Apple has been accused of not being “trustworthy” after a Judge in the Australian Federal Court was told that Apple chose midnight on a Sunday night to dump two new patent claims on the Korean Company who is in a battle with the US Company over the design of their Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1.At a second hearing today before Justice Amanda Bennett in the Federal Court, counsel for Samsung David Cattern told the court that Samsung had received two new Apple patents at “midnight on Sunday night” hours before a hearing at 9.15am today in the Federal Court.
The Court was told that Apple could not be trusted and that there was a likely proposition that they would try to produce other new patents prior to a full hearing on the 26th of September.
Shortly afterwards Justice Bennett said that she was not happy with the way in which several companies had in the past handed up written patent submissions, she said that she wanted to take “Oral” submissions from the patent inventors, a move that could force Apple to produce either via video link or live in Court senior engineering executives and inventors responsible for the design and the technology built into Apple iPads and iPhones.
The Judge who is an experience technology advocate having handled several high profile technology cases told both parties that there would be limited cross examination of the patent developers as “time was of the essence” in the case.
During the hearing Samsung agreed to not to sell or advertise the Galaxy Tab 10.1 before September 30.
Both parties have been told that they have up until Friday to file their statement of claims. She also ordered Apple to clearly identify which patents they allege Samsung has breached.
The Court heard that Samsung will provide their written submissions to Apple’s claims by September 16.
Apple had earlier sough specific orders for both the US version of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and a new 10.2 version which Samsung had earlier in the day told the Court was different from the US version.
See original Samsung Galaxy 10.2 story here.
Barrister David Cattern told the Court that Samsung had received a shipment of the new Galaxy Tablets last week and that the model was different than the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1.
He said “there is a scrolling change it is different. The way that a user moves the pages up and down and horizontally is different. It does not infringe on Apple patents”.
He also said that the new Samsung tablet had different functions.
The Judge heard that Samsung has agreed to delay the launch of the Galaxy Tab 10.1 pending the court’s decision in the week commencing September 26, 2011.
Justice Bennett has not issued an injunction against the sale of the Galaxy Tab 10.1, and the court did not make any ruling during today’s hearing.
In a statement issued after the hearing Samsung said it will continue to actively defend its right to launch their tablet in Australia in order to ensure that consumers have a wider selection of innovative products to choose from.
Samsung told Justice Bennett that it intends to file a cross claim against Apple Australia and Apple Computer Inc regarding the invalidity of the patents previously asserted by Apple, and also a cross claim against Apple regarding violation of patents held by Samsung infringed by its iPhones and iPads.
Samsung said that will lodge the cross claim through the Federal Court shortly and that they will continue to pursue all possible measures including legal action to defend its intellectual property rights and ensure its innovative products remain available to consumers throughout the world.
The case is set to go to a formal hearing on September 26 and 29.
