A jury of eight men and women have thrown out a long-running class action lawsuit against Apple, which sought more than a billion dollars in damages.

In a verdict handed down a few minutes ago in Oakland federal court, the jury found that Apple's iTunes 7.0 constituted a genuine product improvement. That means it's the end of the case for the plaintiffs, who represented a class of around eight million consumers, as well as iPod resellers like Best Buy and Walmart.

The jury was ordered to consider the case in a bifurcated manner, considering separate questions in turn. First, they decided whether iTunes 7.0 was a product improvement. If they had decided it was not, they would have gone on to decide whether Apple had acted anti-competitively, and assess any damages.

The plaintiffs claimed that iTunes 7.0 included updates that were meant to push out Apple competitors like RealNetworks, which had a competing DRM system called "Harmony." After the 7.0 update, Real's competing DRM system wouldn't work with iPods.

Plaintiffs' lawyers said that move violated competition laws, resulting in Apple dominating the market and resulting in overcharges for iPods. Apple countered that it was Real who should take responsibility for what was basically a hack of Apple DRM.

The case was originally filed in 2005 and finally went to trial earlier this month. The plaintiffs had asked for $351 million, and any damages would have been tripled under antitrust law. The trial lasted two weeks and saw testimony from top Apple executives including Philip Schiller and iTunes chief Eddy Cue.

At one point, the plaintiffs lost their named plaintiff, who hadn't bought an iPod in the class period, which ranged from 2006 to 2009. She was quickly replaced with another plaintiff that found out about the trial by reading Ars Technica.

The trial result is a massive setback for the Robins Geller law firm, which organized the lawsuit.

The drawn-out defense win is also a big feather in the cap for Apple's legal team. When the next class-action suit rolls around, Apple will be happy to remind them what happened to the last plaintiffs: 10 years of expensive litigation, resulting in zero payout.