The UK Court of Appeal has rapped Apple's knuckles for failing to comply with a court order requiring the company to post on its website a statement saying Samsung had not copied its iPad designs.
In a hearing in London overnight, a panel of Appeal Court judges told Apple that the notice it had posted was "untrue" and "incorrect" and must be removed within 24 hours and be replaced with another one that acknowledges the inaccurate comments.
The untrue notice is still up on Apple's UK website at the time of publication.
Apple posted the notice, but added five paragraphs including an excerpt from the July judgement by High Court judge Colin Birss QC, which said Samsung tablets do not infringe on the US company's design because "they are not as cool."
Further rising the judges' ire, Apple went on to add that a German court had found Samsung infringed on the iPad design. Also, the notice made references to Apple's legal victory in the US, which saw a jury award it billion-dollar damages against Samsung.
Speaking to Bloomberg, Lord Justice Sir Robin Jacob said: "I'm at a loss that a company such as Apple would do this. It is a plain breach of the order."
Apple's lawyer, Michael Beloff, insisted the additional comments were in line with the original court order.
Sir Robin also took issue with Apple saying it would take two weeks to put up a new notice.
“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, Sir Robin said.
The judge told Apple it has 48 hours to post a correction on its home page with a link to the corrected statement and use at least an 11-point size font.
Justice Birss also ordered Apple to publish notices about the ruling in British newspapers and trade magazines, but so far, only the Financial Times has run one.
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