Wednesday, September 05

Geek

Apple vs. Samsung - Wait A Minute. Strike That. Reverse It.

Previously in As the Worm Turns, we discussed how the jury in the case had ignored instructions from the judge and assessed damages to punish Samsung rather than to reflect actual financial harm upon Apple.

Now the jurors have opened their mouths again and demonstrated that they also ignored the judge's instructions on prior art, the key to Samsung's entire defence.  That is, they made an error of law, rather than of fact.

The jury concluded that the prior art did not invalidate Apple's patents because the code would not run on an iPhone.  Of course, the same argument would show that Samsung did not infringe on Apple's patents because their code won't run on an iPhone either.

And the judge specifically instructed the jury that this is not how prior art is evaluated.  (Groklaw cite the relevant sections at the page linked above.)

Best quote:
I think he may have a valid point. Perhaps apple have invented some new numbers, like eleventy-four, that don't fit into the old computers properly due to magic and stuff.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 12:16 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment | Trackbacks (Suck)
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1 Sounds like a monumental screwup. How did the jury end up making such a mess of it?

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Thursday, September 06 2012 10:32 AM (+rSRq)

2 The guy with the most forceful personality was elected jury foreman, and when he acted like an expert, the others fell into line.

...then he decided to show his brilliance off to the public, too. Oops.

-j

Posted by: J Greely at Thursday, September 06 2012 11:06 AM (fpXGN)

3 And, somehow, it turned out that the jury foreman was someone who owned a software patent of, to put it bluntly, dubious validity. Massive screw-up by Samsung even having this guy on the jury at all, unless their Evil Secret Plan was to get the trial thrown out altogether on appeal (which, to be fair, has a pretty good chance of happening now?)

Posted by: Avatar_exADV at Thursday, September 06 2012 08:13 PM (GJQTS)

4

I think somewhere in the corporate offices of Apple and its lawyers, multiple voices are screaming every time the jury foreman appears in an interview, trying to get him to shut his mouth.  It seems that every new interview conducted with the man since the verdict has seen him digging himself a deeper and deeper hole to drop into.

I do not believe the bad judgement of jurors is a crime, but this guy has been getting close to being a poster child for everything a juror can intentionally do wrong.  Still not the worst examples available, but that is not a compliment.

Posted by: cxt217 at Friday, September 07 2012 06:47 AM (YM5S2)

5

Bad judgement by a juror is not a crime. But if it can be determined that he had a conflict of interest, and didn't say so when he was being questioned as a candidate, I think that is potentially a crime. (Perjury, if nothing else.)

I don't see how this leads to the whole case being dismissed, however. There is no "double jeopardy" rule in civil law.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at Friday, September 07 2012 11:11 AM (+rSRq)

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