Judge orders Apple to remove ‘incorrect’ Samsung apology from website

Excerpt from Apple’s apology currently on its UK website

A new report from Bloomberg today stated the U.K. Court of Appeal in London asked Apple to remove the apology to Samsung posted on its U.K. website and replace it with “a new notice acknowledging the inaccurate comments” in the next 24 hours. Earlier this month, Apple complied with U.K. court orders that forced the company to post an apology explaining Samsung did not copy the iPad’s design. The court’s issue with the apology was four extra paragraphs that Apple inserted with favorable quotes from the initial ruling that described Samsung’s tablet as “not as cool”:

The court’s initial order to post a notice was designed to correct the impression that the South Korean company was copying Apple’s product. Apple’s post, criticized by judges today, inserted four paragraphs including excerpts of the original “cool” ruling and details of similar German lawsuits that the court today said weren’t true.“I’m at a loss that a company such as Apple would do this,” Judge Robin Jacob said today. “That is a plain breach of the order.”

Apple’s request for 14 days to make changes was rejected, to which the judge responded: “I just can’t believe the instructions you’ve been given. This is Apple. They cannot put something on their website?” Apple lawyer Michael Beloff made the following statement:

The notice “is not designed to punish, it is not designed to makes us grovel,” Michael Beloff, a lawyer for Apple, said in court today. “The only purpose is to dispel commercial uncertainty.”