SAN FRANCISCO, Aug 2 (Reuters) - Apple Inc asked a U.S.
judge on Thursday to punish Samsung Electronics Co Ltd for a
Samsung attorney's conduct by ordering that the South Korean
company has infringed Apple's phone design patents, according to
a court filing.
However, Samsung called Apple's demand "frivolous" and
"unprecedented" in a legal brief filed later in the day.
Trial began this week in a high stakes litigation between
the two companies. Apple sued Samsung last year in San Jose,
California federal court, accusing Samsung of copying the iPhone
and iPad. Samsung has countersued.
U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh on Tuesday had barred Samsung's
attorneys from presenting some evidence during opening
statements. Later that afternoon, Samsung emailed reporters
links to that material, along with a statement that "fundamental
fairness requires that the jury decide the case based on all the
evidence."
Samsung attorney John Quinn, of the law firm Quinn Emanuel
Urquhart & Sullivan, acknowledged in a court filing this week
that he authorized the press statement but said it was not
designed to influence the jury.
"The members of the jury had already been selected at the
time of the statement and the transmission of these public
exhibits, and had been specifically instructed not to read any
form of media relating to this case," Quinn wrote.
Apple called his conduct "egregious, because it impugned the
integrity of the court," according to its legal brief on
Thursday.
A typical sanction for attorney misbehavior is a monetary
fine, but Apple is asking Koh to rule that Apple's phone design
patents in the case are valid, and that Samsung has infringed
them. Those are issues that the jury has been empanelled to
decide.
Samsung fired back in its filing, saying Apple could cite no
legal precedent for the harsh punishment it sought.
"Apple's request is an affront to the integrity of the
jury," Samsung, which is a supplier of components to Apple,
wrote.
The trial is set to resume on Friday.
The case in U.S. District Court, Northern District of
California, is Apple Inc v. Samsung Electronics Co Ltd et al,
No. 11-1846.
For Apple: Michael Jacobs of Morrison & Foerster.
For Samsung: Charles Verhoeven of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart
Oliver & Hedges.
(Reporting By Dan Levine)
Follow us on Twitter @ReutersLegal | Like us on Facebook