“A few days before the Apple v. Samsung limited damages retrial in the Northern District of California, there is again some news concerning the ‘Patentgate’ scandal over improper disclosures of highly confidential business information from Apple’s license agreements with other parties including Nokia, Ericsson, Sharp, and Philips by Samsung’s lawyers to their client,” Florian Müller reports for FOSS Patents. “It now appears likely that Samsung and its ouside lawyers from the Quinn Emanuel firm will be sanctioned, but only after the retrial: a further hearing has been scheduled for December 9, 2013. Originally the court aimed to resolve the matter ahead of the retrial.”
“This doesn’t look good for Samsung,” Müller writes. “After Judge Grewal recently declared himself unconvinced of the need for sanctions, I thought Samsung and its lawyers might get away with what they’ve done, but now they are under reasonably serious pressure again. The Northern District of California is not the only venue in which the Patentgate affair could lead to sanctions. An Apple motion for sanctions is also pending at the ITC, and Justice Annabelle Bennett of the Federal Court of Australia recently appeared to be losing her patience with Samsung in this context.”
Much more in the full article here.