Samsung Electronics Co. dodged another legal trouble in California as the courts ruled not to punish the South Korean company for the leaks of Apple Inc. documents.

Samsung risked sanctions for allegedly breaching confidential information while in license negotiations with Ericsson and Nokia. Last November, the court stated Samsung and its lawyers might have revealed information including patent licensing agreements by Apple with Ericsson, Nokia, Philips, and Sharp.

Magistrate Judge Paul S. Grewal of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, however, ruled Samsung could not have benefited from such breach of information. Judge Grewal added that Samsung had argued it already had knowledge of the terms of agreement before the leak.

Samsung's external counsel, Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, had originally forwarded un-redacted key terms for four patent license agreements. Samsung's counsel had posted the expert report featuring the four patent license agreements on a file transfer protocol, or FTP, site that was accessible by Samsung stuff. As PC World noted, up to 50 Samsung executives were said to have accessed the expert report since instructions to enter the FTP site were disclosed.

Apple's inclusion came when it provided Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan information during its discovery phase of their patent infringement lawsuit against Samsung in August 2012. The Apple vs. Samsung patent lawsuit from 2012 resulted in a jury rewarding the Cupertino company $1.05 billion in damages caused by Samsung. The $1.05 billion reward, however, has since been lowered to $930 million.

According to Samsung, Ericsson disclosed its patent license agreement terms with Apple during their mediation sessions.

"Given that no representative from Ericsson or anyone else has come forward to refute that assertion, the court credits the testimony and accepts this explanation," wrote Judge Grewal.

Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan was ordered by Judge Grewal to ensure all copies of the expert report are "deleted, erased, wiped, or other permanently removed" from Samsung's reach within two weeks of his court order.

"It is undisputed that at some point in late March 2012, a junior associate working late one night failed to fully redact Apple's confidential license terms from an expert report," wrote Judge Grewal about Quinn Emanuel & Sullivan's role, later adding, "One inadvertent mistake resulted in the widespread distribution of confidential information to hundreds of people who were not authorized to have access to it."

Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan was also ordered to reimburse Apple, Nokia, and their counsel of "any and all costs and fees" that have occurred "in litigating this motion and the discovery associated with it."

Samsung's legal troubles are not over as it's planned to enter mediation sessions with Apple on Feb. 19. Apple CEO Tim Cook and Samsung CEO Oh-Hyun Kwon are reportedly set to attend the session with in-house lawyers in hopes to "discuss settlement opportunities" ahead of an upcoming March patent infringement trial.

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