“The economic principles that speak to this issue concern what happens when you have corporations that do many things and have may points of contact with each other — they have an interdependent relationship,” says Bernheim, pointing out how Samsung has manufactured the Pixel’s processor among other things.

“What we know is in those types of settings, companies tend to mutually forebear to some degree... even if they don’t agree not to compete, they find it in their best interests,” he says.

I expect Google will combat that during cross-examination.