Judge Rejects Apple Motion Over Samsung’s “‘Irrelevant, Misleading” Opening Statements

Apple vs Samsung2

California District Court Judge Lucy Koh denied Apple’s motion asking for evidence of Samsung’s lawyer’s misleading statements as the second round of the Apple vs. Samsung trial kicked off.

You may recall that both parties had up to five patents to assert against each other. Now, as it turns out, Apple doesn’t practice certain patent claims in its products, at least according to the opening statement of Samsung’s lawyers. This would make the company a non-practicing entity, as Florian Müller of Foss Patents highlights.

“Samsung’s counsel repeatedly made irrelevant, misleading, and even untrue statements that have undoubtedly caused the jury to form impressions that are highly prejudicial to Apple. Over and over again, Samsung’s counsel represented that Apple has never practiced the ‘414, ‘172, and ‘959 patents – even though, as Samsung knows, Apple has sold, and continues to sell, products that use each of Apple’s asserted patents,” Apple’s motion reads.

According to Müller, Koh’s decision is related to the trial’s case management order limiting Apple and Samsung to five patent claims. Apple may still be allowed to make a “we do practice” argument on the same claims it’s asserting against Samsung, but this won’t really help the company, Müller says.

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