I think it would still be possible for a neutral report to end up helping either party significantly. After all, objective truth may be to someone's disadvantag

I think it would still be possible for a neutral report to end up helping either party significantly. After all, objective truth may be to someone's disadvantage as well as to their advantage. The whole point of a lawsuit is to try to convince a judge that 'your version' of the objective truth is supportive of your claims. When a neutral party ends up disagreeing with you that will help the other side. In this situation that's likely not the case (since Astrachan is paid by Google it is clear on whose side he is), but most of what he writes strikes me as quite neutral rather than explicitly usable against Oracle. Google could find itself on the blunt end of those arguments just as easily in another lawsuit. These observations seem to use the evidence from the case as an illustration of a much more general case.