Court orders Apple to withdraw misleading statement about iPhone availability

As part of its ongoing legal battles with Qualcomm, Apple was last month banned from selling the iPhone 7 and 8 in Germany. Despite this, the company issued a press release stating that the handsets would remain available through thousands of resellers.

Now a court has ordered Apple to stop making this claim, with the ruling describing this section of the press release as "misleading" and "potentially deceptive".

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Following the ruling in December, Apple issued a press release which stated that all of its iPhone models would be available throughout Germany via carriers and resellers. The court was not happy with this, indicating that the statement issued by Apple "conveys the impression of unlimited availability" -- something which simply is not the case.

As reported by Reuters, in the latest ruling a three-judge panel says:

The press release is misleading as it contains statements that are at least potentially deceptive about the availability of the goods, namely the iPhones affected by the ruling.

Qualcomm says that the judgement "speaks for itself". Apple plans to appeal against the ruling.

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