The final arguments, which lasted a total of about 2.5 hours, were closed to the press, because several documents currently under seal were referred to in the proceedings.

Sun is suing Microsoft for breach of contract, trademark infringement and other charges, related to its licensing agreement for the Java programming language from Sun.

Lloyd "Rusty" Day, a senior partner with Day, Casebeer, Madrid, Winters & Batchelder, the outside lawfirm representing Sun, held a brief teleconference call with reporters.

"I think the arguments went extremely well for Sun," Day said, adding that US district court Judge Ronald Whyte of the northern district of California in San Jose, asked about three questions after each side gave final arguments.

Day said he could not divulge any details aboutwhat was specifically argued or discussed in the hearing until the court record is made publicly available, which may occur Friday.

"He understands this is a very urgent matter," Day said. "I expect he will get to it as quickly as he can and that we should have a decision not immediately, but in the not-too- distant future." Day estimated that the judge could issue ruling in a month or two.

Sun is asking the court to stop Microsoft from selling certain products which use the Java programming language, such as its Windows 98 operating system, Internet Explorer 4.0 and development tool kits for software developers, until they modify their products and pass Sun's compatability tests for the Java language.

Sun alleges that Microsoft has not conformed to its specifications in developing products that use Java and that it has created a "non-conforming, polluting version" of Java that will only run Microsoft's implementations of the technology on Windows-based systems.

Java, a programming language created bySun in 1995, was designed to help software developers write programmes that can be written once and able to run on a wide range of different computer systems. Sun accuses Microsoft of seeking to wrest control of the Java platform, with its "divergent" Java.

Microsoft has argued that it has the right to define acertain part of the technology, called the native code interface - the underlying code which acts as a bridge between Java-based programmes and non-Java programmes.

Microsoft's counsel were in transit and not immediately available for comment. Day said that if the judge does not rule in favour of Sun's request for an injunction, Sun's next intention is to seek to move the case to a trial as quickly as possible.