Apple and Samsung have been battling out in the court over patent infringements for couple of years now but the companies argued yesterday in the San Jose court over leaked patent licensing agreements.
The story so far is that Apple handed patent licensing agreements with Nokia, Ericsson, Sharp and Philips marked with “Attorney Eyes Only”. These confidential documents were not to be shared with anyone outside the legal counsel but according to Apple, over 90 Samsung employees know the details of the agreement and more than 130 lawyers from outside legal firms.
Another damning declaration came from a Nokia executive that Samsung used the Nokia-Apple licensing deal as a leverage to negotiate their deal with Nokia and the Samsung executive hinted that “all information leaks.”
Needless to say, legal firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, LLP representing Samsung has refuted the allegations saying the executive never made such statement and was due to “miscommunication across languages.” However, the firm was rather forthcoming about the confidential documents and termed it is as an “inadvertent disclosure.”
All said and done, the decision is yet to come as the judge didn’t find compelling arguments to impose a sanction on Samsung.
