This could be interesting. A US court has denied moves by Apple to dismiss a lawsuit that is being pursued against them alleging that their much reported restrictive business model is anti-competitive. The federal lawsuit, launched last July, claims that Apple created an "illegal monopoly" by refusing to make their digital music player or codec interoperable with those of their competitors, so that the only source of DRMed music for an iPod is iTunes, and the only portable players that play music bought from iTunes is the iPod. The computer giant had hoped to get the lawsuit dismissed without its digital music business strategy being analysed in court, but judges say the case against Apple deserves proper consideration and so the litigation will now get a full hearing, out of court settlement pending. Given the wider and growing concerns of Apple's restrictive approach, said case should prove interesting.
Apple confirmed it was still facing the lawsuit in a submission to the US's Securities And Exchange Commission on Friday. The document also revealed details of other pending litigation against Apple, including one alleging patent violations on the previously reported Nike iPod product, and another in which the computer firm is being sued over allegations the logic board in its iBook G4 "fails at an abnormally high rate".