A lawsuit filed by Apple last year against a blogger who exposed a future Apple product could not have gone worse for the computer company. Not only was it bad publicity for them, but the lawsuit was thrown out and Apple is now going to foot the bill for the defendants legal fees multiplied by 2.2. That multiple is apparently a common practice in California law for such cases.

The lawsuit was against Apple Inside, a blog that carries news about Apple products, particularly those that have not been officially announced yet. One product announcement apparently upset Apple enough that they sued, claiming the blogger was not protected under the first amendment because he had revealed a trade secret. I'm not sure exactly how that blogger was able to obtain a trade secret like a future product, but apparently he's very good. Maybe he just happened to call up and talk to the right secretary.

This lawsuit might scare other big companies away from attempting to bully the blogosphere. I can see where cases of libel would warrant a lawsuit, but claiming your trade secret was leaked by a blog says more about how poor your company is at keeping secrets than anything else.

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