A UK judge has ordered Apple to publish announcements that Samsung did not copy the design of its iPad, after Apple failed to prove the allegation in court.
Judge Colin Birss said one notice should remain on Apple's website for six months, while other adverts should be placed in various newspapers and magazines, according to Bloomberg News.
The order, which follows Apple's failed attempt to block sales of Samsung's Galaxy Tab tablets, said the notices must make reference to the court case and should be designed to "correct the damaging impression" that Samsung's tablets had copied the look of Apple's products.
"They do not have the same understated and extreme simplicity which is possessed by the Apple design," said the judge said when delivering his judgement in the case on 9 July.
However, the judge refused Samsung's request that Apple be forbidden from restating its claim that its design rights had been infringed.
Judge Birss said that Apple was entitled to hold the opinion that his judgement was wrong.
But Samsung issued a statement after the hearing that said: "Should Apple continue to make excessive legal claims based on such generic designs, innovation in the industry could be harmed and consumer choice unduly limited."
Apple is fighting patent battles around the world against competitors in which both sides have accused each other of copying designs and technology in their mobile devices.
The advertising order, if implemented, would mean that Apple's high-profile court attacks against Samsung and other Android suppliers has backfired, commented the Guardian.
Legal battles about the similarity of Samsung and Apple tablets are being fought in Germany, the Netherlands and the US, where Apple won a court order at the end of June, blocking the sale of Samsung's Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet computer in the US until the patent dispute between the two technology companies is resolved.
Apple won a similar injunction against Samsung in August 2011, barring the sale of Samsung's Galaxy 10.1 tablet in nearly all European Union states and Australia.
But in November 2011, a court in Australia overturned the ruling against Samsung. Earlier that month, Samsung modified a version of its Galaxy Tab 10.1, in an attempt to work around Apple's ban under copyright infringement in Germany.
