Nokia Receives $1.5 Million And Apple About $894,000.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul Grewal of the Northern District of California, on June 20, 2014, ordered Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP and its client Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. to pay more than $2 million in sanctions for disclosing confidential terms of a patent license between Apple Inc. and Nokia Corp. to Samsung. What happened was that a junior associate failed to redact confidential license terms (which were “attorneys’ eyes only” designated and safeguarded by a protective order) from an expert report. These terms were distributed to Samsung in violation of the protective order, with Samsung trying to exploit the terms in negotiations with Nokia.
In fashioning his award, Magistrate Judge Grewal did strike some first class air/travel expenses to Korea and reduced 19 specific billing entries by 20% due to lack of sufficient detail. His opinion was issued in Apple Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., Case No. 5:111-cv-01846 LHK (PSG), and can be found for viewing in a post at “Patently Apple.”