What you need to know
- Apple vs Epic Games concluded earlier this year, and we're all waiting on what could be a momentous decision.
- Apple has made a last-minute play to sway the ruling in its favor.
- It has asked the judge in the case to consider a few recent judgments favorable to its cause, including the FTC's case versus Facebook.
Apple has asked Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers to consider recent judgments it says support its case against Epic Games, ahead of a ruling in its major antitrust trial.
Court documents seen by iMore filed late on Friday by lawyers for the company ask the court to consider three antitrust cases that have been decided since the close of the trial against epic.
Apple has asked Judge Gonzalez Rogers to consider a recent decision by courts to throw out the Federal Trade Commission's lawsuit against Facebook. The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia found that whilst it didn't agree with all of Facebook's contentions, it found the FTC's complaint was "legally insufficient" and to be therefore must be dismissed stating:
"The FTC has failed to plead enough facts to plausibly establish a necessary element of all of its Section 2 claims — namely, that Facebook has monopoly power in the market for Personal Social Networking (PSN) Services."
The case against Facebook raised by the FTC stems from Facebook's alleged strategy to eliminate competition from apps like WhatsApp and Instagram by simply buying the companies. Apple's filing states the case should be considered as the court addressed " (among other things) the legal framework for refusal-to-deal (including so-called "conditional dealing") claims, laches, and the relationship between restrictions on interoperability and allegations of monopoly maintenance."
Apple also lists a 1-800 Contacts case against the FTC regarding "how the rule of reason should be applied with respect to agreements relating to the use of intellectual property".
Apple also says its own recent victory against BlueMail developer Blix is to be considered. From our report earlier this month:
After having one lawsuit against Apple tossed last year, BlueMail developer Blix has suffered another black eye after a federal judge in Delaware granted Apple's motion to dismiss its claims a second time.Blix, a founding member of the Coalition for App fairness, had claimed that the App Store and Sign in with Apple authentication system were harming competition. A judge disagreed, saying that Apple doesn't prevent other single sign-on systems from being used. In fact, the judge went further and said that what Apple does is "the opposite of unlawfully constraining competition, so, again, Blix has failed to state a claim."
