After reading the brief I think it's important to point out that even if the appeals court fully agreed with the arguments made by the states, that does not aut

After reading the brief I think it's important to point out that even if the appeals court fully agreed with the arguments made by the states, that does not automatically mean Epic would win their case. This is because the arguments made in this brief are fairly limited in scope to specific procedural details for how antitrust analysis should be conducted in cases like these, and in essence can be summarized as: "the district court needs to go back and analyze this in more detail". To elaborate further, the two arguments made are: > 1. The district court erred in holding that Section 1 of the Sherman Act does not apply to “unilateral contracts.” A section 1 claim requires the plaintiff to prove (1) the existence of an agreement and (2) that the agreement was an unreasonable restraint of trade. The district court ruled that Epic had not satisfied (1) because the agreement was a "unilateral contract". The states disagree. Even if they are right, Epic still faces the uphill burden of moving to the next step and actually proving (2). > 2. The district court’s rule-of-reason analysis failed to balance the overall competitive effects of Apple’s restraints. Under the rule of reason the district court applied a "three-part burden-shifting" test to the question of whether Apple's contractual restraints of trade were unreasonable. First, the burden was on Epic to prove that the restraints had an anti-competitive effect. The court agreed. Second, the burden shifted to Apple to prove there was a pro-competitive justification for the restraints. The court agreed. Third, the burden shifted back to Epic to prove that those pro-competitive justifications could have been achieved through less restrictive means. Here, the court did not agree with Epic and thus the three-part test failed. The states argue that, after having failed that test, the district court needs to take the additional step of analyzing the anti-competitive effects vs the pro-competitive justifications to determine whether the net result is pro or anti-competitive. In other words, they are asking for the appeals court to remand the case back to the district court for further analysis. Again, there is no guarantee that this analysis would come out in Epic's favor. Of course, all this is predicated on the appeals court agreeing with the arguments made in the brief. They may very well disagree, in which case this whole argument is moot. Overall I believe Epic is still fighting a huge uphill battle here and the current antitrust laws (not to mention the current makeup of the Supreme Court) are not likely to be on their side.