children, need and deserve the critical protections that come with marriage," he said.

"The exclusion of same-sex couples from marriage violates the most fundamental guarantees of equality and liberty for all."

Equality Maryland said it was surprised by the high court ruling, given judgments in Massachusetts and New Jersey where courts have ruled same-sex couples must be accorded the same rights as opposite-sex couples.

"We will be pushing for full, legal equality in the Maryland General Assembly," Equality Maryland executive director Dan Furmansky told the Washington Post after the ruling was released.

"This is a social justice struggle. Eventually, Maryland will have civil marriage equality for same-sex couples. It's inevitable."

The issue of same-sex marriage is also before the Supreme Court in California. Oral arguments are expected to be heard late this year or early in 2008.

The court’s presiding judge, Bo Vesterdorf, reading a summary of the decision on his final day in office, said, “The court finds the commission did not err in assessing the gravity and duration of the infringement and did not err in setting the amount of the fine. Since the abuse of a dominant position is confirmed by the court, the amount of the fine remains unchanged.”

“The court said the commission wins on virtually everything,” said Thomas Vinje, a partner at the law firm Clifford Chance and part of the legal team for the European Committee for Interoperable Systems, a coalition that includes Microsoft opponents like I.B.M. “The court has spoken. The commission was right.”

In a statement this morning, the European Union’s competition commissioner, Neelie Kroes, said: “The court has upheld a landmark commission decision to give consumers more choice in software markets. Microsoft must now comply fully with its legal obligations to desist from engaging in anti competitive conduct. The commission will do its utmost to ensure that Microsoft complies swiftly.”

Brad Smith, the general counsel for Microsoft, who was present for the reading, said the company would follow the ruling but did not say specifically whether the company would appeal it.

“It’s clearly very important to us as a company that we comply with our obligations under European law. We will study this decision carefully and if there are additional steps that we need to take, we will take them,” Mr. Smith said.

Robert Kramer, a vice president of public policy for CompTIA, a Microsoft ally that represents 3,000 technology companies, predicted the court’s ruling would have a chilling effect on investment both within the European Union and beyond.

“What this ruling will do is send a message to companies that if they establish a good market position with a successful product, they will be forced in Europe to essentially give up that product to their competitors,” Mr. Kramer said.

But Carlo Piana, a lawyer representing the Free Software Foundation Europe, hailed the court’s decision as a victory for small software developers around the world who may have lived in fear of Microsoft or other large platform operators. “This is an incredibly huge victory. The doors are kept open now for competition,” Mr. Piana said.

The decision followed a five-day hearing on the issues in April. Microsoft has indicated in the past that it would appeal any negative ruling to the European Court of Justice, the highest court in Europe, but Mr. Smith would not say today whether the company would take that step in the two months and 10 days it has to. An appeal by the company, a process likely to take at least two years, would focus only on whether the appellate court erred in procedure in reaching its decision, not on the facts in the case.

Microsoft has already been forced to pay nearly €1 billion in fines in the nine-year-old legal case, which has pitted the software maker based in Redmond, Wash., against the commission and a host of competitors, including I.B.M., Sun Microsystems, RealNetworks and Novell.

In its ruling, the 13-member panel of judges said Microsoft had violated European antitrust law by exploiting its near dominance in operating systems to shut out competitors like RealNetworks in digital media players and Sun Microsystems in workgroup exchange servers.

The ruling validated the pursuit of Microsoft by Mario Monti, former competition commissioner for the European Union, and his successor, Ms. Kroes. The case began in 1998 when Sun Microsystems filed a complaint over Microsoft’s refusal to disclose its confidential server protocols — computer code that competitors need to make their servers or desktop computers work with Microsoft products.

Microsoft has been repeatedly fined by the commission since the 2004 antitrust ruling for inadequately supplying the protocols. “I think this means it’s about time for Microsoft to comply,” Mr. Vinje said.

The commission later expanded its inquiry to include Microsoft’s practice of bundling its Windows Media Player into its dominant Windows operating system. After Microsoft began bundling its media player into Windows, it overtook the market leader, RealNetworks, and as of January it had a 50 percent share of the global market, according to the researcher Nielsen/NetRatings.

“There has obviously been a lot of work that has gone into our efforts to comply with the commission’s terms with respect to communications protocols,” Mr. Smith said in Luxembourg today. “We have made a lot of progress in that regard and yet we all have to acknowledge that there are some issues that do remain open.”

The Fire District charges Microsoft with engaging in "anticompetitive and monopolistic practices" and is seeking a jury trial. Attorneys for the Fire District are asking the court to open the case to all governing bodies in Arizona, giving it class action status.

The Fire District quietly filed the claim earlier this summer in Arizona state court in Maricopa County. Last week, Microsoft asked the federal U.S. District Court for Arizona to take over the case.

The Fire District is repeating many of the claims made against Microsoft by the Department of Justice and attorneys general on behalf of consumers in 19 states and the District of Columbia. The allegations center on charges that Microsoft used its monopoly position to overcharge for software applications such as word processors and spreadsheets. Under the settlements, Microsoft has agreed to issue millions of dollars worth of product vouchers to affected buyers.

Microsoft officials were not immediately available for comment.

Word of the action comes as Microsoft faces ongoing antitrust scrutiny in Europe. On Monday, Europe's second highest court rejected Microsoft's appeal of almost $1 billion in fines imposed on the company by trustbusters at the European Commission.

The six defendants are charged with assaulting Megan Williams, 20, for more than a week at a ramshackle trailer in Big Creek. Police say she was tortured, sexually assaulted, forced to eat animal droppings and taunted with a racial slur.

Bobby Brewster, George Messer, Alisha Burton and Karen Burton are scheduled to appear Monday in Logan County Magistrate Court. Frankie Brewster and Danny Combs are scheduled for to appear on Tuesday.

Public defenders representing Bobby Brewster and Messer have recused themselves because they had represented some of the defendants in the past.

A public defender can't represent a defendant in this case if they have represented any of the other defendants in past cases, Logan County Magistrate Court Clerk Deeanna Briggs said.

Since 1991, police have filed 108 criminal charges against the six.

Jack Rogers, executive director of the state's public defender services, said other lawyers could be hired on short-term contracts, or attorneys could be brought in from neighboring counties.

Frankie Brewster, 49, and her son, Bobby Brewster, 24, are both charged with kidnapping and sexual assault, among other counts.

Combs, 20, of Harts, is charged with sexual assault and malicious wounding; Karen Burton, 46, of Chapmanville, is charged with malicious wounding, battery and assault during the commission of a felony; and Burton's daughter, Alisha Burton, 23, and Messer, 27, both of Chapmanville, are charged with assault during the commission of a felony and battery.

All six remain in custody in lieu of $100,000 bail each.

Betty Gregory, lawyer for Karen Burton, said Friday she intends to ask for a bond reduction for her client because the $100,000 cash bond is "grossly inappropriate."

The other lawyers representing the defendants did not immediately return telephone calls Sunday.

Because Williams is black and the defendants are white, some _ including church groups close to the Williams family _ want hate crimes charges filed, either at the state or federal level.

U.S. Attorney Charles T. Miller has said he doesn't currently plan to file civil rights charges, while Abraham said he may file new or amended charges in the days to come.

Samsung and LG are key Qualcomm customers and were seen as the most likely victims of the ban announced in June. But the companies said that their US business had so far not been affected by the ban, which was supposed to take effect from this month. Both groups had been making alternative supply arrangements.

LG, which has heavy exposure to the US CDMA market, said: ”The ban might have depressed the whole US handset market.”

Samsung also welcomed the ruling.

The news drove LG’s shares up 4.25 per cent to Won76,100 and Samsung’s 0.36 per cent to Won562,000, while the broader market closed up 1.9 per cent yesterday.

On Wednesday, a judge in Washington agreed that the third parties had demonstrated ”a substantial case on the merits and the harm factors weigh[ed] in their favour”.

LG shipped 37 per cent of its total handset sales to the US last year. It sold 64m units of handsets last year and controls 15.2 per cent of the US market. Samsung sold 27 per cent of its total handset sales, which amounted to 37.4m units, in the US in the second quarter, according to Nomura International.

The International Trade Commission on June 7 imposed the ban after finding that Qualcomm had infringed a Broadcom power-saving patent. The two sides have been unable to reach agreement on compensation out of court.

Alex Rogers, legal counsel for Qualcomm, said: ”We are pleased that the court of appeals recognised the undeserved harm to parties who were not named in the lawsuit, and that our customers will continue to be able to introduce new products into the US marketplace during the appeals process.”

Qualcomm’s technology is included in all 3G handsets, meaning that a full ban on cellphones carrying its chips might potentially have hampered the take-up in the US of the next generation of wireless technology.

In February, LG, which has strength in the 3G business, won a contract from GSM Association to supply a low cost handset for 3G mobile phone networks under the banner ”3G for All”.