The Buckingham

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Apple attorneys asked District Court Judge Lucy Koh to issue a finding that Samsung infringed upon Apple’s patents as a rebuttal to one of Samsung’s lead attorneys releasing evidence that Apple stated “impugned the integrity of the court”.

Apple and Samsung are engaged in a showdown in court over claims that Samsung products copied Apple’s iPhone.

Apple called the conduct of Samsung attorney John Quinn, a partner of the Los Angeles based law firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, “egregious”.

Although Quinn attempted to admit documentation of an interview with Apple designer Shin Nishibori, he was denied four times. Quinn instead gave reporters links to it late in the opening day of the trial.

Quinn said that his statement to the court justified his action that such a move was legal because the document was part of the pretrial submission, even though it had not been admitted into evidence that would be used in the trial. Because it was a pretrial record, Quinn stated, it was a public record that he could share with the press.

The slides and text Quinn released cite comments from an interview with Apple designer Shin Nishibori that he used design ideas in Sony’s Walkman to come up with an iPhone design. He had been directed to do so by Jonathan Ive, Apple’s head of industrial design.

Apple has been treating the interview with much distain. When the company submitted iPhone design records, they all pre-dated the time frame discussed in the Nishibori interview.

Samsung’s release of a statement referring to the excluded evidence included the suggestion “that it be provided to the jury,” a move that warranted the judge to sanction Samsung. That sanction should be a ruling that Apple’s patent claims “are valid and infringed by Samsung.”

In his statement Quinn stated that he wasn’t trying to address the jury. He only allowed the press to see his evidence after Koh had instructed members of the jury that they weren’t allowed to read accounts of the trial in the press or go off information-seeking themselves.

But despite Quinn’s defenses, Apple’s attorney still considers Quinn’s breach an action that needs to be sanctioned.

Judge Koh has yet to issue a ruling.