Apple's struggle to keep secret documents sealed

After winning big against Samsung in a US court, Apple is now on the defensive, battling against the same court to keep its financial information secret, says a report in Ars Technica. On Tuesday, the company faced a setback in this battle when US Judge Lucy Koh refused to seal documents that contained sensitive financial information.

These documents detail "unit sales, revenue, profit, profit margin and cost data" on a product-by-product basis. Though Apple does report sales by device type in its quarterly earnings, it does not break down the sales by model, nor does it reveal its device profit margins, revenue and other similar device-specific information.

This financial information is required by the court to justify the billions in monetary damages that Apple is seeking. Apple claims this data should be protected as a trade secret, but Judge Koh, the media and other groups disagree.

Koh argued in her denial of Apple's request that Apple "cannot both use its financial data to seek multi-billion dollar damages and insist on keeping it secret." Koh did agree to keep the documents sealed until Apple's request is heard by the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit.