Apple seeks new orders on Samsung info leak

Apple asked a US judge on Thursday to punish Samsung for an attorney's conduct in leaking sensitive evidence to journalists.

The iPhone maker has sought the presiding judge, Lucy Koh, to order that its South Korean rival infringed Apple's phone design patents, according to a court filing.

Judge Koh on Tuesday had barred Samsung's attorneys from presenting some evidence during opening statements. Later that afternoon, Samsung emailed reporters links to that material, along with a statement that "fundamental fairness requires that the jury decide the case based on all the evidence".

Samsung attorney John Quinn, of the law firm Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, acknowledged in a court filing on Wednesday that he authorised the press statement but said it was not designed to influence the jury.

"The members of the jury had already been selected at the time of the statement and the transmission of these public exhibits, and had been specifically instructed not to read any form of media relating to this case," Quinn wrote.

Apple called his conduct "egregious, because it impugned the integrity of the court," according to its legal brief on Thursday.

A Samsung spokesman said the company will be submitting a response.

"Apple's filing is baseless," Yates said.

A typical sanction for attorney misbehavior is a monetary fine, but Apple asked Koh to rule that Apple's phone design patents in the case are valid, and that Samsung has infringed them. Those are issues that the jury has been empanelled to decide.

The trial is set to resume on Friday US time.

(Reporting By Dan Levine; Editing by Tim Dobbyn)