SALT LAKE CITY — Microsoft’s Bill Gates returns to the witness stand today to defend his company against a $1 billion antitrust lawsuit that claims the software giant tricked a competitor into huge losses and soared onto the market with Windows 95.

Utah-based Novell sued Microsoft in 2004. The company says Gates duped them into thinking he would include its WordPerfect writing program in the new Windows system, then backed out because he feared it was too good.

Novell said it was later forced to sell WordPerfect for a $1.2 billion loss.

Gates testified Monday that Microsoft was racing to put out Windows 95 when he dropped technical features that would no longer support the rival’s word processor because engineers warned it would crash the system. Windows 95 was a major innovation, and Gates said he had his mind on larger issues.