Patent troll Apple has a tough choice Down Under. It can either give up hounding its number one competitor in the courts or reveal how many iPads it actually sells.

Apple has a secrecy policy which makes the Freemasons look tame. Normally if a sales figure is given out, it is whispered from mouth to ear, syllable by syllable, and one of the parties must chew a cyanide tablet immediately afterwards.

However a judge in a Sydney court has told Jobs' Mob that if Apple wants to prove that Samsung's Galaxy Tab would affect sales of its iPad in Australia, then it should reveal sales figures of its popular tablet in countries where both the iPad and Galaxy Tab are available.  Federal Court Justice Annabelle Bennett told the court that unless Apple puts on evidence showing the impact in the US or UK, she can’t draw any positive assumptions.

This is of course heresy in the Apple Cargo cult which normally expects the forces of law to do what it tells it. This is what happened in SanFrancisco where real police helped Apple security pose as coppers to search someone's house without a warrant. Apple doesn’t like revealing sales figures and it is just possible that it might shut down the case rather than having to break one of its central creeds.