UK court orders smug PR spin to be removed from Apple’s Samsung apology

Apple will need to amend its statement saying Samsung didn't copy the iPad's design, after UK courts took a dim view of the PR spin the company added after the approved text.

Apple’s apology to Samsung, which it was ordered to place on its website following the loss of its patent court case in the UK earlier this year, will have to be amended.

The statement can be found by following a link on Apple’s home page which leads to an otherwise blank page, where Apple has not only published the court-approved text, but added its own PR spin afterwards.

Its smug tone hasn’t gone down well with the UK courts or the presiding judges, with Judge Robin Jacob quoted as saying “I’m at a loss that a company such as Apple would do this,” and called the move “a plain breach of the order.”

The judge is probably the only one who is surprised by Apple’s actions, as the attempt to obfuscate the original meaning of the text by adding some self-serving Apple spin, is exactly the kind of egotistical move many of the company’s detractors have come to expect.

Samsung’s lawyer said that Apple’s statement gives the impression that “the UK court is out of step with other courts,” as it mentions both the $1 billion judgement in the US and another win against Samsung in Germany.

However, the back-slapping that inevitably followed the publication of the statement is all in the past, and Apple must change it to that which the court ordered, and it must do so within 24 hours. At the time of writing, the original statement remains on Apple’s website.

According to Bloomberg, Apple asked for 14 days to make the changes. Judge Jacob was shocked that it would need this long, and rejected the request. “I would like to see the head of Apple make an affidavit setting out the technical difficulties which means Apple can’t put this on their website,” he said. Us too, Judge, as it usually only takes them a couple of hours to put up an entirely new product range.

All this would be amusing, if it didn’t sound so childish.

Source : digitaltrends[dot]com