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You are here: MacNN Forums > News > Tech News > UK Court of Appeal orders Apple to pay Samsung legal costs

UK Court of Appeal orders Apple to pay Samsung legal costs
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Nov 11, 2012, 12:20 PM
 
Apple has been ordered to pay Samsung's costs in its UK legal battle. The Court of Appeal made the order under an "indemnity basis," typically higher than the normal "standard" basis of legal costs, due to the "false and misleading" information placed by Apple in the first court-ordered statement on its website.

As noted by GrokLaw, the court has since published its judgment online. While the online statements' contents were considered a more important matter, the court first addressed Apple's print-based statements, which was described as "lackadaisical at best." The initial order to publish advertisements with the statement was given on October 18th, with publication set to be "in the earliest available issue" of the specified newspapers and magazines. The company was said to understand that it had to "co-ordinate adverts across those publications in order to ensure the widest readership possible is exposed to the advert on the same day," which is a difficult task to complete considering the different publishing schedules and long lead times for magazines compared to newspapers. The initial statement, put onto the UK section of Apple's website, included the infamous "Not as cool" comments from Judge Birss. When introduced by the words "In the ruling, the judge made several points comparing the designs of the Apple and Samsung products," it was the view of the court that the Judge's comments would be taken by readers as being a direct comparison between the scrutinized Samsung products and the iPad, when the case was between Samsung's products and Apple's patent. The mention of other cases that went Apple's way also came under fire. While Apple mentioned its win in the billion-dollar US case, it neglected to note that the same design claim that was used in the UK case was rejected by the US jury. The court said "The average reader would think that the UK decision was at odds with that in the US. Far from that being so, it was in accordance with it." The decision finishes with a comment over the company's need for 14 days to comply with the second statement. At the time, the court said that the 48 hours, considered generous by the judges, was sufficient to make the changes, but would consider extending the time allowed upon receiving an application, complete with an affidavit from a senior executive explaining why more time was needed. In the end, the change was made without a time extension, leading one judge, Sir Robin Jacob, to say "I hope that the lack of integrity involved in this incident is entirely atypical of Apple."
     
bobolicious
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Nov 11, 2012, 02:43 PM
 
Seeing a samsung tablet next to an ipad the only visible cursory difference seemed the name text. I remain surprised at the UK court decision. ''If it walks like a duck...' Is it any wonder the EU is in economic trouble with such entrepreneurially discouraging rulings from their courts...?
     
wessew
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Nov 11, 2012, 04:13 PM
 
Well, other courts have found infringement did occur. It is fairly apparent to anyone who looks closely at the two products that Samsung attempted to copy but could not get the replica to be as close as they would have liked. The "mistakes" in copying aided them in the UK courts. The UK Court of Appeal botched this ruling and now they are being punitive because Apple had the boldness to mock the ruling in their admission statement. It would have probably been better if Apple had posted the same information in different venues which would not have directly interfered with the Court's order but would have had the same effect. I blame this on the lawyers and on management who should have know better. It has cost the shareholders a few million bucks. While perhaps a drop in the bucket, it is still money.
     
gooser
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Nov 11, 2012, 04:29 PM
 
i wonder how much apple's legal costs figure into the price of their products.
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slapppy
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Nov 11, 2012, 11:02 PM
 
The UK court are petty themselves demanding this. Never realized how stupid they are.
     
Shaddim
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Nov 12, 2012, 03:14 AM
 
Originally Posted by mojkarma View Post
Well, may Samsung be damned for producing rectangle tablets with rounded ends. How dare they. Hail to Apple who invented rectangle tablets.
Regarding your economic analysis of the EU, pleas spare us from your stupidity. You should know where the crisis came from and why. If you don't, you better shut up.
That's uncalled for, don't you think? This isn't 4chan.
"Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it."
- Thomas Paine
     
jreades
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Nov 12, 2012, 04:55 AM
 
Originally Posted by bobolicious View Post
Is it any wonder the EU is in economic trouble with such entrepreneurially discouraging rulings from their courts...?
That's absurd. First, are you seriously suggesting that the rulings of the Eastern District of Texas court *promote* entrepreneurialism? Second, business method and user interface patents are an invention of the US pretty much alone and there's no evidence that either of those support innovation (see: Amazon 1-Click Patent, etc.). And third, this a ruling by the UK courts, not the EU, so your point is moot anyway.
     
jreades
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Nov 12, 2012, 04:57 AM
 
Originally Posted by slapppy View Post
The UK court are petty themselves demanding this. Never realized how stupid they are.
No, Apple posted materially misleading information relating to a legal decision. The court is well within its rights to take issue with this. You do *not* piss on the courts, no matter how much money you make (well, unless you're a big bank in which case you buy the people who decide which cases to bring to court in the first place).
     
apostle
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Nov 12, 2012, 06:05 AM
 
The Court's own statement implies that England and Wales do decide the law for the EU. I think people unfamiliar with the EU, such as myself, could interpret it that way.

On 9th July 2012 the High Court of Justice of England and Wales ruled that Samsung Electronic (UK) Limited’s Galaxy Tablet Computer, namely the Galaxy Tab 10.1, Tab 8.9 and Tab 7.7 do not infringe Apple’s registered design No. 0000181607-0001. A copy of the full judgment of the High court is available on the following link 

www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Patents/2012/1882.html.

That Judgment has effect throughout the European Union and was upheld by the Court of Appeal on 18 October 2012. A copy of the Court of Appeal’s judgment is available on the following link www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2012/1339.html. There is no injunction in respect of the registered design in force anywhere in Europe.

=0/
     
DiabloConQueso
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Nov 12, 2012, 06:20 AM
 
Originally Posted by mojkarma View Post
Well, may Samsung be damned for producing rectangle tablets with rounded ends. How dare they. Hail to Apple who invented rectangle tablets.
If you think this lawsuit was about rounded corners on a rectangular tablet, then you missed the whole lawsuit entirely.
     
jreades
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Nov 19, 2012, 09:23 AM
 
The High Court does not make law for the EU as a whole, and if you look at the judgement you'll see some telling sections:

Council Regulation (EC) No 6/2002 applies to this case. There is no point in quoting the Articles in this judgment. Article 3 defines "design". Articles 4, 5 and 6 relate to validity, a design must be new and have individual character. Article 8 excludes features dictated solely by function. Art 10 defines the scope of protection in a manner analogous to the definition of individual character in Art 6. A design will infringe if it does not produce on the informed user a different overall impression. In assessing the scope of protection, the degree of freedom of the designer in developing his design shall be taken into consideration. Recital 14 explains that overall impression depends on the existing design corpus, the nature of the product, the industrial sector and the degree of freedom of the designer.
In other words, the High Court is applying European Community regulations in reaching its judgement and saying that 'according to our interpretation of EC regulation there is no cause for an injunction and since all EU countries are subject to these regulations there is no Europe-wide injunction', it is not saying 'EU regulations should be interpreted in line with UK law'.
     
shivmodi
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Jun 28, 2013, 03:04 AM
 
Legal war between two giants of mobile phone.
     
   
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