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Jury in Apple v. Samsung Goofed, Damages Reduced -- Uh Oh. What's Wrong With this Picture? ~pj Updated 5Xs
Saturday, August 25 2012 @ 11:30 AM EDT

Late in the process yesterday at the Apple v. Samsung trial, when the parties and the judge were reviewing the jury verdict form, Samsung noticed that there were, indeed, inconsistencies in the jury's verdict form, a possibility Samsung anticipated [PDF]. Here's the jury's Amended Verdict Form [PDF], amended to fix the mistakes. Here's the original [PDF]. Here's the note [PDF] the jury sent to the judge when told to fix the inconsistencies. What are they, they asked? "Please let the jury know," they wrote in the only note ever sent in their deliberations, "of the inconsistencies we are supposed to deliberate on."

In two instances, results were crazily contradictory, and the judge had to have the jury go back and fix the goofs. As a result the damages award was reduced to $1,049,343,540, 1 down from $1,051,855,000. For just one example, the jury had said one device didn't infringe, but then they awarded Apple $2 million for inducement. In another they awarded a couple of hundred thousand for a device they'd ruled didn't infringe at all. This all was revealed by The Verge in its live blog coverage:

The jury appears to have awarded damages for the Galaxy Tab 10.1 LTE infringing — $219,694 worth — but didn't find that it had actually infringed anything....A similar inconsistency exists for the Intercept, for which they'd awarded Apple over $2 million

Intercept: "The jury found no direct infringement but did find inducement" for the '915 and '163 utility patents. If a device didn't infringe, it would be rather hard for a company to induce said non-existant infringement.

Obviously, something is very wrong with this picture. The Verge also reported that the jury foreman, who is a patent holder himself [this appears to be his patent, "Method and apparatus for recording and storing video information"], told court officials that the jury didn't need the answer to its question to reach a verdict:
The foreman told a court representative that the jurors had reached a decision without needing the instructions.
That's why I don't think this jury's ruling will stand, among other reasons.

I thought it wise to highlight this, because I saw this morning that some missed seeing it. For example, James Niccolai at PCWorld quotes a "legal expert" who clearly didn't:
"It's surprising they came back so quickly, given that it was a complicated case and very complicated verdict form, but that said, it looks like they were thoughtful about it and they did their job," said Roy Futterman, director at DOAR Litigation Consulting and a clinical psychologist who works on trial strategies and the mindset of jurors.

"One sign of that is that the verdicts were consistent, they held together -- they voted one way on infringement and another way on invalidity; it all tells the same big story," he said.

That's in an article titled "Quick Verdict in Apple Trial Doesn't Mean Jury Shirked Its Duty, Expert Says." If the jury instructions [PDF] are as long and complex as they were in this case, a quick verdict can indeed mean it shirked its duty. For example, if the jury rushed so much it assigned $2 million dollars to Apple, and then had to subtract it because there was no infringement, it raises a valid question: what was the basis for any of the damages figures the jury came up with? If they had any actual basis, how could they goof like this? Was there a factual basis for any of the damages figures?

Time will tell, but keep in mind that one of the plays you'll see next will likely be a Rule 50(b) motion by Samsung, and that's the one where you ask the judge for various relief on the basis that no reasonable jury could find what it did find on the evidence presented. Here's Google's still pending Rule 50(b) motion for judgment as a matter of law in the Oracle v. Google case, to give you an idea of what they look like. As you can see, you can ask for victory across the board or just on one part of what the jury decided.

This story is far from over, in other words, and while Apple's CEO, Tim Cook, waxed philosophical about the trial, and saying that it was about values, not money, one important US value is that the jury fulfill its responsibilities, one of which is to read and make sure they understand and follow the jury instructions they are given. I believe Cook would agree that trials are supposed to be fair, with everyone doing their part. If this jury thought they knew the right result without instructions, and if they hurried so much they made glaring mistakes, and they did, and all in Apple's favor, something isn't right in this picture. As the legal blog, Above the Law expressed it:

Here’s the thing, ladies and gentlemen of the Apple v. Samsung jury: It would take me more than three days to understand all the terms in the verdict! Much less come to a legally binding decision on all of these separate issues. Did you guys just flip a coin?
If it would take a lawyer three days to make sure he understood the terms in the form, how did the jury not need the time to do the same? There were 700 questions, remember, and one thing is plain, that the jury didn't take the time to avoid inconsistencies, one of which resulted in the jury casually throwing numbers around, like $2 million dollars for a nonfringement.

Come on. This is farce.

Professor Michael Risch points out an even worse inconsistency:

How did the Galaxy Tab escape design patent infringement? This was the only device to be preliminarily enjoined (on appeal no less), and yet it was the one of the few devices to be spared the sledgehammer. And, by the way, it looks an awful lot like an iPad. Yet the Epic 4G, a phone I own (uh oh, Apple’s coming after me) — which has a slide out keyboard, a curved top and bottom, 4 buttons on the bottom, the word Samsung printed across the top, buttons in different places (and I know this because I look in all the wrong places on my wife’s iTouch), a differently shaped speaker, a differently placed camera, etc. — that device infringes the iPhone design patents (Turns out I was wrong on this, and that is a good thing. The Epic 4G didn’t even make the jury form. The 4G Touch did, and that is a lot closer to the iPhone Face design patent. I still think it is too broad, but it’s not as bad as I thought).....

Relatedly, the ability to get a design patent on a user interface implies that design patent law is broken. This, to me, is the Supreme Court issue in this case. We can dicker about the “facts” of point 2, but whether you can stop all people from having square icons in rows of 4 with a dock is something that I thought we settled in Lotus v. Borland 15 years ago. I commend Apple for finding a way around basic UI law, but this type of ruling cannot stand.

This is the second lawyer I've seen predicting this case will go all the way to the US Supreme Court. He also compliments Groklaw for having "not only really detailed information, but really accurate information, and actual source documents. That combination is hard to find." Thank you.

Update: One of the jurors has now spoken, and CNET's Greg Sandoval has it, in his article, Exclusive: Apple-Samsung juror speaks out:

Apple v. Samsung juror Manuel Ilagan said the nine-person jury that heard the patent infringement case between the companies knew after the first day that it believed Samsung had wronged Apple....

The decision was very one-sided, but Ilagan said it wasn't clear the jurors were largely in agreement until after the first day of deliberations.

"It didn't dawn on us [that we agreed that Samsung had infringed] on the first day," Ilagan said. "We were debating heavily, especially about the patents on bounce back and pinch-to-zoom. Apple said they owned patents, but we were debating about the prior art [about the same technology that Samsung said existed before the iPhone debuted]. [Velvin Hogan] was jury foreman. He had experience. He owned patents himself. In the beginning the debate was heated, but it was still civil. Hogan holds patents, so he took us through his experience. After that it was easier. After we debated that first patent -- what was prior art --because we had a hard time believing there was no prior art, that there wasn't something out there before Apple.

"In fact we skipped that one," Ilagan continued, "so we could go on faster. It was bogging us down." ...

"Once you determine that Samsung violated the patents," Ilagan said, "it's easy to just go down those different [Samsung] products because it was all the same. Like the trade dress, once you determine Samsung violated the trade dress, the flatscreen with the Bezel...then you go down the products to see if it had a bezel. But we took our time. We didn't rush. We had a debate before we made a decision. Sometimes it was getting heated."

This gets worse and worse.

Update 2: Dan Levine of Reuters has some words from the foreman:

"We wanted to make sure the message we sent was not just a slap on the wrist," Hogan said. "We wanted to make sure it was sufficiently high to be painful, but not unreasonable."

Hogan said jurors were able to complete their deliberations in less than three days -- much faster than legal experts had predicted -- because a few had engineering and legal experience, which helped with the complex issues in play. Once they determined Apple's patents were valid, jurors evaluated every single device separately, he said.

Now the jurors are contradicting each other. Lordy, the more they talk, the worse it gets. I'm sure Samsung is glad they are talking, though. Had they read the full jury instructions, all 109 pages [as PDF], they would have read that damages are not supposed to punish, merely to compensate for losses. Here's what they would have found in Final Jury Instruction No. 35, in part:
The amount of those damages must be adequate to compensate the patent holder for the infringement. A damages award should put the patent holder in approximately the financial position it would have been in had the infringement not occurred, but in no event may the damages award be less than a reasonable royalty. You should keep in mind that the damages you award are meant to compensate the patent holder and not to punish an infringer.
The same instruction is repeated in Final Jury Instruction No. 53, in case they missed it the first time. Did they obey those instructions? Nay, did they even read them? The evidence, judging by the foreman's reported words, point the wrong way.

Update 3: Samsung lawyer John Quinn is quoted by USA Today saying they'll be asking the judge to toss this out and then appeal, if she does not:

Samsung, the global leader among smartphone makers, vowed to fight. Its lawyers told the judge it intended to ask her to toss out the verdict.

"This decision should not be allowed to stand because it would discourage innovation and limit the rights of consumers to make choices for themselves," Samsung lead lawyer John Quinn said. He argued that the judge or an appeals court should overturn the verdict.

Apple lawyers plan to formally demand Samsung pull its most popular cellphones and computer tablets from the U.S. market. They also can ask the judge to triple the damages from $1.05 billion to $3 billion.

U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh will decide those issues, along with Samsung's demand she overturn the jury's verdict, in several weeks. Quinn said Samsung would appeal if the judge refuses to toss out the decision....

Samsung said after the verdict that it was "unfortunate that patent law can be manipulated to give one company a monopoly over rectangles with rounded corners."

"This is by no means the final word in this case," Quinn said in a statement. "Patent law should not be twisted so as to give one company a monopoly over the shape of smartphones."

Update 4: One more quote from the foreman, thanks to Bloomberg News:

“When I got in this case and I started looking at these patents I considered: ‘If this was my patent and I was accused, could I defend it?’” Hogan explained. On the night of Aug. 22, after closing arguments, “a light bulb went on in my head,” he said. “I thought, I need to do this for all of them.”
And in case you think Groklaw is the only one to notice, it's actually a known problem that juries tend to over compensate plaintiffs, as brought out in this AP article by Paul Elias:
Increasingly these highly complex disputes are being decided by juries, rather than judges, and the juries tend to issue more generous awards for patent violations.

That has companies on the receiving end of successful patent infringement lawsuits crying foul and calling for reform in the patent system, but it also has some legal experts questioning whether ordinary citizens should be rendering verdicts and fixing damages in such high stakes, highly technical cases.

"That's a great question ... and it's the subject of a fair amount of current debate," said Notre Dame University law professor Mark McKenna....

"This case is unmanageable for a jury," Robin Feldman, an intellectual property professor at the University of California Hastings Law School, said before the verdict. "There are more than 100 pages of jury instructions. I don't give that much reading to my law students. They can't possible digest it."

"The trial is evidence of a patent system that is out of control," Feldman said. "No matter what happens in this trial, I think people will need to step back and ask whether we've gone too far in the intellectual property system."

Update 5: The foreman has now given an interview with Bloomberg News, which seemed to be giving him an opportunity to answer some of the above criticisms, among others. It's a video on YouTube, and in discussing the first patent on the list, they got into a discussion about the prior art that was presented at trial. Here's why they discounted it:
The software on the Apple side could not be placed into the processor on the prior art and vice versa. That means they are not interchangeable. That changed everything right there.
That isn't disqualifying for prior art.

My favorite comment on Hacker News about this video and the foreman's claims, from ktizo:

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.
He's kidding around, of course. By the way, hacker means something good to programmers. Crackers are the bad guys.

The foreman says that the jury started out in a stalemate, because some on the jury were not clear how prior art can invalidate a patent. At that point, he thought it was going Samsung's way. So he went home and had an aha moment. He felt he could defend it if it was his patent. So he explained it all to the jury. And that turned the tide. But if he told them that interchangeability was a requirement for prior art, he goofed big time.

Here is the jury instruction given on what is prior art, on page 44 of the instructions PDF, which you can find here:

FINAL JURY INSTRUCTION NO. 31
UTILITY PATENTS—ANTICIPATION

A utility patent claim is invalid if the claimed invention is not new. For the claim to be invalid because it is not new, all of its requirements must have existed in a single device or method that predates the claimed invention, or must have been described in a single previous publication or patent that predates the claimed invention. In patent law, these previous devices, methods, publications or patents are called “prior art references.” If a patent claim is not new we say it is “anticipated” by a prior art reference.

The description in the written reference does not have to be in the same words as the claim, but all of the requirements of the claim must be there, either stated or necessarily implied, so that someone of ordinary skill in the field looking at that one reference would be able to make and use the claimed invention.

Here is a list of the ways that either party can show that a patent claim was not new:

– If the claimed invention was already publicly known or publicly used by others in the United States before the date of conception of the claimed invention;

– If the claimed invention was already patented or described in a printed publication anywhere in the world before the date of conception of the claimed invention. A reference is a “printed publication” if it is accessible to those interested in the field, even if it is difficult to find;

– If the claimed invention was already made by someone else in the United States before the date of conception of the claimed invention, if that other person had not abandoned the invention or kept it secret;

If the patent holder and the alleged infringer dispute who is a first inventor, the person who first conceived of the claimed invention and first reduced it to practice is the first inventor. If one person conceived of the claimed invention first, but reduced to practice second, that person is the first inventor only if that person (a) began to reduce the claimed invention to practice before the other party conceived of it, and (b) continued to work diligently to reduce it to practice. A claimed invention is “reduced to practice” when it has been tested sufficiently to show that it will work for its intended purpose or when it is fully described in a patent application filed with the PTO.

– If the claimed invention was already described in another issued U.S. patent or published U.S. patent application that was based on a patent application filed before the patent holder’s application filing date or the date of conception of the claimed invention.

Since certain of them are in dispute, you must determine dates of conception for the claimed inventions and prior inventions. Conception is the mental part of an inventive act and is proven when the invention is shown in its complete form by drawings, disclosure to another, or other forms of evidence presented at trial.

Did you notice that prior art can be a piece of paper describing the invention. It doesn't have to run on any processor.

This was regarding what the foreman in the video calls the '460 patent, but there was no such Apple patent in the case. Here's the Amended Jury Verdict [PDF] form, so you can see for yourself. You'll find the list on page 9. That mistake in speaking makes it impossible to understand what he is referring to, so as to check it. He also says it was the first one on the list, though, and that would be the '381 patent [PDF], "List Scrolling and Document Translation, Scaling and Rotation on a Touch-Screen Display", or the bounce-back patent. The prior art Samsung listed in its trial brief included: the Tablecloth program installed on the DiamondTouch system developed by Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratory ("MERL"), the LaunchTile and XNav programs developed by Dr. Benjamin Bederson, and International Publication Number WO 03/081458.

I don't know about the rest, but the Tablecloth system was demonstrated at trial by Adam Bogue.

Another witness, Benjamin Bederson, presented as prior art his Launch Tile invention, a system of icon tiles in an interfact allowing users to zoom in and out. It had a snapback feature. They don't count as prior art because you can't run Apple software on them? This is, to me, the biggest goof of them all.

[There's more on this in this later Groklaw article. And now this one. The man keeps talking.]

___________
1 Is that math even correct, even after the fix? One reader did the math, and he or she thinks their math is off, and the right total, even if all else is accurate, should be $1,049,423,540. Here's the calculation, taken from the Amended Verdict Form [PDF], so you can do your own checking:

My math gives a different total

... in favor of Apple by a few 10,000's

Captivate . . . . . . . . . .80,840,162

Continuum . . . . . . . . . .16,399,117

Droid Charge. . . . . . . . .50,672,869

Epic 4G. . . . . . . . . . .130,180,894

Exhibit 4G . . . . . . . . . .1,081,820

Fascinate. . . . . . . . . .143,539,179

Galaxy Ace . . . . . . . . . . . . . .0

Galaxy Prevail. . . . . . . .57,867,383

Galaxy S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .0

Galaxy S 4G . . . . . . . . .73,344,668

Galaxy S II (AT&T). . . . . .40,494,356

Galaxy S II (i9000). . . . . . . . . .0

Galaxy S II (T-Mobile). . . .83,791,708

Galaxy S II (Epic 4G Touch).100,326,988

Galaxy S II (Skyrocket) . . .32,273,558

Galaxy S (Showcase) . . . . .22,002,146

Galaxy Tab . . . . . . . . . .1,966,691

Galaxy Tab 10.1 WiFi . . . . . .833,076

Galaxy Tab 10.1 4G LTE . . . . . . . .0

Gem. . . . . . . . . . . . . .4,075,585

Indulge . . . . . . . . . . .16,011,184

Infuse 4G . . . . . . . . . .44,792,974

Intercept. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .0

Mesmerize . . . . . . . . . .53,123,612

Nexus S 4G . . . . . . . . . .1,828,297

Replenish. . . . . . . . . . .3,350,256

Transform. . . . . . . . . . . .953,060

Vibrant . . . . . . . . . . .89,673,957

TOTAL. . . . . . . . . . .1,049,423,540


  


Jury in Apple v. Samsung Goofed, Damages Reduced -- Uh Oh. What's Wrong With this Picture? ~pj Updated 5Xs | 871 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
How is it possible they decided so fast?
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 25 2012 @ 11:39 AM EDT
That is an easy one. They are so ignorant they think it is all easy.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Jury in Apple v. Samsung Goofed, Damages Reduced -- Uh Oh. What's Wrong With this Picture? ~pj
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 25 2012 @ 11:46 AM EDT
Just wondering why Samsung asked to look for inconsistencies. Not that there
aren't a lot of other reasons for their appeal, but If they didn't they could
have appealed based on this fact.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Jury in Apple v. Samsung Goofed, Damages Reduced -- Uh Oh. What's Wrong With this Picture? ~pj
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 25 2012 @ 11:48 AM EDT
How in the world did an Apple "fan-boy" get the position of jury
foreman? They didn't need any instructions, an they obviously didn't let facts
get in the way of their decision, either...

[ Reply to This | # ]

Time for an antitrust Lawsuit against Apple
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 25 2012 @ 11:49 AM EDT
This will certainly happen, Apple cannot create a monopoly
using patents, thats not how the system is designed to work.

So this may be a win, buts its a far bigger loss down the
road for Apple. Monopoly's aren't going to fly.

The Patents are total bogus, and the trial was a farce.

So yes.. this one is very far from over.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Can we please quash this distortion?
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 25 2012 @ 11:53 AM EDT
"The foreman told a court representative that the jurors had reached a
decision without needing the instructions."

The context of the quote is that they did not need an answer to their question
to figure out the inconsistency. It actually speaks to their competence, not the
other way
around. They were told the inconsistency in open court and then when they got
back to the jury room they decided to ask a question to clarify what they were
and then while waiting for an answer they figured it out on their own.

Now if they incorrectly corrected the inconsistency that would be something, but
I don't think they did. The Jury was lame enough without resorting to using
out-of-context distortions to get the point across.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Farce indeed.
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 25 2012 @ 11:54 AM EDT
:(

[ Reply to This | # ]

Jury in Apple v. Samsung Goofed, Damages Reduced -- Uh Oh. What's Wrong With this Picture? ~pj
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 25 2012 @ 11:55 AM EDT
I'm still glaring in disbelief that they found this phone
infringing.

<a href="http://androidheadlines.com/wp-
content/uploads/2010/07/thumb_550_ip4-vs-captivate.jpg
">This one</a>

Say what?!?!?!?! The story is pretty much the same with all
Galaxy S variants. None of them look even close to the iPhone
other than the international version.

[ Reply to This | # ]

This is about preserving the existing USA duopoly on technology
Authored by: TiddlyPom on Saturday, August 25 2012 @ 11:56 AM EDT
<sarcasm>
Because everybody knows:

Microsoft: are allowed to have an effective monopoly on PCs
Apple: are being granted a virtual monopoly on smart phones (at least in the USA)

</sarcasm>

Who does this benefit - large incumbent USA corporations, not consumers and certainly not anybody outside the USA. How come Apple patents are always agreed with and Samsung patents are always ignored?

Yes, this stinks big style.

---
Support Software Freedom - use GPL licenced software like Linux and LibreOffice instead of proprietary software like Microsoft Windows/Office or Apple OS/X

[ Reply to This | # ]

Oh the errors
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 25 2012 @ 12:14 PM EDT
I spotted the errors last night but did not know the legal
significance.

But, I work in tech as an android indie developer. it would
take me 3 days to go over that jury instruction form and
review evidence at this trial and I work in tech. I
seriously doubt that instructions were followed..just
compare it to the Google vs Oracle case about 35% less
stuff and they took what a full week to come to a verdict,
the Jury that is.

My question is why did not Samsung object to the jury member
with the patent on bias grounds? Sorry, do not know the
exact legal terminology..

Fred Grott, Android Developer

[ Reply to This | # ]

Jury in Apple v. Samsung Goofed, Damages Reduced -- Uh Oh. What's Wrong With this Picture? ~pj
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 25 2012 @ 12:18 PM EDT
Goof or just another civil case with special media attention?

The purpose of jury instructions is literally to expedite the jury deliberation.

Why is it shocking that they had a quick turnover?

A quick verdict is a sign that the burden of proof for the civil court, that it
be
clear and convincing, was met. This is not a criminal case where the jury must
have no reasonable doubt about their verdict.

That Samsung is questioning the verdict, duh. When you lose, you appeal. The
jury obviously found the evidence to meet the burden of proof. Procedural
error, like botched instructions and 'jury error' are two different things.
Samsung is basically suggesting they want to appeal the verdict, as is their
right. It is not clear yet whether they are questioning the jury instructions.
Rather, they are questioning the result of the trial itself and the amount of
damages awarded to the plaintiff.


"As you can see, you can ask for victory across the board or just on one
part of
what the jury decided."

-This makes it sound like the jury just randomly decided to throw money at
Apple. It's obvious that Samsung copied Apple.

Google search for 2005 samsung phone, 2006 samsung phone, 2007 samsung
phone, 2008 samsung phone, 2009 samsung phone, 2010 samsung phone,
2011 samsung phone, 2012 samsung phone and tell me if you dont see a rapid
evolution into Apple aesthetic. Tell me the Galaxy is nothing like the iPad.

Their internal memos boasted about how "easy" it would be to
"copy" the
iPhone. They were suppling Apple with parts and got tired of having a not-as-
nice office or similar cash reserves. They said "wow these widgets make
money,
lets make widgets." In the process they violated the intellectual property
of
Apple which is clearly represented by their similar design and functionality.

Yes, an appeal is due and the awards will probably be adjusted. The point of
this case was to set a precedence around the world that Apple will not tolerate

the copyright infringement of the technology and design that they envisioned
and created. Steve Jobs and thousands of Apple employees brought Apple out
from obscurity in the 1990's and saved their company. Why should other
companies get to jump off their shoulder's without compensating them?

(just a thought)

@cdisidro

[ Reply to This | # ]

Jury in Apple v. Samsung Goofed, Damages Reduced -- Uh Oh. What's Wrong With this Picture? ~pj
Authored by: eric76 on Saturday, August 25 2012 @ 12:57 PM EDT
The trial covered so many issues and provided the parties so little time to
discuss each issue that the jury had a hopeless task. I don't see how they
could have a chance at actually forming any kind of understanding of that many
issues in that short a time without serious study.

Perhaps they just threw up their hands and started filling in the blanks just to
get out of there.

[ Reply to This | # ]

"Come on. This is farce."
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 25 2012 @ 01:10 PM EDT
Not a farce. That is justice - US style.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Jury in Apple v. Samsung Goofed, Damages Reduced -- Uh Oh. What's Wrong With this Picture? ~pj
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 25 2012 @ 01:13 PM EDT
"As a result the damages award was reduced to $1,049,343,540, down from
$1,051,855."

A bit of a goof here! One billion dollars damages, down from one million... :)

[ Reply to This | # ]

Corrections...
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 25 2012 @ 01:15 PM EDT
To the text of the article, not to the jury's conclusions.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Jury in Apple v. Samsung Goofed, Damages Reduced -- Uh Oh. What's Wrong With this Picture? ~pj
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 25 2012 @ 01:16 PM EDT
I'm on the side that thinks the jury goofed but I can not lay the blame at their
feet. There is no way that this many complex questions could have been
effectively entertained by any collection of jurors available. It was an
impossible task from the start. I wish the court would have narrowed the scope
of this trial so that the remaining questions could have been given appropriate
interest and attention. Sadly, that did not happen.

3514v posting from public
terminal

[ Reply to This | # ]

Jury in Apple v. Samsung Goofed, Damages Reduced -- Uh Oh. What's Wrong With this Picture? ~pj
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 25 2012 @ 01:26 PM EDT
Amazing, pj, how your respect for juries and the system extends only as far as
their ability to choose a verdict you agree with. I've been impressed in the
past with the way you've written about the process and the people who work in
it, and the respect you've shown and the tone of your writing even when talking
about counsel for the side you oppose vehemently.

But now, jury rules against you, it's "O M G The jury", "slipshod
folks", and the lovely "farce".

I miss the fair-minded pj who clearly explained what happens in courtrooms and
why. We now seem to have a fangirl who reacts just like any of the rabid
commenters on the site, and that makes me sad.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Bond
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 25 2012 @ 01:37 PM EDT
Some people ( in these forums) have suggested that Samsung's having to post a
bond of a billion+ is going to prevent their appeal. However, if Samsung does
not appeal they will still have to pay Apple the billion. So the appeal
generally doesn't cost them anything.

What bothers me is when a jury verdict becomes so high that a company doesn't
have the money to appeal? Does that mean that justice is on sale for those that
can raise beyond a companies ability to match?

Mouse the Lucky Dog

[ Reply to This | # ]

Back of the envelope calculation 1 1/3 minutes for each question.
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 25 2012 @ 02:00 PM EDT
A quick calculation 2 days deliberation, 8 hours a day, 700 questions means the
jury spent approximately one and half minutes deliberating per question.

Even the OJ jury took longer, and they only had four or five questions.

[ Reply to This | # ]

No doubt playing cards will be next
Authored by: kawabago on Saturday, August 25 2012 @ 02:00 PM EDT
After all, playing cards are rectangular with rounded
corners! They stole Apple's design 300 years before Apple
invented it! They must be punished!!!!

[ Reply to This | # ]

Jury in Apple v. Samsung Goofed, Damages Reduced -- Uh Oh. What's Wrong With this Picture? ~pj
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 25 2012 @ 02:26 PM EDT
Apple is going to find itself falling apart just like Sony. That is
the original Sony that invented the walkman in the 80s not the
shell that exists today. I'm typing this on my Galaxy Nexus
with its beautiful OLED display; that takes some engineering to
manufacture. Squares with rounded corners.. bfd. I think Apple
will have a difficult time finding a parts supplier.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Jury in Apple v. Samsung Goofed, Damages Reduced -- Uh Oh. What's Wrong With this Picture? ~pj
Authored by: miltonw on Saturday, August 25 2012 @ 02:36 PM EDT
In a new interview, one of the jurors said, "Apple said they owned patents, but we were debating about the prior art. [Velvin Hogan] was jury foreman. He had experience. He owned patents himself. In the beginning the debate was heated, but it was still civil. Hogan holds patents, so he took us through his experience. After that it was easier."

Isn't that a serious violation of jury instructions? Aren't they accepting and relying on "facts" not presented in court?

I am not a lawyer, but I think this is grounds for a mistrial right there!

[ Reply to This | # ]

Jury in Apple v. Samsung Goofed, Damages Reduced -- Uh Oh. What's Wrong With this Picture? ~pj
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 25 2012 @ 02:37 PM EDT
They also decided the Nexus S 4G infringed the 381
(bounceback) patent, yet the Nexus S 4G runs stock Android,
which does not do bounceback.

[ Reply to This | # ]

I think the judge will fix this and award Apple even more.
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 25 2012 @ 02:37 PM EDT
The infringement was clear from the day one.

From theverge.com:

According to juror Manuel Ilagan, it was clear after the first day of
deliberations that the jury was mostly in agreement. Speaking to CNet, Ilagan
cited specific pieces of evidence that helped sway the decision Apple's way,
including internal Samsung emails. "The e-mails that went back and forth
from Samsung execs about the Apple features that they should incorporate
into their devices was pretty damning to me," he explained. "It was
clear there
was infringement," he added.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Apple v. Samsung different verdicts
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 25 2012 @ 02:48 PM EDT
Did the to sides present different evidence to the various courts? How can one
court say Samsung infringes and another determine that it is Apple in the
wrong?
Has anyone done up a chart to show how the rulings vary by court?

[ Reply to This | # ]

OT - Appeal
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 25 2012 @ 03:12 PM EDT
BBC is reporting that Samsung have stated they will appeal.

[ Reply to This | # ]

So we do not have oto follow Judge instructions?
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 25 2012 @ 03:15 PM EDT
SO unofficially we have signs of jurors not following the
judges instructions. What legal processes and filings can be
involved in such a case if it did in fact happen in this
case?

[ Reply to This | # ]

Apple paying Apple?
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 25 2012 @ 03:18 PM EDT
Anyone who wanted to buy a hard drive in the last year knows that prices have
skyrocketed because three of the four manufacturing plants of drive heads were
disabled in a Thialand flood.

I don't know how contracts for parts are made but I have to assume that things
like price of raw materials, exchange rate, unforseen problems, general increase
in the domain.

Could apple recieve a letter from Samsung, "due to unforseen setbacks in
litigation, we must now triple our prices for parts".

Could Apple be paying Apple?

BTW who owns the patents on the retina display? You know the spec that really
isn't a spec because Apple fandroids don't care about specs.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Prior Art
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 25 2012 @ 03:19 PM EDT
Commentfrom juror "because we had hard time believing there
was no prior art,
that there wasn't something out there before Apple.
"In fact we skipped that one," Ilagan continued, "so we
could
go on faster. It was bogging us down.

The jury didn't discuss prior art because it was bogging
them
down. Failing to discuss prior art? The whole foundation of
the case was patents which can be invalidated by prior art.
Was there any
instructions on prior art? Seems like Apple patents will be
declared invalid in appeals since prior art exists in most
of
their patents. Judgement overturned!!!

[ Reply to This | # ]

Jury in Apple v. Samsung Goofed, Damages Reduced -- Uh Oh. What's Wrong With this Picture? ~pj
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 25 2012 @ 03:29 PM EDT
What puzzles me about the whole case was Samsung's seeming poor performance in defending itself. I'm puzzled why they didn't take the Google route and try and get some of the Apple patents re-examined and thus thrown out before the trial got to court. I'm also puzzled why they didn't pull out some of their own design patents to show prior art for a rectangle with rounded corners and no ornamentation. For example, how about patent D337569 filed in 1991 - add a button at one end and a speaker at the other and you have a modern smart phone.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Jury skipped deciding the prior art issue!?
Authored by: celtic_hackr on Saturday, August 25 2012 @ 04:06 PM EDT
How can you determine whether the patents are invalid if you skip determining
whether there was prior art? Determining if there was prior art is requisite to
determining validity. The jury verdict is null and void.

Samsung has an airtight case for rule 50(b) motion. There is no way this verdict
can stand. Let's see what Samsung puts up on this, and how the judge rules.

[ Reply to This | # ]

OMG, this just gets worse and worse!
Authored by: celtic_hackr on Saturday, August 25 2012 @ 04:19 PM EDT
Some of the jurors had legal experience!?

They can't use any of that, can they? Their job was to determine the facts. Not
the legal matters. The only legal perspective they should have used was the
judge's.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Jury post-trial statements - grounds for appeal?
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 25 2012 @ 04:20 PM EDT
Based on the comments, one juror has made, can Samsung appeal based on just
these statements?

"Hogan holds patents, so he took us through his experience." - jury
foreman walking jurors through patent process.

"I was vocal about the technical [issues], about the power controls,
because I know that stuff," and"I work on that."
- Ilagan, the interviewed juror.

"We're not the patent office. Its not even registered."
- Ilagan, para phasing the deliberations. Does this count as considering stuff
not in evidence?

"After we debated that first patent -- what was prior art --because we had
a hard time believing there was no prior art, that there wasn't something out
there before Apple."
- Ilagan . Shows the jury idea that there can be no prior art unless something
was brought to market.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Will a Samsung move to stock Android 4.1 solve this?
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 25 2012 @ 04:33 PM EDT
Looks like all the things that were ruled in favor of Apple
had to do with Samsung's custom TouchWiz interface and its
similarity to Apple's design patents..

If Samsung updates all phones to stock Android 4.1 (Jelly
Bean) - which I understand works around all Apple patents
related to this - would they be in the clear for future phone
versions?

[ Reply to This | # ]

Allsup as judge
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 25 2012 @ 04:56 PM EDT
I think this case outcome would have been completely
different if Allsup was the judge.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Off Topic threads
Authored by: bugstomper on Saturday, August 25 2012 @ 04:57 PM EDT
135 comments posted already and no Off Topic threads? You guys need to take a
break! All work and no play and all that. Post anything off topic here if you
have anything to talk about other than these revelations about the jury
decision.

[ Reply to This | # ]

News Picks Threads
Authored by: bugstomper on Saturday, August 25 2012 @ 05:16 PM EDT
Is there any news to talk about besides the jury verdict?

Please type the title of the News Picks article in the Title box of your
comment, and include the link to the article in HTML Formatted mode for the
convenience of the readers after the article has scrolled off the News Picks
sidebar.

Hint: Avoid a Geeklog bug that posts some links broken by putting a space on
either side of the text of the link, as in

<a href="http://example.com/foo"> See the spaces? </a>

[ Reply to This | # ]

Declaring a patent exhausted and not infringed is not inconsistent
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 25 2012 @ 05:29 PM EDT
Some have claimed that declaring a patent exhausted and
declaring it not infringed is inconsistent.

I would say it is not. It is giving two reasons for the
same non-infringement conclusion. They say Apple had a
right to do something, and Apple didn't do it anyway, so
both those findings would have to be overturned to find that
Apple infringed that patent unlawfully.

That doesn't mean they are factually right on either point
of cause, but the jury has spoken and we peasants must obey.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Corrections Thread
Authored by: bugstomper on Saturday, August 25 2012 @ 05:31 PM EDT
In case you are reading this with the setting to ignore Anonymous posts, here is a link to the Corrections Thread that was posted by an Anonymous but is already too active for me to simply say use this instead. If I did the link right it will override your Hide Anonymous setting and will appear:

Corrections...

[ Reply to This | # ]

Crazy jury
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 25 2012 @ 06:04 PM EDT
they awarded apple more money to the phones that look least like the iphone.
Galaxy S . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .0

Galaxy S 4G . . . . . . . . .73,344,668

Galaxy S II (AT&T). . . . . .40,494,356

Galaxy S II (i9000). . . . . . . . . .0

Galaxy S II (T-Mobile). . . .83,791,708

Galaxy S II (Epic 4G Touch).100,326,988

Galaxy S II (Skyrocket) . . .32,273,558

Galaxy S (Showcase) . . . . .22,002,146
clearly they just rushed through the judgment.

the Galaxy S (presumably the GT-I9000) is the one that looks most like the iphone but got $0 in damages.

The Galaxy S II epic got $100,326,988 but that phone along with the Galaxy S II for t-mobile which got almost as much but again it is virtually the same as the epic and looks the least like the iphone.

Clearly we have a runaway irresponsible jury here.

[ Reply to This | # ]

This result was so "Apple"
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 25 2012 @ 06:19 PM EDT
Just think, billions of dollars created out of thin air by a captive group of
people earning less than minimum wage!

Steve would be proud.

[ Reply to This | # ]

So its a lottery, and this is what can happen when... you get the "B" team?
Authored by: SilverWave on Saturday, August 25 2012 @ 06:26 PM EDT
What a difference an "A" list Judge and Jury make:

A knowledgeable experienced Judge and a Diligent Jury.

---

From the Courtroom: Day 13 of Patent Phase, Oracle v. Google Trial - Jury: No
Patent Infringement ~pj Updated 3Xs

http://www.groklaw.net/articlebasic.php?story=20120523125023818

---
Quote:
From our reporter in the courtroom:

Judge:

In his heart, you are respected, he said, and your verdict is respected.

I haven't had a jury in a civil case that has gone this long, "longest
civil trial" and you all have been a superb jury, and this country is a
great country, because of citizens like you who are willing to sacrifice and
come in as you have. Thanks them on behalf of country and Federal court.

He will then thank them individually in jury room.

---
RMS: The 4 Freedoms
0 run the program for any purpose
1 study the source code and change it
2 make copies and distribute them
3 publish modified versions

[ Reply to This | # ]

It gets worse and worse
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 25 2012 @ 07:19 PM EDT
OMG, PJ, it sure does. It is pretty clear that the foreman wanted to punish
Samsung for personal reasons and he convinced the rest of the jurors of his
"expertise" as a patent holder in order to control the ruling.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Apple, Apple, Apple
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 25 2012 @ 07:37 PM EDT
Despite the contrary winds, assume for a moment that the verdict holds.

Apple becomes the new King of the Mountain.

At least, in the U.S.A. If enough others decide that Apple didn't/doesn't win
fairly, other forces may come to bear.

Lessig points out, in his book _Code and the Laws of Cyberspace_, that law is
only one of at least four forces that act in the market. Infrastructure, social
attitudes, and other forces have as much influence.

Apple could win the law. But if Asia decides it doesn't like Apple, maybe
things could get a lot harder for Apple.

mexaly
(login trouble)

[ Reply to This | # ]

If that patent is the foreman's that explains the problem
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 25 2012 @ 07:38 PM EDT
US Patent 7352953B1 is a total piece of garbage. It describes a normal computer
with video editing software using data storage techniques worked out in the
1960s. Not a single word of it is anything new. If that patent belongs to the
foreman, then he is guilty of fraud on the patent office and on the American
people.

No wonder he thinks junk patents are valid.

[ Reply to This | # ]

The reason why prior art was ignored?
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 25 2012 @ 07:55 PM EDT
Bloomberg quotes the foreman:

“When I got in this case and I started looking at these patents I considered:
‘If this was my patent and I was accused, could I defend it?’” Hogan explained.
On the night of Aug. 22, after closing arguments, “a light bulb went on in my
head,” he said. “I thought, I need to do this for all of them.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-25/apple-samsung-jury-foreman-says-google-
e-mail-persuasive.html

[ Reply to This | # ]

Juror Misconduct
Authored by: eric76 on Saturday, August 25 2012 @ 08:00 PM EDT

So does this amount to Juror Misconduct?

From Kinds of juror misconduct:

There are many kinds of juror misconduct, but most of them fall into the following categories:

...

6. Improper mechanisms for arriving at a verdict:
Using a game of chance, such as a coin flip
Agreeing to ignore the law
Agreeing to a “quotient verdict” in a civil case; that is, arriving at a damages amount by taking a figure from each juror, and averaging them

If the law says that the damage awarded by the jury must be only to compensate the damaged party and the jury is then using the damage awrd to punish the other party, then the jury would certainly have been "agreeing to ignore the law".

[ Reply to This | # ]

Samsung's 3G patents?
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 25 2012 @ 08:15 PM EDT
I'm a little confused. When I first saw the verdict, I
thought finding that exhaustion covered Samsung's 3G patents
was probably reasonable, given things I had read previously
about what happened. But then I realized that the jury
found that Apple didn't even _infringe_ the 3G patents.
Could the jury really have known what it was doing? I don't
think Apple claimed that it didn't infringe the patents. I
just re-read what I could find of Apple's expert testimony,
from Hyong Kim, and it looked like he was just claiming the
patent was invalid. It's clear that the patent covers part
of the 3G standard. But the jury didn't find that the
patent was invalid, they just claimed non-infringement.
Could a properly informed jury really have found that?

[ Reply to This | # ]

Will there be a prior art search on Apple's ridiculous patents
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 25 2012 @ 08:23 PM EDT
Minority Report 2002

Uses his hands to control the display. Moving stuff around, flipping images,
zooming. This is on a huge display. With this prior art, it would be obvious
you would only use your fingers on a small display vs your whole hand.

This patent is a joke.

[ Reply to This | # ]

A few more quotes from the foreman
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 25 2012 @ 08:31 PM EDT

Source:

http://www.mercurynews.com/business/ci_21400423/jury-
foreman-apple-v-samsung-verdict-message-that

Using his own experience getting a patent, Hogan said he had
a revelation on the first night of deliberations while he
watched television.
"I was thinking about the patents, and thought, 'If this
were my patent, could I defend it?' " Hogan recalled. "Once
I answered that question as yes, it changed how I looked at
things."


Overall, Hogan said, he discounted the parade of high-paid
experts on both sides. "You can pay people to say what you
want them to say," he said.

"We felt like we were 100 percent fair," he said. "But we
wanted something more than a slap on the wrist."


Is this just me or did he A) substitute is own opinion
rather than evaluating the evidence and B) disregarded the
jury instructions on both finding of fact and damages.

[ Reply to This | # ]

time to start a boycott apple site I think
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 25 2012 @ 10:11 PM EDT
When you borrow others inventions like phone camera, phone GPS, phone music
players, phone touchscreen, icon based layouts, and your big addition to the
world of patents is a black rectangle with rounded corners that steve jobs
probably saw when he watched 2001 a space oddessy and bounce ending...... you
should not only be ashamed, you should be boycotted until forced to compete on
merits not lawsuits.

If enough sites put boycott apple logo's up the top, linking to an article
describing why... it would freak apple out.. which is what needs to happen
anyway. shake them up and get them back to doing what they do best.. weird
marketing ads that sell stuff.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Another inconsistency?
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 25 2012 @ 10:50 PM EDT

From the Verdict form:

-------
SAMSUNG’S UTILITY PATENT CLAIMS AGAINST APPLE

24. For each of the following products, has Samsung proven by a preponderance of
the evidence that Apple has infringed the indicated Samsung utility patent
claims? (Please answer in each cell with a “Y” for “yes” (for Samsung), or with
an “N” for “no” (for Apple).

Answer: No, no, no, etc. except iPad Touch.

25. If in response to Question 24 you found that Apple has infringed any Samsung
patent(s), has Samsung proven by clear and convincing evidence that Apple’s
infringement was willful?

Answer: Skipped.
----

Shouldn't they have answered question 25, at least as concerns the "iPad
Touch", whatever device that is?

[ Reply to This | # ]

Samsung's standards-essential vs feature patents
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 25 2012 @ 11:28 PM EDT
OK, I think I kinda understand why they disregarded
Samsung's standards-essential patents (patent exhaustion due
to Intel agreement).

But ... throwing out all Samsung's feature patents after
awarding ALL of Apple's utility and design patents??? A bit
fishy and heavily biased, if you ask me.

I mean, they *rejected* all of these Samsung feature patents
on all of Apple's devices:
- '711: Multi-tasking while playing music
- '460: Taking and e-mailing pictures using a scroll action
- '893: Switching between photos

and *accepted* all of these Apple utility and design patents
for over 90% of Samsung's phones they had to mark:
+ '163: enlarging documents through tapping
+ '381: Bounce back
+ '915: single-touch and double-touch
+ '087: Ornamental design (white)
+ '305: Rounded square icons
+ '677: Ornamental design (black)

Oh, so the jury basically said: "Hmmm, Samsung *cannot*
copy Apple's white and black colors ... but Apple *can* copy
the multi-tasking, scroll action, and switching thingies
from whoever they want!"

Puhleaassssee!!!!!!!

WSJ has a great graphic that helped me see this:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000087239639044427040457761
2160843420578.html?
mod=googlenews_wsj#project%3DAPPLESAMSUNGVERDICT%26articleTa
bs%3Dinteractive

[ Reply to This | # ]

Per unit damages are also grossly disproportionate
Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, August 25 2012 @ 11:31 PM EDT
How can the damages for the Fascinate smartphone (infringing three utility
patents, two design patents, and iPhone trade dress) be $100 per unit (23% of
sale price), while Galaxy Tab 10.1 WiFi (infringing the same three utility
patents, though no design or trade dress rights) be only $1.42 per unit (0.4%
sale price)?

Are these calculations right? I found them here:
http://blog.patentology.com.au/2012/08/billion-dollar-jury-verdict-blow-to.html

[ Reply to This | # ]

A billion in spilt milk
Authored by: webster on Sunday, August 26 2012 @ 01:31 AM EDT

It's a bad day for smartphoners.  The price just went up and some day there may only be one brand.  Samsung has to choke it down and move on.  They must be glad they can afford to lose a billion.  They can make it up in TV's.  Settlement, if it was ever possible, just became more difficult.  Apple wants it all.  They probably prefer Lumias to Nexi.  Time to move on to some second guessing in hindsight.  
  1. The foreman was a patent owner.  How did Samsung leave a patent owner on the Jury?  He is favorable to patents, particularly his own.  Let us hope that Samsung used their peremptory strikes on other patent owners, lawyers, or worse during voir dire.  This had to be a calculated slip or they feared someone else worse.
  2. If this jury did everything right and more deliberately, they will still have pilloried Samsung.  However, the more they talk, they more they give Samsung to throw at the judge.  Their haste was sloppy and reflective of their strong sympathies for Apple.  Howerver there is enough to criticise in their performance to make the judge have to decide.  Their performance makes her evidentiary rulings seem to have hamstrung Samsung.  If she has any qualms or sympathies, there is enough here, facts and law, to have her do it again.  It is better for her record to order the retrial herself rather than have the Circuit order her to retry it.  She can go either way.  Sympathy will be the determining factor.  Samsung will have to show some very strong precedent to get a new trial from her even if she wants to give it to them.  If nothing else, a retrial won't have the same jury.
  3. If ever there was an example of a jury giving short shrift to a complicated case, this is it.  The technically adept swept the others along according to published comments.  They made errors, raced through dozens of issues and ingored instructions.  It was a rush to judgment.  They would probably done the same with a proper deliberation.  Koh and or the Circuit will have to check out that "probably."
So back to the drawing board for Samsung.  Maybe they should cut a corner off their rectangular mobiles and call it a nook or a chink.  Then no more confusion with iThings.
~webster~

[ Reply to This | # ]

Absurd, Implausible, Unbelievable
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 26 2012 @ 01:35 AM EDT
What's the word I'm looking for?

It's hard to believe that the Galaxy Ace, Intercept and Replenish don't do
pinch-to-zoom as per the findings of this jury.

[ Reply to This | # ]

The biggest idiots on the jury.
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 26 2012 @ 01:51 AM EDT
I think we now have plenty of evidence that the jury did not follow the jury
instructions and that if the judge does not declare a mistrial ( and I believe
she does not want to, but the higher ups are watching ) the appellate court
will.

It's funny, the more "common" people are barely speaking. It's the
most technical people who are in a hurry to talk to the press and reveal the
parts of the deliberation process that are most likely to cause a mistrial.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Jury malfeasance the result of the judge.
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 26 2012 @ 01:57 AM EDT
When the judge was reading the jury instructions, she was making jokes about
jurors dieing from the boredom and talking standing breaks to make sure the
jurors don't fall asleep.

How much of her making light of the instructions led to the jury blowing part of
them off?

[ Reply to This | # ]

What's next?
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 26 2012 @ 02:04 AM EDT
Ok so does this go up to the 9th Circuit or the CAFC?

Does it get split up with procedural issues going to the 9th circuit and the
CAFC getting the patentability issues?

If the CAFC gets it, how are they on procedural issues?

[ Reply to This | # ]

  • What's next? - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 26 2012 @ 02:39 PM EDT
  • What's next? - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 26 2012 @ 03:29 PM EDT
    • What's next? - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 26 2012 @ 06:07 PM EDT
PJ - Get a Grip
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 26 2012 @ 03:44 AM EDT
This jury decision is NOTHING! You want a real travesty of justice? Try
acquitting a drunk driver of hit and run and manslaughter because he didn't know
he hit the person!

http://www.buffalonews.com/topics/dr-james-corasanti-trial/article879349.ece

Jurors are stupid. That's a given.

Samsung will appeal. If the Appeals court agrees the decision will be tossed.
However you're losing your composure.

[ Reply to This | # ]

"Copy" - the Pivotal Word
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 26 2012 @ 04:51 AM EDT
The striking thing about this mess to me is that people are NOT distinguishing
between two forms of copying. One is the slavish replication of a competitor's
product to steal a piece of their market. The other is the improvement of your
previous product by implementing your version of their software feature(s) on
your next product.

The first is actionable. The second is simply a good business practice. And
since Samsung implemented their version of certain Apple features in software
they (Samsung) are free to do three things :
1) Help kill software patents by invalidating Apple's patents;
2) Disable some parts of their software (perhaps with hackable patches that
would allow the awakening of a dormant feature :-) );
3) Conduct research into neater features.

MB94128

N.B. - I've been a techie for several decades. I own a Mac Mini w/ Snow Leopard
(10.6.8) and a ViewSonic gTablet. I have encountered several areas in OS X that
are inferior to Linux-D (SuSE/Mepis/etc.)*. I consider their increasing
web-linkage / cloud-happiness to be imbalanced at best and dangerous at worst.
Apple has a set of blinders on that makes sneaker-net and analog modem users
almost invisible. I suspect that I'm going to be migrating OFF of OS X by the
end of the year to one of the following : Mepis, ECS, Haiku, or Solaris. To
Apple - SST (Virginia's motto).

*E.g.'s :
Finder vs. Konqueror 3.x (bought a copy of PathFinder);
Safari vs. FireFox, etc.;
Integral burn vs. K3B (downloaded the "Burn" app);
Quicktime vs. VLC.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Reality vs A Bad Patent
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 26 2012 @ 04:54 AM EDT

Based on what's being printed in the main media1 from interviews with some of the Juror's, I can't help but think the Foreman guided the other Juror's such that a perversion of Justice occurred.

The Foreman appears to have approached the situation by placing himself in Apple's shoes and wondering how he would defend the validity of his own patent. He then proceeded with his own deliberations such that "he was defending his own patent". As the saying goes: Someone who represents himself in a Court of Law has a fool for a client. Under such a situation, it comes as no surprise that the verdict was 100% in favor of Apple while Samsung's own patent claims ended up totally discounted.

Determining validity of any patent is an extremely important part of the responsibility of a Jury when faced with a patent Lawsuit.

While the Juror acknowledged they do not have the authority to grant the patent:

So, some of the jurors said 'Why are we playing patent office? We're not the patent office. It's not even registered.'
They still appear to have chosen to avoid determining whether or not at least one patent should even be considered valid:
After we debated that first patent -- what was prior art --because we had a hard time believing there was no prior art." "In fact we skipped that one," Ilagan continued, "so we could go on faster. It was bogging us down."
It really leaves me wondering two things:
    1: How much of what the Foreman viewed was based - not on the Jury Instructions and the Law as defined by the Judge - but on his own personal views with regards the validity of his own patent.
and
    2: How much he used that view to influence the rest of the Jury:
    Hogan was jury foreman. He had experience. He owned patents himself...so he took us through his experience. After that it was easier.
This keeps bringing me back to one thought surrounding those willing to patent Software:
    If you're willing to pervert the Law in order to acquire the patent - perhaps it's time to accept the reality your patent should not have been granted in the first place.
1: Recognizing the main media often only presents the most sensational side of the story and has no issues with presenting things in a way as to insinuate something without actually stating it. In short: Main Media can't be trusted to present sufficient facts to form one's own opinion that one can trust.

RAS

[ Reply to This | # ]

We are coming for you next. ®
Authored by: SilverWave on Sunday, August 26 2012 @ 04:55 AM EDT
Cook's 'values' memo shows Apple has lost its soul

---
RMS: The 4 Freedoms
0 run the program for any purpose
1 study the source code and change it
2 make copies and distribute them
3 publish modified versions

[ Reply to This | # ]

Pinch (or actually un-pinch) to zoom... really?
Authored by: BitOBear on Sunday, August 26 2012 @ 06:58 AM EDT
That was in the movie Johny Neumonic for (your choice of dieties') sake. He
spread his hands not fingers, but the screen was bigger, and virtual.

I dispair of any positive fiscal future for this country at this time.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Jury in Apple v. Samsung Goofed, Damages Reduced -- Uh Oh. What's Wrong With this Picture? ~pj Updated 3Xs
Authored by: lanser on Sunday, August 26 2012 @ 07:13 AM EDT
not sure of exact times but assuming 3x10 hour days and 700 questions that makes
2.6 minutes per question including time to read and record the response.
Seems to me that the jury really took their duties responsibly and gave serious
consideration to the evidence.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Be careful what you wish for
Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 26 2012 @ 08:54 AM EDT
That's why I don't think this jury's ruling will stand,

If you're hoping for another roll of the dice, it's worth remembering that as well as rejecting a lot of the 'rounded rectangle' stuff, this jury also threw out Samsung's claims that Apple had infringed their patents on:

...the integration of a mobile phone, digital camera and email into a single device; bookmarking a picture in an image gallery; and using an app while continuing to listen to music in the background. (BBC news - click-through to the patents).

...and also thew out Samsung's attempt to have a second bite of the cherry for their 3G-essential patents.

Given the choice of having to work around Apple's patents or those, I know which I'd find least obstructive, and it's nice to know that you can rely on patent licenses obtained via third parties.

...and didn't Samsung have their chance to reject the patent-holder during jury selection? Maybe they thought he was worth a shot.

[ Reply to This | # ]

The Jury In The Apple-Samsung Case Deliberated Just 21 Hours
Authored by: SilverWave on Sunday, August 26 2012 @ 09:12 AM EDT
The Jury In The Apple-Samsung Case Deliberated Just 21 Hours

Quote: The very first vote taken immediately after proceedings concluded was already a 7-2 vote in favor of Apple.

---
RMS: The 4 Freedoms
0 run the program for any purpose
1 study the source code and change it
2 make copies and distribute them
3 publish modified versions

[ Reply to This | # ]

    by definiion, intuitive gestures should be unpatentable
    Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 26 2012 @ 09:26 AM EDT
    Intuitive gestures are something the average user would try when using a
    device without no prior knowledge of how it works. They need to be obvious,
    or they are not intuitive, and thus should be unpatentable by definition.

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    Jury in Apple v. Samsung Goofed, Damages Reduced -- Uh Oh. What's Wrong With this Picture? ~pj Updated 3Xs
    Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 26 2012 @ 09:31 AM EDT
    So some well-educated jurors agreed that Samsung was an obvious copycat.
    Everyone except perhaps this website and rabid fanboys knew that the first time

    they saw a Samsung device -- given that they even knew it was a Samsung from
    a distance.

    Now, you're piling on because the jury got some math wrong when they
    attempted to bend over backwards for Samsung?

    That's the problem with lawyers in general: they don't care for justice.

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    Samsung will have to learn its lesson
    Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 26 2012 @ 11:01 AM EDT
    Apple's victory will mean MORE PHONE OPTIONS.

    Samsung's copycat actions are the same as if Chevy copied Ferrari's 458 Spider -
    making the same looking
    car, down to the colors, shape, seats, steering wheel, dashboard, radio, tire
    tread pattern, etc. All of
    Chevy's models become variations of Ferrari's 458 Spider in appearance. But by a
    Ferrari win in a lawsuit
    against Chevy, Chevy is forced to create different looking cars - such as the
    Corvette, Camaro, Volt,
    Malibu, Cruz, Sonic and Spark. This causes consumers to have more options.

    Because of Apple's win, there will be MORE PHONE OPTIONS. After all, Samsung
    still wants to make billions
    of dollars in the smartphone market. After all, Samsung still wants to sell more
    smartphones than Apple.

    Samsung will just have to make different looking smartphones. It actually has to
    be more creative - like
    MICROSOFT or even Sony.

    That is how intellectual property protection - like copyrights, patents,
    trademarks, etc. - is suppose to
    work. It creates more incentive to differentiate, not copy. Car companies know
    this intrinsically and
    automatically create different looking cars with distinctive shapes and colors
    so you know whether or not
    you are driving a Chevy versus Ferrari versus Mercedes Benz versus Lexus. They
    each have a different feel
    and appearance. Samsung has to learn its lesson too.

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    Jury in Apple v. Samsung Goofed, Damages Reduced -- Uh Oh. What's Wrong With this Picture? ~pj Updated 3Xs
    Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 26 2012 @ 11:26 AM EDT
    Samsung, it's not the jury, it's your lawyers who screwed
    up! :-)

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    The wisdom of Judge Alssup
    Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 26 2012 @ 12:36 PM EDT
    Reading the comments so far calls to mind Judge Alsup's order early in Oracle v
    Google for the parties to reduce the number of patents and claims in suit to a
    number that could practicably be tried. This Judge Koh failed to do, and so
    ended up with an impossible mess of a trial.

    When this case went to the jury, I burned incense on the altar of the Jury Gods
    in gratitude for their decision to spare me from being on this one. Their task
    clearly was impossible, and the fault for that IMHO stems just as clearly from
    Judge Koh's inability to to manage the case in a way that would allow a jury to
    properly decide it.

    Think about it. The unfortunate jury was handed a heaping plateful of patents,
    each with multiple claims, whose validity they had to decide. With any
    patents/claims that survived, they were to evaluate their applicability to
    multiple features of dozens of products and, for each one found to infringe,
    determine to the dollar how much financial harm had been done to the patent
    holder. Each step of this process was to be governed by 109 pages of detailed
    jury instructions, and based upon a paltry 50(?) hours of testimony and
    thousands of pages of evidence that survived the best efforts of the world's
    most high-powered lawyers to exclude on legal grounds anything that would
    support the opposing side. Oh, and a jury form with 700 questions to be answered
    yes-or-no on the lot. Yikes!

    My combinatorial math is weak, but the cross product of the number of patent
    claims, products and their features, available evidence, and applicable
    instructions produces a mind-bogglingly huge number of discrete decisions that
    would have to be reached by nine people in unanimity. Damage determinations are
    piled on top of that.

    I honestly don't see how this or any jury could reach a fully reasoned verdict
    under those circumstances. Given that, my view is that the trial that Judge Koh
    conducted can end only in a mistrial, as no rational verdict is possible.

    -Russ

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    Don't hold your breathe waiting for the jury to be overturned
    Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 26 2012 @ 01:51 PM EDT
    So the jury messed up on one issue with respect to direct and indirect
    infringement. The mistake affected damages by a whopping ~0.2%...big deal.
    If you are familiar with juries, there are mistakes all the time. This alone is
    not
    going to be enough to reverse the jury.

    Likewise, any crazy things that happened in the jury room during deliberations
    are not going to going to change a thing. The Supreme Court has already ruled
    comments by jurors cannot be used to impeach a jury verdict. (see
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanner_v._United_States) In the US, jury verdicts
    are scared.

    The only option Samsung really has a is a judgement as a matter of law (JMOL
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judgment_as_a_matter_of_law). However, the
    standard is very high for Samsung to succeed. Judge Koh would have to find
    that no reasonable jury could have found for Apple. Now I know all the people
    around here are going to think that the standard is easily met here. But, the
    standard is going to be practically impossible to meet here where there are
    plenty of experts for the jury to believe. For example, it will not be hard for

    Judge Koh to rule that it was reasonable for the jury to believe Apple's experts

    and not Samsung's. Essentially, for Samsung to win a JMOL, Apple would have
    had to not met their burden on some points. Again, with all the experts here
    presenting testimony, that is just not going to happen.

    While it sucks for Samsung to pay $1-3billion here, this is not the end of
    Samsung. In fact, Samsung has already changed their tablet and phone designs
    and there are plenty of work arounds on the utility patent front (look at all
    the
    changes Google has already made). Honestly, I think Samsung actually got a
    good deal for $1-3billion...they have gone from a minor player in the
    smartphone market to leader in very little time. I also think that this
    decision
    will encourage innovation and give consumers more options as Samsung and
    Google are going to have to think outside of the box to avoid Apple's stuff.

    BTW, I own an Apple laptop but own an infringing Galaxy Tab 10.1 and a Nexus
    4G. I cannot stand iOS devices.

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    I suggest a different change...
    Authored by: jesse on Sunday, August 26 2012 @ 02:57 PM EDT
    Change the bevel color from black to a black oak wood grain.

    Personally, I prefer the look of red oak, but both provide a relatively dark
    border.

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    Do we have transcripts of jury selection?
    Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 26 2012 @ 03:52 PM EDT
    I would be interested in seeing what question the foreman was asked and what his
    answers were.

    Based on his "patent" I believe he is a dishonest man.

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    Jury in Apple v. Samsung Goofed, Damages Reduced -- Uh Oh. What's Wrong With this Picture? ~pj Updated 3Xs
    Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 26 2012 @ 04:05 PM EDT
    Groklaw, thank you a ton for bringing this to the internets!

    -on behalf of Reddit community.

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    Only 25 hours, really? Is this not basis for appeal as well?
    Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 26 2012 @ 04:33 PM EDT
    Does anyone else think it is really unfair that each side
    was only given 25 hours for testimony is a case that is
    complex as this and has saw far and wide reaching effects?

    It seems like this artificially created limitation really
    hampered Samsung (along with other defenses they were not
    able to put on). Was this just the judge basically saying
    that this case was not important enough to allocate more
    time?

    Finally, not being in the legal business at all (with the
    exception of being affected by verdicts such as this), is
    this a common thing to do?

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    Slipping on troll slime
    Authored by: SpaceLifeForm on Sunday, August 26 2012 @ 04:54 PM EDT
    They are out in force.

    Thank slashdot for their article now,
    it really helps to attract the trolls
    and get them out of here.


    ---

    You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    So now what does the Judge Do?
    Authored by: AH1 on Sunday, August 26 2012 @ 05:25 PM EDT
    You have multiple members of the jury admitting that they went with their
    feelings to make this ruling. You have a Jury foreman, who is obviously biased,
    AND admissions that they ignored the jury instructions. Yet they were a
    "duly empaneled jury of jury of their peers." It begs the question as
    to what sanctions, if any, the judge can levy on jurors who fail to follow
    instructions.

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    The Foreman
    Authored by: rsteinmetz70112 on Sunday, August 26 2012 @ 06:43 PM EDT
    It seems to me the Foreman has admitted he deliberated before the end of
    testimony and used his influence as an "expert" to sway the other
    jurors.

    ---
    Rsteinmetz - IANAL therefore my opinions are illegal.

    "I could be wrong now, but I don't think so."
    Randy Newman - The Title Theme from Monk

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    • The Foreman - Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 26 2012 @ 08:34 PM EDT
    another angle
    Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 26 2012 @ 07:01 PM EDT

    Phandroid has a pretty good take on this (citing Groklaw, though oddly). The approach taken is to point out: the jury was instructed to award damages for loss (that is, assuming that each samsung sale was a lost apple sale). But the networks these devices were offered on either still don't have iPhone, or didn't at the time that the device was introduced. See the article for details.

    Update: Complete device-by-device breakdown, jury instructions added (Phandroid.com)

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    /phandroid's Total is $251,873,686. That is $797,549,854 less than the initial damages
    Authored by: SilverWave on Sunday, August 26 2012 @ 07:33 PM EDT
    Quote: Update: The following device-by-device breakdown of damages was provided
    on Groklaw. I have cancelled out those devices I believe did not compete with
    iPhone by being available at a network that did not sell the iPhone ever or was
    released before the iPhone was announced for the network, thereby not competing
    with it at the time of sales. I kept the entire Samsung Galaxy Tab damages since
    a breakdown based on networks was not provided. The total provided by Groklaw is
    also different since he and a few of his readers believe that the courts have it
    wrong by a few ten thousands (on the lower side).


    Total, removing the damages for the above devices……………..$251,873,686. That is
    $797,549,854 less than the initial damages.

    ---
    RMS: The 4 Freedoms
    0 run the program for any purpose
    1 study the source code and change it
    2 make copies and distribute them
    3 publish modified versions

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    Consequences for Apple (i.e. did they really think this through)
    Authored by: calris74 on Sunday, August 26 2012 @ 09:01 PM EDT

    I'm wondering what the knock-on consequences are going to be for Apple:

    • Phone carriers in the US are not going to be happy that the more than 50% of the smartphones they sell could suddenly become unavailable
    • How many consumers will delay (or abandon) their decision to by a smartphone - more unhappiness for carriers
    • Component manufactures that make parts for Samsung are going to be annoyed - how many will backlash against apple (given that Samsung are a far bigger customer than Apple)
    • What is every other smartphone / tablet manufacture using 'square shape and round corners' going to do? I know Apple want to use this to legitimise an extortion compaign, but could Apple handle a war against every android vendor simultaneously if they decide to call Apple's bluff?
    • Samsung refusing to renew component contracts with Apple
    • Strengthening of the Boycott Apple campaign

    Things could get very ugly for Apple...

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    Cliff Notes Verdict
    Authored by: jheisey on Sunday, August 26 2012 @ 09:34 PM EDT
    The jury gave us the Cliff Notes version of the verdict. They skipped the
    tedious reading of the judge's instructions and deliberation of the evidence.

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    Update 4: Groklaw not alone in wondering about jury system for patents...
    Authored by: Anonymous on Sunday, August 26 2012 @ 10:07 PM EDT
    A writing mentor of mine said you had to care about something to write about it
    well.

    I think the same can be said of a patent jury...it has to care about patents to
    render good verdicts. That implies a well-above average level of education,
    precisely the people who can't afford minimum-wage jury service, and precisely
    those that get tossed from juries for too much personal knowledge.

    Start, then, by requiring patent juries to show some level of prior interest,
    either through a 4-year technical degree, or a patent, or by demonstrating some
    subject matter knowledge.

    Follow up by allowing juries to cross-examine witnesses, instead of treating
    them as passive receivers of exactly what the lawyers agree they should see.

    Finally, remember that the goal of a jury is to arrive at truth...which is
    typically lost in most judicial proceedings, and find ways for that to happen.
    (Christenson)

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    Foreman's bias
    Authored by: tknarr on Sunday, August 26 2012 @ 10:49 PM EDT
    “When I got in this case and I started looking at these patents I considered: ‘If this was my patent and I was accused, could I defend it?’” Hogan explained. On the night of Aug. 22, after closing arguments, “a light bulb went on in my head,” he said. “I thought, I need to do this for all of them.”

    I'd think that this alone would show enough bias to get the jury verdict thrown out and at least a new jury handed the case. The jury isn't supposed to decide cases based on what'd benefit them in the future, they're supposed to decide based on what the law says and the evidence that was presented.

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    Jury in Apple v. Samsung Goofed, Damages Reduced -- Uh Oh. What's Wrong With this Picture? ~pj Updated 4Xs
    Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 27 2012 @ 12:09 AM EDT
    As upset as I am by this farce of a verdict I can't help but wonder if Samsung
    and their attorneys are now regretting the strategy they used.

    Now granted I was not there NOR do I know exactly what was excluded from being
    used during the defense... but I would have spent more time on the Prior Art
    part of this Design/Trade Dress BS showing things like the Windows Tablets (HP
    Compaq TC1100 tablet PC - created and launched WELL before the Ipad (2003
    in-fact). Google the pics! Looks like Apple copied them exactly. The LG phone,
    and the Nokia I would have also would have shown the Kyocera 6035 (2001), Palm
    Centro (Sure looks like a touch screen on a rectagle shaped phone with rounded
    corners, Sony Clie Peg-TH55 very similar to the design the apple
    "invented" and don't forget the Sony Clie PEG-VZ90 (1st Tablet??).
    Circa 2004. Then move on to the other Prior Art of the Pinch to Zoom etc.
    This much Prior Art would have overwhelming shown the jury that there was not
    Trade Dress to infringe upon!

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    Jury verdict costs Samsung US$12Bn
    Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 27 2012 @ 03:03 AM EDT
    [Shares of Samsung Electronics Co.] opened 6.8% lower and at one point fell by as much as 7.7% to KRW1,177,000, the lowest intraday level in a month.

    As of 0200 GMT the shares were down 6.8% at KRW1,189,000, wiping KRW12.7 trillion ($11.2 billion) off the company's market capitalization.
    marketwatch.com

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    Koreans could miss out on new iPhone
    Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 27 2012 @ 03:11 AM EDT
    By all accounts, Samsung is ready to be even more combative in an intellectual property dispute already described by critics as pathologic. And its renewed aggression against Apple will start in Korea, much to the dismay of local Apple fans.
    Korea Times

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    "Method and apparatus for recording and storing video information"
    Authored by: friede on Monday, August 27 2012 @ 05:22 AM EDT
    So, this guy applied for a patent in 2002. If you look at this old /. article you see where he got his ideas from: pvr-for-linux
    Since then the vdr page moved to:
    www.tvdr.de
    You find the sources of vdr.c in ftp://ftp.tvdr.de/vdr/vdr-1.6.0.tar.bz2

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    Belated thoughts on that Intel chip
    Authored by: Ian Al on Monday, August 27 2012 @ 05:30 AM EDT
    It's been some months since I designed my last smartphone...

    Wait a minute, I've never designed a smartphone, so I might be wrong.

    Anyway, it was the design of video codec chips that brought this to mind.
    Whereas 'normal' complicated chips still have relatively simple signals passing
    across their pins, the codec is different. It is more akin to a graphics chip
    and contains a math machine that requires a software driver to form the complete
    invention. I would expect 'mobile' communication chips to be in the same bag.

    Under American patent law (hee, hee!) the software driver software does not have
    to have a patent licence (Microsoft v. AT&T). Only the installation copy
    needs a licence. Intel must licence the manufacture and sale of the chip,
    itself, because it is a component specifically tied to the manufacture of the
    patented invention. However, they can write and distribute any amount of
    software to complete the invention without needing a patent licence. That
    licence is needed by the entity that creates the installation media.

    Thus, Intel's licence of the chip does not absolve Apple's obligation to licence
    the manufactured invention in their phones even if they use Intel licensed chips
    and the Intel provided driver software. By installing the driver software, they
    are manufacturing the complete invention and not just using a licensed
    component.

    ---
    Regards
    Ian Al
    Software Patents: It's the disclosed functions in the patent, stupid!

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    Apple Samsung jury speed doubts raised after “punishment” ruling
    Authored by: SilverWave on Monday, August 27 2012 @ 06:51 AM EDT
    Apple Samsung jury speed doubts raised after “punishment” ruling

    ---
    RMS: The 4 Freedoms
    0 run the program for any purpose
    1 study the source code and change it
    2 make copies and distribute them
    3 publish modified versions

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    Jury in Apple v. Samsung Goofed, Damages Reduced -- Uh Oh. What's Wrong With this Picture? ~pj Updated 4Xs
    Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 27 2012 @ 07:24 AM EDT
    yup....the math is off....got $1,049,423,540
    i ll be interested to c how this plays out....

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    mythtv
    Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 27 2012 @ 07:26 AM EDT
    When did mythtv first get released? This foreman's patent
    appears to have been filed on Mar. 6, 2001.

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    • kickstarter - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 27 2012 @ 07:32 AM EDT
    this will be good for Motorola/Google (there is an elephant in the room... )
    Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 27 2012 @ 07:34 AM EDT
    Google/Motorola can actually develop and manufacture their
    own hardware, and they are doing it in the U.S. which is a
    huge politcal advantage btw. This will be a signal to them
    to redouble their efforts in rolling out more of their own
    Products. Something for which they are very well positioned.

    Google has enormous software coverage and reach to every
    possible consumer, if they tightly integrate that with their
    own hardware, it will change the game, and it already is.

    Google also has another very unique business Model ... they
    do not have to make a profit on any hardware that they
    market. And they have recently aquired a very large Patent
    collection... it was Motorola who invented the mobile phone.
    Google was also first to publically present a tablet
    computer. Their cloud services, mapping, and social
    networking is light years ahead of Apple and there is much
    more in the pipeline.

    Politcally & technically Apple would look sick going head to
    head with Google. Google also appears to have very capable
    lawyers as we saw in Google vs Oracle.

    So lets see where all of this will take us...

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    Inclined to apologize for Apple's Behavior
    Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 27 2012 @ 08:07 AM EDT
    What if people sent Samsung a letter of apology for Apple's behaviour with a
    check for $24 (or whatever Apple's extortion rate is for the Samsung's products
    we've chosen over Apple's). It would do two things... Help keep Samsung from
    taking such a big hit, and show Apple that people (even some of their own
    customers) are ashamed of their anti-competitive behaviour.

    Would make for some interesting PR if enough people got involved. :)

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    Trade War Possible
    Authored by: jheisey on Monday, August 27 2012 @ 08:37 AM EDT
    This large and and seemingly unfair money judgement against Samsung in a U.S.
    court is the kind of thing that could initiate a trade war between the U.S. and
    South Korea, and also could affect political relations between the two
    countries. Thus it is likely that political influence will most likely effect
    the final outcome of this case.

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    Damages given to phones that were on carriers without iPhone
    Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 27 2012 @ 11:37 AM EDT
    I wouldn't usually cite Phandroid as a source of anything,
    but I think it is worth bringing up the point that a
    significant amount of the damages were awarded to phones
    that are/were exclusive to carriers that did not carry an
    iPhone.

    http://phandroid.com/2012/08/26/samsung-planning-various-
    arguments-for-its-appeal/

    I think it is safe to assume that minuscule portion of the
    US population buys a *new* smartphone off-contract ($350-
    $750) and activates it on a network it wasn't marketed for.

    People that DO bring their smartphones to other networks
    (e.g. iPhones to T-Mobile) are doing so when their contracts
    expire, bringing their *old* phones. Or 2nd-hand & older
    models, which have greatly diminished value.

    Were any figures released regarding off-contract sales
    during the trial?

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    Samsung designer barred from testifying
    Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 27 2012 @ 01:45 PM EDT
    This is an interesting aspect I haven't seen mentioned here

    From http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57491835-37/key-
    samsung-designer-barred-from-testifying-in-apple-case/

    "Hyong Shin Park has said that Samsung phones were inspired
    by a "bowl of water" and not the iPhone. Apple argues that
    Park's testimony isn't relevant."

    "Park was expected to detail the evolution of the F700
    project, including how the company went about choosing which
    features to include. That's a key point in this trial, with
    Apple accusing Samsung of copying the look and feel of the
    iPhone. Samsung has argued that the choice of shapes such as
    the rounded corners or rectangular shape of the device have
    nothing to do with design and everything to do with
    functionality."

    "Samsung said in a document filed Friday that Park's design
    patent dates back to December 2006, before Apple launched
    its first iPhone."


    That Koh is strange.

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    Prior art of Apple's "rubber band scrolling" patent from 2007 found in Compiz in 2006
    Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 27 2012 @ 02:42 PM EDT
    From http://www.osnews.com/thread?486625

    "The rubber-band patent was filed in December 2007. Compiz, the Linux
    compositing manager, has such an effect. Compiz was released at the beginning of
    2006, so almost two years before."

    I'm not sure which of the Compiz effects they refer to but I guess it cannot be
    too far off. Still trying to find it.

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    Steve Jobs blogged about DiamondTouch, in Aug 25, 2004!!!
    Authored by: IMANAL_TOO on Monday, August 27 2012 @ 04:42 PM EDT
    From http://web.archive.org/web/20040825110210/http://homep age.mac.com/sgundrum/ted2004/Personal37.html

    (http: //web.archive.org/web/20040825110210/http://homepage.mac.com/sgundrum/ted2004/Pe rsonal37.html)

    DiamondTouch Simultaneous multi-user input device. Put another way, great fun!

    The Wired Magazine reception is not only a great party, but also a showcase for new and entertaining technology. This year there was a live demo of Mitsutishi Research Labs "DiamondTouch" technology. Simply put, a multi-user touch pad or screen that let's a group of people control an application. In this case, we were playing wonderful new computer games.

    Here's more information about the technology from the Mitsubishi web site. The video is worth a 1000 words.

    - Steve


    DiamondTouch Technology:

    DiamondTouch is a simultaneous, multi-user, touch sensitive input device developed at MERL. Not only can it detect multiple, simultaneous touch events, but it can also identify which user is touching where. This unique ability has made DiamondTouch a very useful device in the human-computer interface research community. Work on the DiamondTouch hardware has now produced two prototype versions, the DT88 and the DT107. Both are meant to be used with any of Mitsubishis line of video or computer data projectors.

    Background & Objective: DiamondTouch was first created in 2001 as an experimental multiuser interface device. Mitsubishi has been recognized for this technology, and are creating commercially viable products by seeding select university groups with prototype units.

    [...]

    Let us agree that it is established that Steve Jobs not only knew of and liked the Mitsubishi DiamondTouch.



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    IMANAL


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    [ Reply to This | # ]

    Jury in Apple v. Samsung Goofed, Damages Reduced -- Uh Oh. What's Wrong With this Picture? ~pj Updated 4Xs
    Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 27 2012 @ 04:48 PM EDT
    People seem to forget, that this ruling is only good in America, it has not effect on Samsung here in Canada...unless of course Apple Canada brings a suit against Samsung Canada to court. But, they won't find a judge like Koh here in Canada.

    Also, this was posted to MaximumPC.com, and I have to agree with the poster:

    "Samsung had no chance with the jury because of Apple's lapdog named Lucy Koh; Samsung needs -- will? -- appeal this, and they need to do so in front of a true impartial judge which Koh was not!"

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    Jury in Apple v. Samsung Goofed, Damages Reduced -- Uh Oh. What's Wrong With this Picture? ~pj Updated 4Xs
    Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 27 2012 @ 06:20 PM EDT
    There's a simple solution for all of this. Like most simple
    solutions, it's complete and total overkill. The base is
    this: render all patents nontransferable. Basically, the
    original patent holder is the only one who can hold that
    patent. If it's in the name of a company and the company
    closes down, that patent is expired - meaning no one else
    can patent it and there are no restrictions on use. To make
    sure everyone starts on the same page, take all patents that
    have been transferred and render them expired. Will it be a
    massive tech free-for-all? For about 5-10 years, yup. It
    would also put an end to all of these ridiculous patent-
    hording cold wars.

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    Jury in Apple v. Samsung Goofed, Damages Reduced -- Uh Oh. What's Wrong With this Picture? ~pj Updated 4Xs
    Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, August 27 2012 @ 07:00 PM EDT
    If there is some basis to the idea that certain phones
    should be discounted because they were available on networks
    where the iPhone wasn't even offered, then there is
    something to be said of the fact that many networks(Sprint,
    T-Mobile) weren't even capable of carrying the iPhone for
    the longest time(2012?) due to incompatible spectrum. IIRC,
    T-Mobile and Sprint both run on 1700 or 2100, and the iPhone
    isn't or still isn't available for that. Not to mention
    that the iPhone wasn't compatible on CDMA for the longest
    time, and that is the network Verizon uses.

    That, plus you have to look at network coverage for the
    Samsung phones that apparently stole market share and money
    away from Apple. They're not all nationwide, nor do they
    have the same reach AT&T or Verizon do. Did the jury do
    that when they awarded damages? Unlikely, because we're
    getting pretty complicated here.

    I don't see how Apple should be able to successfully argue
    that all those phones should result in damages being paid
    out. If the iPhone wasn't available on Sprint, whose fault
    is that if the people going to Sprint for a phone buy a
    Samsung product?

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    Jury in Apple v. Samsung Goofed, Damages Reduced -- Uh Oh. What's Wrong With this Picture? ~pj Updated 4Xs
    Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, August 28 2012 @ 10:56 AM EDT
    My absolutely favorite part is when one of the jurors plainly admits:

    We were told prior art was very important, and that prior art would be in favor
    of Samsung. We thought, of course there's prior art. It would be absolutely
    ridiculous for there to be no prior art. Nobody in their right mind will think
    that there's no prior art. So we skipped it (and wrote: no prior art, f*k em?)

    [ Reply to This | # ]

    Jury in Apple v. Samsung Goofed, Damages Reduced -- Uh Oh. What's Wrong With this Picture? ~pj Updated 4Xs
    Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, August 28 2012 @ 12:45 PM EDT
    Looks like the foreman made a mistake. In interview, he says patents valid
    because Apple software cannot run on the processor of the prior art! See 2:50.

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2012/aug/28/apple-samsung-foreman-explains

    [ Reply to This | # ]

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