A couple of point. First, fjtorres is absolutely right in that you have to take the initial reports with a grain of salt. While it might be an indication that the judges are skeptical of the government's case, a lot will come down to what the judges think is important. They probably aren't going to announce a decision for a good 3 to 6 months.
In regards to anti-trust, no Judge Cote was not suppose to ignore Amazon. The market situation is a very, very important part of anti-trust law. At the time, Amazon controlled 90 percent of the market. If the decision is overturned or returned to a lower court, I would expect the failure to consider the market situation at the time to be a major part of the decision to overturn.
While I'm not surprised that the judges questioned that Judge Cote wrongly applied the per se standard to Apple, I do find it very surprising that one of the judges questioned applying per se to the publishers. That, is of course, moot since the publishers settled out of court, but it will be interesting to see if that line of reasoning finds it's way into the decision.
|