Setbacks for Apple in Continuing Court Battle with Samsung

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Apple has lost two skirmishes in its ongoing international patent war with Samsung. In the U.K., Britain’s Court of Appeal upheld an earlier decision that Samsung had not infringed on Apple’s designs. And in the U.S., Judge Lucy Koh has ordered Apple to release product-specific sales and profit information.

Stephen Eisenhammer from Reuters reported, “Britain’s Court of Appeal on Thursday upheld the country’s High Court judgment that, despite some similarities, Samsung’s Galaxy tablet did not infringe Apple’s designs, in part because its products were ‘not as cool.’ The decision is valid throughout Europe and should prohibit further legal disputes between the two companies over the design of tablets in the region.”

BBC News noted, “Apple still needs to run ads saying Samsung had not infringed its rights. The US firm had previously been ordered to place a notice to that effect – with a link to the original judgement – on its website and place other adverts in the Daily Mail, Financial Times, T3 Magazine and other publications to ‘correct the damaging impression’ that Samsung was a copycat.”

In the U.S., Apple won its lawsuit against Samsung, but has filed an appeal seeking more damages and a more widespread ban on Samsung profits. CNET’s Lance Whitney observed, “Apple won its recent U.S. patent case against Samsung, but the company may have to pay a price by revealing key profit details about the iPhone. Judge Lucy Koh has ordered Apple to go public with information about its sales, earnings, and profit margins on the iPhone. As a corporation, Apple does report unit sales on its various products each quarter. But it shies away from divulging how much of a profit it makes on each iPhone.”

Ars Technica quoted Judge Koh’s ruling. “‘As Apple appears to have realized in introducing that exhibit, it cannot both use its financial data to seek multi-billion dollar damages and insist on keeping it secret,’ wrote Koh. ‘The public’s interest in accessing Apple’s financial information is now perhaps even greater than it was at trial.’ The remedies sought by Apple, ‘would have a profound effect on the smartphone industry, consumers, and the public… Beyond continuing to assert that its financial data are ‘trade secrets,’ Apple has not provided any new arguments for why this information should be protected.'”