Should Apple reinstate Fortnite in its App Store? The court had no idea 🤷‍♀️

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OPINIONS

ORDER GRANTING IN PART AND DENYING IN PART MOTION FOR PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION

Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, United States District Judge

Preliminary injunctive relief is an extraordinary measure rarely granted. Plaintiff Epic Games, Inc.’s lawsuit against defendant Apple Inc. challenges the fundamental operation of digital platforms affecting millions of users. To resolve it, the Court must apply the Sherman Act, California's Cartwright Act, and California's Unfair Competition Law—statutes enacted more than a century ago—to a technology context where lawyers and economists can merely hypothesize about the future of the digital frontier. While courts are charged with adjudicating cases of significant impact, they do so cautiously, and on full records, with the status quo intact.

In this motion for preliminary injunction, Epic Games asks the Court to force Apple to reinstate Fortnite to the Apple App Store, despite its acknowledged breach of its licensing agreements and operating guidelines, and to stop Apple from terminating its affiliates’ access to developer tools for other applications, including Unreal Engine, while Epic Games litigates its claims. Having carefully considered the parties’ arguments, and for the reasons set forth more fully below, the Court maintains its findings from the temporary restraining order and hereby GRANTS IN PART and DENIES IN PART Epic Games’ motion for a preliminary injunction.

Epic Games bears the burden in asking for such extraordinary relief. Given the novelty and the magnitude of the issues, as well as the debate in both the academic community and society at large,[1] the Court is unwilling to tilt the playing field in favor of one party or the other with an early ruling of likelihood of success on the merits. Epic Games has strong arguments regarding Apple's exclusive distribution through the iOS App Store, and the in-app purchase ("IAP") system through which Apple takes 30% of certain IAP payments. However, given the limited record, Epic Games has not sufficiently addressed Apple's counter arguments. The equities, addressed in the temporary restraining order, remain the same.

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This court case 4:20-cv-05640-YGR published on Oct 9, 2020, is part of the public domain. The court-created documents are works of the federal government, and under copyright law, are automatically placed in the public domain and may be shared without legal restriction.