It may be pretty hard for Apple to get away from the ruling that it has to state publicly on its website and in advertisements that Samsung didn't copy the iPad. An appeals court has ruled that the previous sentence should still be in place. The judges stated that, if Apple wasn't the one to clear up the confusion, the damage caused by the lawsuits all over Europe would be irreparable to Samsung.

Said the judges:

The acknowledgment must come from the horse's mouth. Nothing short of that will be sure to do the job completely.

The one thing the appeals court did change is that the web-based disclaimer doesn't need to take up a large amount of real estate on Apple's homepage, and instead a simple link to "Samsung/Apple judgment" will suffice. The link will be required to stay up for a one-month period. This is likely a nice respite for Apple, as the company already can't be too keen on saying nice things about a competitor it so ravenously dislikes.

At this point, Apple doesn't have much left in the way of getting out of this sentence. They can still appeal to the UK Supreme Court, but it's a little unclear if it would even hear the case, much less if it would offer a different opinion than the lower courts. Otherwise the company will be required to issue print ads in the Daily Mail, Financial Times, T3 Magazine as well as some other outlets, in addition to its UK website.

Grab your popcorn.

Source: BBC