SAN FRANCISCO, July 17 (Reuters) - A federal judge rejected
several requests by Apple Inc and Samsung Electronics Co Ltd to
keep portions of key documents out of public view in their
high-stakes patent litigation battle set for trial later this
month.
Apple and Samsung, the world's largest consumer electronics
corporations, are waging legal war in several countries,
accusing each other of patent violations as they vie for
supremacy in a fast-growing market for mobile devices.
In an order issued late on Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Lucy
Koh in San Jose, California, wrote that "it appears that the
parties have overdesignated confidential documents and are
seeking to seal information that is not truly sealable."
Koh gave both companies one week to refile their sealing
requests. Representatives for Apple and Samsung could not
immediately be reached for comment.
Filing documents under seal has become almost standard
procedure in intellectual-property cases as companies try to
keep their trade secrets and other sensitive business
information from coming out during litigation.
Apple sued Samsung last year in the United States and a
highly anticipated trial is scheduled to begin July 30. If Apple
wins, it could seek to permanently bar the sale of some Samsung
phones in the crucial U.S. market.
Koh has already granted pretrial injunctions against
Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 and its Galaxy Nexus phone. Samsung is
appealing both of those orders. Samsung's phones and tablets run
on the Android operating system, developed by Google.
Apple and Samsung have filed legal arguments on a range of
subjects in recent weeks, including briefs on how broadly some
patent claims should be defined and what evidence should be kept
out of the trial.
However, portions of those documents are blacked out from
public view as both companies argued they contained sensitive
information.
Koh's order on Tuesday came hours after Reuters filed a
motion seeking to intervene in the case for the purposes of
opposing Apple and Samsung's document redactions. The judge
wrote that "only documents of exceptionally sensitive
information that truly deserve protection will be allowed to be
redacted or kept from the public."
The case in U.S. District Court, Northern District of
California, is Apple Inc v. Samsung Electronics Co Ltd et al,
11-1846.
For Apple: Michael Jacobs of Morrison & Foerster.
For Samsung: Charles Verhoeven of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart
Oliver & Hedges.
(Reporting by Dan Levine)
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