SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) -- Apple Computer has dropped its legal challenge against two Internet publishers who reported secret details about its new products, a lawyer said.

The Silicon Valley maker of Macintosh computers and iPod MP3 players abandoned its bid to force the websites to reveal their sources for the reports, said attorney Kurt Opsahl of the Electronic Freedom Foundation.

Apple let the deadline to challenge an earlier appeals court ruling pass and filed court paperwork indicating it had abandoned the option, said Opsahl, who represented news websites PowerPage and AppleInsider in the case. The Sunnyvale, California, company had filed suit in San Jose against the website publishers, claiming "secret plans" for a new product had been "misappropriated and disseminated."

Apple argued in court that the information could only have been leaked to the websites by someone who violated a confidentiality agreement with the company and that the website operators had to tell them who it was.