Washington ? The federal judge hearing the Microsoft antitrust case said particularly damaging testimony against the company is hearsay, and refused to consider it in deciding whether nine states, including Kansas, can impose harsh penalties on the company.

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly said the written testimony from RealNetworks vice president David Richards could not be admitted because Richards did not have direct knowledge.

Among many other allegations, Richards said Microsoft had insisted that America Online drop RealNetworks’ media software in favor of Microsoft’s. To make the claim, Richards cited an e-mail last year between AOL CEO Barry Schuler and RealNetworks head Rob Glaser.

“They want to kill you guys so badly, it is ugly,” Schuler told Glaser.

Despite protests from lawyers representing the states that the e-mails provide context of Microsoft’s behavior, the judge threw them out. She said the states have not called those individuals, like Schuler, to confirm what Microsoft said.

“I don’t see how this can be anything but hearsay,” Kollar-Kotelly said.

The states are asking Kollar-Kotelly to force Microsoft to create a stripped-down version of its flagship Windows software that could incorporate competitors’ features. The states also want Microsoft to divulge the blueprints for its Internet Explorer browser.

The federal government and nine other states settled their antitrust case against Microsoft last year.

The original judge in the case, Thomas Penfield Jackson, ordered Microsoft broken into two firms after concluding it illegally stifled its competitors.

An appeals court reversed the penalty but not the conviction and appointed Kollar-Kotelly to determine a new punishment.

Microsoft has expressed some frustration that, while Kollar-Kotelly seems sympathetic to the idea that the states should not be able to present new allegations of wrongdoing, she still has made no definitive ruling on the question.