Samsung filed a brief late on Thursday asking Judge Lucy Koh to deny Apple’s sanction requests in their mobile device patent infringement trial. Apple had asked the court to rule its patents in the case are valid as a sanction against Samsung for releasing excluded evidence to journalists.
Samsung’s legal team managed to upset Judge Koh earlier this week when it authorized the release of evidence to the media that they claimed would show Apple’s iPhone was inspired by Sony designs and not an original concept. The team claimed it hadn’t done anything wrong despite accusations from Apple’s lawyers that Samsung intentionally released the information in an effort to surreptitiously sway the jury.
Samsung to Judge: Don’t sanction us
Apple also asked Judge Koh to rule that its patents in the trial are valid and that Samsung is infringing on the technology those patents cover. Apple’s filing said, in part,
The proper remedy for Samsung’s misconduct is judgment that Apple’s asserted phone design patents are valid and infringed. Through its extraordinary actions yesterday, Samsung sought to sway the jury on the design patent issues, and the proper remedy is to enter judgment against Samsung on those same patents.
Samsung called Apple’s request “self serving,” according to Macworld, and claimed that the jury won’t be tainted because the jurors have been instructed to avoid news about the case. “Apple proceeds on the groundless assumption that the jury, already instructed by the Court not to read media accounts, will violate the Court’s instructions and do precisely that,” the Samsung filing stated.
Granting the request would effectively end the part of the trial where Apple is accusing Samsung of blatantly copying the look and feel of the iPhone and iPad with its smartphones and tablets. The two sides, however, would still be left to fight over whether or not Apple is violating Samsung’s standards essential patents.
Apple and Samsung have been fighting in courtrooms around the world over patent infringement complaints for over a year. Both companies claim the other is using mobile device patents without proper licensing, and Apple has also accused Samsung of blatantly copying the iPad’s look and feel.
Apple is hoping to convince the jury that Samsung is flagrantly copying its ideas with images that show smartphone designs before and after the launch of the iPhone, and is claiming Samsung owes US$2.5 billion for patent infringement. Samsung claims Apple owes 2.4 percent of all iPhone sales for using its patents without proper licensing.