Apple has requested the dismissal of a 2011 lawsuit that claimed the company has a monopoly over applications available for their iPhone.
The two-year-old lawsuit accuses Apple of monopolistic practices by preventing developers from selling their software at a discounted price anywhere else. Apple takes a 30 percent cut of all content sold through the App Store, and its rules dictate that content providers cannot charge less for the same material sold elsewhere.
However, Bloomberg reports today that Apple believes that the suit should be thrown out, because the company doesn’t set the price for the paid applications and there are no antitrust laws against charging for distribution of a product.
Apple asked U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers to dismiss the suit in Oakland, CA this week. The judge will also oversee a separate antitrust lawsuit that accuses Apple’s iTunes service of holding a similar monopoly on music downloading.
Seven consumers originally filed the app monopoly suit, and their attorney argued against dismissal of the case, saying that iPhone users cannot go anywhere but the App Store to purchase their Angry Birds fix on the device.
