Apple lost its bid to exclude evidence presented by Samsung at the firm’s patent trial in California yesterday. The evidence relates to a tablet computer developed more than a decade before Apple’s iPad was released in 2010.
US district judge Lucy Koh in San Jose rejected Apple’s argument that the information about a prototype of a tablet developed in 1994 shouldn’t be presented to the jury. “That issue should go to the jury,” she said, adding that she was surprised Apple had waited so long to make such a request.
Apple, maker of the iPhone and iPad, based its request on an appeals court ruling in May permitting it to pursue efforts to halt sales of Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet computer in the US while the patent-infringement case was pending.
The judge said in December that Samsung had raised a substantial question of invalidity of Apple’s tablet-design patent.
The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington said there were substantial differences between the Apple design and earlier readers. – (Bloomberg)
