Last Saturday morning, just as Melbourne-based tech entrepreneur and investor Matt Berriman would have been preparing for a trans-Pacific flight to attend a make-or-break court ruling in his six-year fight over Google’s role in killing start-up Unlockd, an email notification from the US court landed. There would be no hearing.

Judge Haywood Gilliam, of the US District Court for the Northern District of California, had been due to rule on Thursday (US time) whether Berriman gets to have his day in court to accuse Google of anticompetitive conduct. But the hearing was scrapped at the last minute in favour of a written judgment.