Edible Apple

In the wake of Apple’s successful motions for injunctions, Samsung’s PR department has been less than forthright about various events. We saw this first following Apple’s successful injunction in Australia and now we’re seeing it again in Germany.

Earlier this week, a German court granted Apple’s motion for an injunction against Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 on the grounds that its design was too similar to Apple’s iPad. Following that, Samsung public relations director Kim Titus explained that Samsung was disappointed in the court’s decision and that “the request for injunction was filed with no notice to Samsung, and the order was issued without any hearing or presentation of evidence from Samsung.”

Wow. Samsung was really blindsided there.

Or so they want you to believe.

Florian Mueller reports that Samsung, in fact, filed a protective pleasing with the court a week before Apple’s motion for an injunction was granted.

While it’s true that they weren’t put on notice and that there wasn’t any hearing, Samsung wasn’t forthright enough to admit that it had filed a protective pleading. Samsung wasn’t blindsided — Samsung knew it had this coming, and the court’s decision was based on both Apple’s motion and Samsung’s pre-emptive opposition pleading. This kind of communication strategy on Samsung’s part is old-school spin doctoring and only serves to strengthen my impression that Samsung is in a legally weak position against Apple. If Samsung wants to inspire confidence, it has to understand that half the truth is sometimes tantamount to a whole lie.

Well, I suppose it’s not all that surprising when you’re dealing with a company whose product roadmap is, without fail, 6 months behind Apple’s.