A US judge has issued an order which effectively bars the former CEO of Apple, Steve Jobs, from giving evidence in her court. According to Reuters, US District Judge Lucy Koh decided that Samsung could not use quotes from the now very dead Jobs to back its case.

Jobs famously said that he wanted to spend a fortune to patent troll Samsung out of existence for nicking all the great ideas that he nicked from somewhere else. Samsung wanted to use the statements to prove that Apple was lying about thinking its designs were similar and the whole court case was a childish spat from Jobs.

Before he snuffed it Jobs made a number of statements to his biographer about the company's intellectual property, saying he was willing to go "thermonuclear" to "destroy" Google's operating system, Android. Samsung said that the thermonuclear quote speaks to Apple's bias, improper motives and its lack of belief in its own claims in that they are a means to an end, namely the destruction of Android.

Apple asked them to be barred from the trial.

Judge Lucy Kohl said Jobs' statements were not relevant as this was not a trial about Steve Jobs. Chicago federal judge Richard Posner ruled that Jobs' quotes would be fair game in a trial between Apple and Google's Motorola Mobility unit. However, he dismissed that particular case before trial, saying neither side could prove damages.

Koh ruled that Apple's operations in China could be discussed, but could not be cast as human rights problems. Evidence of Samsung's taxes paid in the US could also be discussed, Koh ruled, but Apple could not make any insinuations of tax avoidance

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