Last week, Apple posted a statement on its UK website acknowledging that Samsung had not infringed upon the protected design of the iPad, in line with a court order following the trial. But Apple took the opportunity to playfully quote statements from the judge's ruling saying that the Samsung Galaxy Tab was "not as cool" as the iPad and note that it had won cases against Samsung in other jurisdictions.
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Bloomberg now reports, however, that Apple's version of the statement is not in line with the intent of the order, which was to present a simple reference to the court decision ruling against Apple. The court has requested that Apple alter its website statement within two days, but Apple claims that alterations could take up to two weeks.
“I’m at a loss that a company such as Apple would do this,” Judge Robin Jacob said today. “That is a plain breach of the order.” [...]
The court’s initial order to post a notice was designed to correct the impression that the South Korean company was copying Apple’s product. Apple’s post, criticized by judges today, inserted four paragraphs including excerpts of the original “cool” ruling and details of similar German lawsuits that the court today said weren’t true.
The original court ruling required that Apple keep the acknowledgement linked on its website for one month and to purchase advertisements in a number of newspapers and magazines to publicly make the same admission. Those advertisements have, however, yet to appear.
Top Rated Comments
Samsung copied them, it was blatant. E mails flew about internally giving explicit instructions to copy Apples design, Google warned them to stop it, and yet they didn't because it wasn't as cool as the real thing? Goodness how ridiculous.
As a UK Citizen, doesn't surprise me though, our legal system is inconsistent and shambolic.
I'd go as far to say that Judge Robin Jacob is possibly embarrassed by the fact Apple showed the world how ridiculous the judgement was, by simply quoting the judgement. It's his pride that's taking a knock, and that's why he's outraged.
The UK is a sovereign country. If Apple wish to sell their products here, they should follow UK law. They don't get to deliberately confuse a court order by adding mentions of similar court proceedings around the world, as they do not apply here.
Alternatively they could grow up and simply upload the message they were ordered to post and it will all be done and dusted.