UK Judges Not Happy With Apple's Compliance on Court Order

Three UK judges are not pleased with Apple's shenanigans in complying with court orders to publicly acknowledge that Samsung did not copy Apple's iPad. Stalling, delays, "false and misleading" additions to the statement, and website design tricks have gotten the British judges a little hot under the collar.

Apple and Samsung logos in the scales of justice

Back on July 18th, UK Judge Colin Briss ruled that Apple must display an acknowledgement on its website that said that Samsung had not copied Apple. At the same time, he acknowledged that one of the reasons it was clear they didn't is because Samsung's devices were not at "cool" as Apple's.

Of course, Apple appealed the decision, but it lost, and the appeals process was just a temporary delay. The acknowledgement would have to appear on its website and in several papers in October.

So Apple put up a statement on its UK website that made the acknowledgement, but also included some of the judge's own words regarding the cool factor. The judge was not amused. He considered it a "plain breach of the order" and gave Apple 24 hours to change it.

Apple made the required changes in wording, but apparently adding a bit of Javascript trickery that would keep the statement "below the fold" when displayed in a browser.

The Javascript code has now been removed and the acknowledgement, along with a link to the statement, can now be found at the bottom of Apple's UK home page.

Apple's UK website acknowledgement

Now appearing on Apple's UK website

The Guardian reported that the judges are furious with Apple's stall tactics. In addition to the acknowledgment, they hit Apple with additional costs "as a mark of the court's disapproval of a party's conduct, particularly in relation to its respect for an order of the court."

In the end, the Sir Robin Jacob summarized the events, "I hope that the lack of integrity involved in this incident is entirely atypical of Apple."