MOSCOW, January 11 - RAPSI, Alyona Yegorova. A commercial court postponed on Wednesday until February 21 the preliminary hearing of the Microsoft corporation's lawsuit to prohibit Russian businessman Dmitry Shapovalov from further using the windows.ru domain due to trademark infringement, the Russian Legal Information Agency (RAPSI/rapsinews.com) reports from the courtroom.

Microsoft has refused to provide additional comments. However, the source has confirmed that "the Microsoft corporation has sued the owner of windows.ru" and noted that the "Microsoft corporation owns the Windows trademark."

Shapovalov's representative said on Wednesday that the defendant has not received anything except two letters from Microsoft.

"We do not understand the gist of the matter," the lawyer said, noting that the defendant learned about the hearing by chance.

The judge invited him to read the case materials.

The Demos-Internet domain names registrar is the third party in the litigation. The windows.ru website is currently blocked.

Microsoft's market capitalization was estimated at $224.9 billion as of mid-November.