Heather Schneider, a third year student at Columbia Law School, is the first place winner of the Antitrust Section’s Eighth Annual Student Writing Competition. Her article is entitled "An Antitrust Tying Analysis of Microsoft's Security Software Products."

Heather is currently an Executive Editor of the Columbia Science & Technology Law Review (www.stlr.org) and a legal intern for Judge Robert A. Katzmann of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit. She has a Master’s degree in Computer Science from Pace University and previously worked as a Senior Technical Consultant for Hewlett-Packard. After graduation, she will join the Intellectual Property department of Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP in New York, where she hopes to focus on issues at the intersection of antitrust, intellectual property, and technology law.

In her Note, she examines the possible legal ramifications of Microsoft's entry into the market for security products, such as personal firewall, anti-virus, and anti-spyware software. In particular, she considers whether Microsoft's new security offerings could constitute illegal tying arrangements under either the per se rule or the rule of reason.

As the top winner in the competition, Ms. Schneider will receive an all-expense paid trip to Washington, D.C. where she will receive her prize during the Section Luncheon (Wednesday, March 29th), which is held during its Annual Spring Meeting, March 29-31, 2005.

The American Bar Association Section of Antitrust Law sponsors the student writing competition annually. The competition is designed to encourage law student legal scholarship in the areas of antitrust law, competition policy, consumer protection and international competition law.

Editors-in-chief of law reviews and legal journals nominated student-written papers published in 2005 on a topic of interest to the antitrust bar.