Amidst bitter battle between two smartphone giants, US firm Apple has published a statement on its UK website which admits that South Korean company Samsung has not infringed its designs.
In July this year, Samsung won a case in the UK with a High Court judge ruling that the Galaxy Tab 10.1 devices do not infringe on Apple’s iPad designs. Apple was ordered by the UK High Court to post the advert after it lost an appeal earlier this month.
However, the letter published on Apple’s site was barely an admission; Apple could not have made it any clearer that it disagreed with the verdict. The company pointed out that it had won similar court cases in other countries and added that the judge had praised the iPad’s design.
"In a case tried in Germany regarding the same patent, the court found that Samsung engaged in unfair competition by copying the iPad design," the letter read. "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 recognised that in the course of creating its Galaxy tablet, Samsung willfully [sic] copied Apple’s far more popular iPad," Apple added.
The ruling also means that the iPhone maker has to publish advertisements in national newspapers saying that the South Korean firm had not copied its designs. The iPhone maker has lost a series of lawsuits against Samsung over the design of their respective tablets including cases in the Netherlands, Australia and the US.
Apple had success with one claim in the US in which a jury suggested in August this year that Samsung pay a $1.05bn fine for infringing software patents.
Samsung has appealed against this decision and recently, a US International Trade Commission made a preliminary ruling that Samsung had infringed four patents relating to the look and feel of the iPhone.
Since April 2011, both the firms filed about 30 lawsuits against each other in at least 12 courts, nine countries, and four continents which involve smartphones and tablet patents.
