Apple has been ordered to publish a notice on its British website and in newspapers here highlighting the recent ruling that Samsung’s Galaxy tablets did not copy the iPad designs.
Judge Colin Birss said the notice should be posted on Apple’s homepage for six months in what will be an embarrassment for the company. It follows the ruling that the Galaxy Tab simply was not “as cool” as the iPad, so could not be a copy.
Bloomberg reported the order just hours after another patent dispute dragged the late Steve Jobs into the court proceedings. Jobs told his biographer he would “go thermonuclear” to “destroy” the Android mobile platform. Lawyers for Samsung leaped on the quote, claiming Jobs’ outburst “speaks to Apple’s bias, improper motives and lack of belief in its own claims in that they are a means to an end, namely the destruction of Android”.
But today, a judge ruled the comments inadmissable, declaring, “I really don’t think this is a trial about Steve Jobs.”
The latest bad blood between the two technology giants emerged as the Evening Standard learned Samsung is considering launching a nationwide chain of stores in the UK to go head to head with Apple.
The south Korean company, whose latest smartphone, the Galaxy S3s, has helped it become the world smartphone leader over Apple and Nokia, shipped 92 million handsets in the first quarter this year and plans to step up its brand in the UK.
It unveiled its “pop-up” shops - Samsung Mobile PIN - in London in time for the Olympics, opening four stores with UK partner Phones4U in Westfield London, Old Spitalfields Market, Hyde Park and the Olympic Park.
But now it is interviewing property agents in London to hire a firm to look for more locations to roll out the concept.
