Apple urges court to quash DOJ antitrust suit

(CN) — Apple on Thursday urged a federal judge to toss the Justice Department’s antitrust suit accusing the tech giant of engaging in anticompetitive behavior in the smartphone market.

In a 49-page motion filed in federal court in New Jersey, Apple rebuked federal regulators’ claims that the company intentionally undermined its apps’ compatibility with non-Apple devices.

“This lawsuit is based on the false premise that iPhone’s success has come not through building a superior product that consumers trust and love, but through Apple’s intentional degradation of iPhone to block purported competitive threats,” Apple wrote. “That outlandish claim bears no relation to reality.”

Apple’s restrictions on app developers, the Justice Department said in its March lawsuit, are intended to make it more difficult for third-party software and hardware to make their products compatible with Apple’s. The District of Columbia and 19 states have since joined the federal government in its complaint.

When announcing the suit, Attorney General Merrick Garland focused on Apple’s messaging application iMessage. Texts between an iPhone and a non-iPhone notoriously enjoy less functionality than those between two iPhones.

It’s just one example of Apple hampering marketplace competition by locking consumers into using only its own products, according to the department. “If left unchallenged, Apple will only continue to strengthen its smartphone monopoly,” Garland said in March.

On Thursday, Apple contended that the government’s complaint would unfairly require it to share its proprietary features like iMessage with Android and other competitors.

“The government’s theory that Apple has somehow violated the antitrust laws by not giving third parties broader access to iPhone runs headlong into blackletter antitrust law protecting a firm’s right to design and control its own product,” Apple wrote in its motion.

It also bucked the government’s assertion that it was a monopoly, citing its competition from “global behemoths” like Google and Samsung.

“Apple is not a monopolist,” it said. “Because Apple faces such stiff competition, the government is unable to allege the typical hallmarks of monopoly power: The complaint lacks well-pleaded allegations that Apple can charge supracompetitive prices or restrict output in the alleged smartphone markets, without simultaneously giving advantages to Samsung and Google that would quickly make such conduct untenable.”

In the government’s complaint, it likened Apple’s supposed current day monopoly to that of late-1990s Microsoft, which was found to have unlawfully monopolized the web browser market for Windows by controlling 95% of the market.

Apple also chastised that comparison.

“Apple is nothing like Microsoft,” it claimed Thursday. “Setting aside that Microsoft’s 95% share of the relevant worldwide market in that case blows past Apple’s alleged position here, the conduct condemned in Microsoft is fundamentally different than the allegations brought by the government now.”

Should the Justice Department get its way, Apple claims the court would sanction a “judicial redesign” of its iconic smartphone. Such a precedent would impede innovation and punish consumers, Apple argues.

“Endorsing such a theory would require courts to oversee product-design and policy choices in dynamic technical markets,” Apple said.

Apple adds that the government hasn’t provided any evidence that its practices harm consumers, who are free to switch to other smartphones.

U.S. District Judge Julian Neals didn’t immediately issue a ruling on Apple’s motion to dismiss, and likely won’t until at least October, when the final briefs on the motion are due.

Apple is one of several tech titans facing antitrust suits from the Justice Department. Meta, Amazon and Google are all looking to thwart federal accusations that they are illegally operating as monopolies in their respective markets.

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