A U.S. judge has rejected requests by Apple and Samsung to keep parts of key documents out of the public view during the patent infringement battle set for trial later this month.
In an order issued late on Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California, wrote that “it appears that the parties have overdesignated confidential documents and are seeking to seal information that is not truly sealable.”
Judge Koh has given both companies one week to refile their sealing requests. Representatives for either company could not be reached for comment.
As companies try to keep their trade secrets and other sensitive information from coming out during litigation in intellectual-property cases, filing documents under seal has almost become standard procedure.
Apple sued Samsung last year, seeking to permanently bar the sale of some Samsung devices in the United States. The trial is set to begin July 30.
Judge Koh has granted pretrial injunctions against Samsung’s Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet, and its Galaxy Nexus phone. Samsung has filed appeals of both of those orders.
The judge’s order on Tuesday came after Reuters filed a motion seeking to intervene in the case to oppose both Apple’s and Samsung’s document redactions. The judge wrote in her order that “only documents of exceptionally sensitive information that truly deserve protection will be allowed to be redacted or kept from the public.”
