“On November 8, Magistrate Judge Paul S. Grewal said it appeared to him that ‘sanctions against Samsung and its attorneys are warranted’ and ordered Samsung to explain why there should be none for its lawyers’ improper disclosures of highly confidential business information from Apple’s patent license agreements with Nokia, Ericsson, Sharp, and Philips,” Florian Müller reports for FOSS Patents. “He gave Apple and Nokia the opportunity to propose appropriate sanctions.”
“As expected, Samsung argues that the disclosures were inadvertent and that no improper use was made of the information obtained. Samsung also points to the fact that Apple’s lawyers recently forgot to seal an exhibit to a court filing (in the parties’ other California case) that included some confidential Google source code (as ArsTechnica‘s Ron Amadeo accurately noted, ‘Android is open–except for all the good parts’),” Müller reports. “While this does show that such oversights may occur, it’s not reasonably comparable to the Patentgate issue involving extremely sensitive business information that can affect, as Nokia wrote in its filing, multi-billion dollar licensing negotiations.”
Müller reports, “Apple and Nokia do advocate sanctions. Apple and Nokia’s proposals have some common elements (for example, they both want Samsung to pick up their costs in connection with this affair), but differ in their priorities. Simply put, Apple is tougher on Samsung while Nokia is tougher on the law firm of Quinn Emanuel.”
Read more in the full article here.
Burn them both at the stake
But I thought lawyers were above the law!?
Sanctions are typically levied against attorneys. I would expect the law firm to receive the bulk of the sanctions, especially since it was the law firm which was under court order to keep the documents confidential and the law firm which made the confidential documents available to Samsung.
Samsung has made its own hell that it has to live in.
Throw the switch
We’re sorry we did it but we’re not really sorry…whatever
But…but Samsung said it was ok, honest.
🙂
Soon, no one will be able to keep secrets.
The NSA has already shown us there aren’t any now.
I always thought it was insightful when I read a few years back a statement that those without computer link ups would be the ones that would be free and still have their privacy. It made sense back then and it seems that it was an insightful view of the future at the time.
Judges talking like that is just their way of opening negotiations with Samsung for job offers once they leave the bench.
I propose the Eiger Sanction
Public spanking on pay per view
Make it public flogging and your on.