In court documents responding to a lawsuit, Apple has made the seemingly unusual claim that no reasonable person could construe Apple's own claims in its own advertising as "claims of fact." In other words, the company's legal department is arguing that the company's marketing department can't be relied on to tell the truth.

The court documents, first noted and published by Wired's GadgetLab blog, were filed by Apple in response to a lawsuit from 70-year old William Gillis alleging that Apple's claims that the iPhone 3G was twice as fast for half the price in browsing the Internet were false.

In those documents, Apple asserts that it was being truthful, but that even if it wasn't, that Mr. Gillis suffered no damages and that it's simply not reasonable to misunderstand advertising claims as being factually based.

From Apple's response to the suit: "Plaintiff's claims, and those of the purported class, are barred by the fact that the alleged deceptive statements were such that no reasonable person in Plaintiff's position could have reasonably relied on or misunderstood Apple's statements as claims of fact."

It's an interesting defense strategy, and only time will tell whether the courts buy it, and if they do, whether it will be a case of winning the battle, only to lose the war. The company's credibility could well be hurt by this claim, especially as the press picks up on this story due to the constant magnifying glass applied to Apple's every move.

As for Mr. Gillis, he is one of a handful of people to have launched suits against Apple for this particular issue, and his attorney noted to GadgetLab that his is the one suit Apple hasn't yet filed a motion to dismiss. Not surprisingly, that's all the proof needed by said attorney that his client will be victorious in court.

Since the lawsuit was first launched, Apple has greatly improved the performance of the iPhone 3G in a series of firmware updates that changed how the phones behaved on AT&T's network. The latest update, version 2.2 of the iPhone software, eliminated many complaints of dropped calls and slow performance, though GadgetLab noted a few complaints can still be found on Apple's forums.