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Apple Finally Posts The Correct Apology: Hurrah!

This article is more than 10 years old.

Apple has complied with Thursday's Court of Appeal order that they post an announcement on their website. There's been a certain amount of argy bargy about this so it's nice to see that the company is finally up to speed:

On 25 October 2012, Apple Inc. published a statement on its UK website in relation to Samsung's Galaxy tablet computers. That statement was inaccurate and did not comply with the order of the Court of Appeal of England and Wales. The correct statement is at Samsung/Apple UK judgement.

And if you go to that link then you find the following:

Samsung / Apple UK judgment

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

the High Court is available from 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 of England and Wales on 18 October 2012. A copy of the Court of Appeal’s judgment is available from www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2012/1339.html. There is no injunction in respect of the Community registered design in force anywhere in Europe.

Which is, I think we'll all agree, really rather different from the original they put up.

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.

However, in a case tried in Germany regarding the same patent, the court found that Samsung engaged in unfair competition by copying the iPad design. A U.S. jury also found Samsung guilty of infringing on Apple’s design and utility patents, awarding over one billion U.S. dollars in damages to Apple Inc. So while the U.K. court did not find Samsung guilty of infringement, other courts have recognized that in the course of creating its Galaxy tablet, Samsung willfully copied Apple’s far more popular iPad.

It's that last part of it that enraged the judges. For a very funny (and not entirely serious, although the facts are true) report on the happenings in the courtroom itself try this:

After the judges had retired and then come back [Sir Robin seems to have made a second career of this: is any reader keeping a tally of his judicial lead roles and cameos since we all wished him well -- and indeed farewell -- when he exchanged bench for chair and became an academic?] to announce that they were going to require Apple to publish a corrective statement on its UK home page (with reasons to be published later), there then followed a discussion regarding how long Apple would need to comply. As this stage a decidedly barbecued Mr Beloff sought a period of 14 days, saying that he was informed by Apple that there were technical reasons why it could not be done any quicker [goodness, says Merpel, one of Apple's selling points is the speed of its applications].

Kitchin LJ then asked how long it would require to take down the existing statement to which the response was 24 hours [The IPKat is astonished at this. He can take down a blogpost in a matter of minutes, and replace a few paragraphs of text in little more than that, even without any number of kindly old members of the judiciary to help him with his wording, as Apple have had]. Kitchin LJasked: if Apple could take down the offending statement in 24 hours, why could a new one not go up in the same time? The response from the now flaming Beloff was that, while he appreciated that this was surprising, he was assured by his clients that there were technical reasons. At that point sizeable rocket spouting sparks and flames emanated from the general direction of Sir Robin Jacob. He told Mr Beloff that he could not “believe the instructions which [Mr Beloff] had been given", that Mr Beloff’s instructions “were not good enough” and that if that point was to be pursued he (Sir Robin) would require “an affidavit from the Head of Apple setting out in full detail” why it would take 14 days for Apple (with considerable emphasis on the word "Apple") to do this.

14 days to put up a bit of boilerplate: that's, to use the politer English form of the phrase, rather taking the Mickey. And the Justices of the Court of Appeal do not appreciate having the Mickey taken.

Now that the story's pretty much over this does leave me with one regret. It would have been rather fun if Apple had held out and insisted that it would take 14 days to post this announcement. I, certainly, would have paid good money to watch Tim Cook explaining to Sir Robin the technical reasons why it might all take so long. Or to read Sir Robin's comments on the affidavit. Wouldn't you?