Court Accepts Verzion/T-Mobile Briefs Supporting Samsung Against Apple

Judge Lucy Koh of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California has allowed Verizon's and T-Mobile's amicus curiae briefs in support of Samsung against Apple's request for a preliminary injunction on Galaxy devices.

FOSS Patents notes that Verizon had filed its brief on September 23. Apple objected on Tuesday, September 27th citing the timing of the letter. Verizon defended its request on Thursday.

T-Mobile submitted its brief this past Wednesday and Apple objected to it on Thursday. Unlike Verizon T-Mobile wanted to participate in the October 13th hearing on the preliminary injunction; however, the court denied this request.


Apple asked for permission to reply to those amicus briefs (if they were going to be admitted, which is what has just happened) by October 6, but the judge "considers any rebuttal argument on these issues to be duplicative and unnecessary at this time". I don't think this is a major problem for Apple. While its lawyers would have liked to respond, the public interest argument in connection with a possible injunction had to be addressed all along, irrespectively of those amicus briefs.

FOSS Patents also notes that Apple succeeded in obtaining permission to file a 30-age brief to Samsung's opposition to their motion for a preliminary injunction. In that brief Apple also addressed allegations that they doctored evidence and manipulated pictures.

"[...] Samsung re-raises a bizarre argument that Apple allegedly manipulated photographs in its preliminary injunction papers to mislead this Court. It is unfortunate that Apple must address this allegation in connection with a page limit request, of all things. It should be sufficient to note that, in addressing similar allegations by Samsung of photo manipulation in Germany, the Regional Court in Düsseldorf rejected them as 'irrelevant' and 'non-prejudicial.' [...] The German court did so in the context of affirming, with modification, the entry of a preliminary injunction against Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1."

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