Apple has suffered a major setback in its long-running copyright infringement court case against chief rival Samsung.
In a significant turn of events, Apple failed to get the opportunity to demonstrate to the jury how Samsung is using three of the five disputed patented technologies, meaning that the basis for some of its case against the Korean manufacturer has now been thrown into question.
Apple’s claim that it deserved an opportunity, following claims from the company that Samsung was misleading the jurors, was rejected by presiding US District Judge Lucy Koh at San Jose federal court Bloomberg reported.
Samsung claimed that the iPhone maker was not using the disputed technology in its iPhone, with Samsung lawyer John Quinn telling the jury, "Apple admits that three of the five patent claims that it is suing on were not in that iPhone and have never been in any iPhone since."
"Apple doesn’t consider it valuable enough to even use."
Accusing the South Korean firm of also misleading the panel of judges during the trial, Apple’s approach in the latest round of argument is similar to an earlier case, where it claimed that Samsung infringed six out of seven patents, and was awarded $1.05bn in damages.
The latest trial comes after both the smartphone rivals, who are locked in a long-lasting patent dispute in over 10 countries, failed to reach a settlement despite a mediation meeting to resolve the issue in February.
In its final list of infringed patents for their trial, Apple alleges that Samsung’s products including the Admire, Galaxy Nexus, Galaxy Note, Galaxy Note II, and Galaxy S3 devices use the company’s patented technologies, while its South Korean counterpart alleging iPhone and iPad devices breached its own patents.
