In October 2023, Patently Apple posted a report titled "The DOJ’s Google Antitrust Case Wraps up this week with Google’s 21-year partnership with Apple being Center Stage." The report noted that Judge Amit Mehta isn’t expected to issue a decision until next year, though any resolution to the case is expected to drag out for years with appeals and a possible second trial to establish a remedy if the Justice Department wins.

It's being reported this afternoon that a federal U.S. judge ruled today that Google has illegally held a monopoly in two market areas: search and text advertising. In its ruling, the court homed in on Google’s exclusive search arrangements on Android and Apple’s iPhone and iPad devices, saying that they helped to cement Google’s anticompetitive behavior and dominance over the search markets.

The landmark case from the government, filed in 2020, alleged that Google has kept its share of the general search market by creating strong barriers to entry and a feedback loop that sustained its dominance. The court found that Google violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act, which outlaws monopolies.

The ruling marks the first anti-monopoly decision against a tech company in decades.

“Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly,” Judge Amit Mehta of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia wrote in the decision.

The Department of Justice and a bipartisan group of attorneys general from 38 states and territories, led by Colorado and Nebraska, filed similar but separate antitrust suits against Google in 2020. The suits were combined for pretrial purposes, such as discovery of evidence.

Attorney General Merrick Garland called the decision a “historic win for the American people.”

“No company — no matter how large or influential — is above the law,” Garland wrote in a statement. “The Justice Department will continue to vigorously enforce our antitrust laws.”

Kent Walker, Google’s president of global affairs, said in a statement that the company plans to appeal the ruling. For more on this, read the full CNBC report.