Judges Condemn Apple’s Conduct Following Samsung Ruling
redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports – Your Universe Online
A trio of UK judges is reportedly “furious” over Apple‘s lack of compliance with a court order demanding that the Cupertino, California-based company publically acknowledge that Samsung did not infringe upon patents and designs relating to the iPad tablet computer.
According to Charles Arthur of The Guardian, the court of appeals that initially ordered Apple to publish newspaper advertisements and acknowledge on their website that their South Korean rivals had not copied the iPad were said to be highly critical of the company’s “lackadaisical” compliance with those instructions.
The initial ruling was handed down by Judge Colin Briss on July 18, and while Apple appealed the ruling, it lost and the notice and the accompanying advertisements were to be published in October, explained Julie Kuehl of the Mac Observer.
However, in the verdict, Briss declared that part of the reason that the judges knew that Samsung had not infringed upon the iPad was that their tablet computers were not as “cool” as their American counterparts. Needless to say, the judges were not amused when the statement posted by Apple on their UK website included those comments, and they ordered the company to change the text within 24 hours, Kuehl said.
They did so, but in the process, added Javascript code that made it so that the statement would remain “below the fold” when viewed on a browser, regardless of a user’s monitor size, Kuehl and Arthur said. That code has since been “quietly removed,” The Guardian reports, and the public acknowledgement and a link to a full statement is now viewable and accessible from the company’s UK homepage.
Sir Robin Jacob, who authored the November 1 ruling regarding Apple’s compliance to the original court order, said that the addition of “false and misleading” statements to the original notice, as well as Apple’s perceived attempts to delay publication of the print ads and related conduct in the matter, led the court to award costs against Apple on an more expensive indemnity basis.
That decision was said to be “as a mark of the court’s disapproval” of their behavior, according to Jacob, who added that Apple’s conduct “warranted such an order.” In light of the company’s conduct, the judge said that the court felt that it was necessary “to make a publicity order requiring Apple to disperse the fog of confusion it had created,” and added that he hoped that “the lack of integrity involved in this incident is entirely atypical of Apple.”
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2012-11-12 08:24:04
Source: http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/1112729256/apple-samsung-uk-judges-disapprove-111212/
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