A federal appeals court panel in San Francisco appeared skeptical of Alphabet Inc.’s argument that its competition with Apple Inc. in smartphones is sufficient to justify overturning a jury verdict that declared an illegal monopoly for Android apps.

Lawyers for Alphabet's Google and "Fortnite" maker Epic Games are set to square off before a U.S. appeals court in California on Monday, as Google tries to undo a jury verdict and a judge's order forcing it to revamp its app store.

Google blocked an unprecedented 2.36 million app submissions to the Play Store in 2024. These apps were found to violate Google’s security policies, potentially posing risks to Android users worldwide. Google also banned 158,000 developer accounts linked to the distribution of harmful software, including malware and spyware.

Google went to appeals court Monday in an attempt to convince a three-judge panel to overturn a jury’s verdict declaring its app store for Android smartphones as an illegal monopoly and block the penalties imposed by a federal judge to stop the misbehavior.

AI became a hot topic. Its influence even bled into the Google Play security division, which used AI in 92% of app security reviews.

Google is preparing to head back to court on Monday to appeal a ruling that found its app store was a monopoly — one of three major antitrust suits against the tech firm.