Court Documents Reveal Apple Samsung Sales In US
Two companies forced to reveal the sales of individual handsets in US patent court case
Samsung and Apple have been forced by a US Federal Court to reveal how many mobile devices they have sold.
The two companies have been told to provide the court with the information as part of their ongoing court case in California in which Apple accuses its rival of copying the design of its products.
Both sides have been eager to keep such information under wraps, but the jury must be aware of the information in case it finds any instance of patent infringement.
Apple trumps Samsung?
According to the documents filed by Samsung’s lawyers, the Korean manufacturer sold a total of 21.25 million handsets between June 2010 and 2012, generating $7.5 billion in revenue. The most popular model was the Samsung Prevail, which shifted 2.25 million units, while all models of the Samsung Galaxy S II amounted to a combined 4.1 million units.
During the same period, Apple sold 34 million iPads, 62.8 million iPhones and 25.3 million iPod Touches.
Both Apple and Samsung want to keep their source code, agreements with third parties and information that they believe are trade secrets confidential, but the court has even demanded that Apple reveal its internal surveys of iPhone and iPad customers.
Other pieces of information to emerge from the trial include images of early iDevice prototypes and testimonies about Apple’s first devices. A number of other companies such as Intel, Ericsson, Nokia, RIM and Microsoft also want to keep some of their information secret.
The current case started at the end of last month and is the latest leg of a worldwide patent war in which Apple accuses Samsung of copying its products. The Galaxy Tab is currently subject to a preliminary injunction in the US, but a UK Judge recently ruled that it couldn’t possibly be confused for the iPad as it isn’t “cool enough”.
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