Apple has been told by a US judge that its per-product profits will be revealed, meaning we could find out exactly how much dosh Apple makes from flogging the iPhone, iPad and other gadgets.
Apple is suing Samsung for an additional $535 million in damages, following the $1 billion payout it was awarded in August, Ars Technica reports. Apple asked to keep a variety of documents regarding its financial results private, including "product-specific unit sales, revenue, profit, profit margin and cost data".
Judge Koh has slammed that appeal, however. The court order states (PDF link), "Beyond continuing to assert that its financial data are 'trade secrets', Apple has not provided any new arguments for why this information should be protected."
The legal blow follows news today that Apple must issue a public statement saying that Samsung didn't infringe upon its intellectual property.
The unveiling of the figures could be an unfortunate consequence of the company's pursuit of additional damages from Samsung. Apple "cannot both use its financial data to seek multi-billion dollar damages and insist on keeping it secret," the court order says.
Apple regularly reveals exactly how much profit it's made, but only as a single amount that gives little clue as to how much moolah individual gadgets are raking in. That kind of information would certainly make for an intriguing read.
Apple has another chance to stop the data being made public. Judge Koh won't unseal the documents until the US Court of Appeals agrees that the information contained within should be revealed. A similar order from August is also awaiting review.
It's been a bad day for Apple's lawyers, but how are you feeling about the verdicts? Tell me in the comments or on our Facebook wall.
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Comments 5
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CSBM 18 October, 2012 18:09
I am happy to see this verdict. I spend a lot of time considering the state of our legal system. It has trundled along quite happily for hundreds of years, slowly going through its gradual evolution. Nothing really changes all that much and everything whilst never being perfect has always been functional. It seems to me that this last twenty years have seen the mentality of doing anything whatsoever that can be seen to bring a profit to a company growing into a gross caricature of itself. Companies are taking massive advantage in so many legal areas. It is nice to see them put in their place. A company is like a robot. It needs to be given rules and it will follow those rules. If you want to see a robot uprising it is here already.
Ryan J Pattinson 19 October, 2012 09:29
good glad they lost this they make loads out of people for shoddy work i repair more iphones than blackberrys!
anonymous 19 October, 2012 12:07
Just goes to show what a gready, crafty, manipulative company Apple is. I wish them the worst of luck and i can't beleive that people are still buying there overpriced crap from a crafty company like this.
anonymous 19 October, 2012 12:55
At least now sad little fanboy's will realise how much they have been ripped off by gready, scumy, crafty Apple. Gready Apple is making a huge Profit on it's crappy gadget's unfortunatly the customer still pay's was too much and the poor worker's in China get peanut's, so Apple is laughing all the way to the Bank also at stupid, thick fanboy's for making them so rich in the first place. I used to be a loyal zombified fanboy once but i am very glad to say that i woke up and realised that there are much better and cheaper product's around and more importantly better company's like Samsung.
Ruffus Stone 21 October, 2012 13:53
Better company like Samsung????
Are a fooling yourself?
Many Samsung products like the Galaxy phones are also made in Chinese (and Vietnamese) factories. They like using cheap labour too, just like hundreds of western companies.