Apple v. Samsung juror: we “wanted to send a message”

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2012/08/apple-v-samsung-juror-describes-deliberations-we-wanted-to-send-a-message/

by iProject • 14 years ago

43 84 14 years ago

mtgx• 14 years ago

It seems the whole jury quickly became biased towards the "patent holder" (whichever patent that may be) "thanks" to Hogan, not to mention they didn't even bother to consider prior art or to invalidate Apple's patents, which was a huge thing to consider, but they acted as if it wasn't. Just because a patent was afforded doesn't mean it was a good one. I'm not too familiar with how juries work in US, but the whole thing doesn't seem right to me. The jury should've been completely impartial.

paul92902• 14 years ago

Did you see how Samsung emails noting Samsung was told by Google to back off from copying Apple and they didnt is what persuaded their decision?

taligent6• 14 years ago

You don't know how juries work but yet according to you they weren't impartial.

Can't fault that logic.

mrcharles5• 14 years ago

As if pinch to zoom couldn't be suggested by a ten year old when presented with the problem of zooming on a multi-touch interface.

Software patents are a joke.

pxlpshr• 14 years ago

People hate on software patents like they were hating on the cellphone industry just 5 years ago.

One company doubled down on their innovation while disrupting their own major revenue channel. Meanwhile, the many stagnant phone manufactures continued copy/pasting crap because that's all they knew. BlackBerry executives went so far as to call Jobs' 2007 iPhone launch a "bluff" and an "impossible feat of engineering".

Maybe multi-touch is painfully obvious on the surface, but end-to-end execution and total consumer package made the iPhone what it is today -- and that wasn't obvious until you held it in your hand, and everything just clicked. So in that regard, I think it's fair for Apple to protect their entire pie by defending the slices/key ingredients.

PS. It took a few years before "pinch and zoom" was actually comparable to the fluidity of iOS. Some implementations on Android were a complete joke.

PPS. I don't disagree that the patent process could use some revisions, but to dismiss the process entirely is just silly -- including software.

watty• 14 years ago

I agree it's the end-to-end execution that made the iPhone a success. But Samsung had a completely different end-to-end execution, right?

I agree with being able to sue for a complete copy of end-to-end, or even an attempt to. I just didn't see it in this case, especially with all the prior art. I don't understand the recipe analogy, to me it's like Bush's Beans suing another bean company for the inclusion of cocoa in the recipe. I'm baffled that you feel pinch to zoom should be patentable.

fluidcruft• 14 years ago

I certainly hope that patents aren't intended to protect realizing that something has economic value. I personally hold "This is an obvious way to do this" and "I can make a lot of money if I do this" to be nearly orthogonal. I'm a little tired of people claiming Apple deserves government protection because they discovered a market.

dsr_• 14 years ago

People were right to hate the cellphone industry 5 years ago. The best things available were Nokia candybar phones -- approaching the Ford Escort in terms of reliability -- and the Palm Treo, which was more or less the apex of combining a PDA with a phone without actually doing much integration. People are currently right to hate cellphone service providers.

As later history would reveal, BlackBerry executives were entirely correct to consider the iPhone an "impossible feat of engineering" -- from their point of view. RIM had huge market share, yet couldn't engineer its way out of a stapled paper bag.

bitsoda• 14 years ago

Apparently it wasn't so obvious in 2007 when all the handset makers scoffed at the iPhone.

untog• 14 years ago

I don't think anyone was scoffing because of pinch-to-zoom, though.

mrcharles5• 14 years ago

Pretty sure the big deal, if you break it down to component parts, was actually having a capacitive touch screen rather than resistive. Fingers instead of styluses opened a whole new world of phone interactions.

If they had patents on multitouch hardware itself, power to them. But software patents? Meh.

Kylekramer• 14 years ago

Isn't scoffing at a new competitor just going through the motions required of you? No one is going to say "darn they beat us to it" to the press.

sp3324• 14 years ago

As Groklaw pointed out, the jury was specifically instructed that the damages awarded should reflect the amount of money lost, not punish or "send a message" to Samsung. It's also pretty clear that the jury rushed through things, even if they say they didn't. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4430341 Samsung will probably use the jurors' statements in their appeal.

papercrane• 14 years ago

Samsung will probably use the jurors' statements in their appeal.

I don't think Samsung can. It is being reported that Federal rules don't allow them to consider jurors statements about the proceedings as evidence.

Retric2• 14 years ago

They spend 2 and 1/2 days talking about it. Don't forget they had plenty of time to consider the evidence while it was being presented so the only thing they need to talk about was what they disagreed on. Which probably was mostly about how willful Samsung's infringement was, because that's the hardest thing to determine in cases like this.

sp3324• 14 years ago

The 100+ pages of jury instructions were only provided on the 21st. Aside from their own comments that they "didn't need the jury instructions", there is this follow-up that shows a lot of inconsistencies in the verdict. http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2012082510525390

edited

taligent6• 14 years ago

No. That is Groklaw's interpretation of what he said. He could have simply meant that by finding Samsung guilty of willful infringement that they were punishing them.

And I don't understand what you're implying by saying that they rushed through the case. Do you think they would have changed their mind or "woken up to the truth" if they were in the room longer ?

sp3324• 14 years ago

"We felt like we were 100 percent fair, but we wanted something more than a slap on the wrist." That's a direct quote. Ars Technica might have taken it out of context, but it looks like the jury was going for a punitive amount instead of damages.

doktrin• 14 years ago

>> we wanted something more than a slap on the wrist."

Wasn't the jury under instructions not to dole out punitive damages? That's left to the judge, the amount of which has yet to be decided.

Maximum punitive damages are limited to 3x the original amount [1 billion], so the fact that this number was apparently inflated is non-trivial. [1]

>> "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."

This juror clearly skirted the line of impartiality. I will have to read the whole interview. The notion of vigilante jurors doling out punishment based on their own bias is unsettling.

As an aside, it's not clear how Samsung's legal team let this guy onto the jury in the first place.

[1]http://www.patentlyo.com/patent/2012/08/apple-wins-105-billi...

mrich3• 14 years ago

> As an aside, it's not clear how Samsung's legal team let this guy onto the jury in the first place.

I think it has become clear now :)

cremnob• 14 years ago

All the parties involved are aware what a risk jury trials can be. It's why many companies settle, and Lucy Koh specifically warned them about this before the jury began to deliberate. They made their bed as far as I'm concerned. I do have a problem with the jury being criticized though. This happens in all high-profile cases where some group of people dislike the decision. Judges are very protective of juries for this reason.

binxbolling2• 14 years ago

In my opinion, if you start speaking to the press, it's fair game for the public to criticize. You don't want to be knocked for a controversial decision? Don't go blabbing on record.

vacri2• 14 years ago

When the jury indicate that they didn't read the jury instructions and consequently did things that they were not meant to do, it's completely fair for them to be criticised.

Hell, if anyone else in the courtroom did something of a similar nature, it'd be a mistrial, so how is that an overlookable offense?

slantyyz• 14 years ago

>> Lucy Koh specifically warned them about this before the jury began to deliberate

To me, this is absolutely the most interesting part of the case. I'm wondering who refused to blink in this game of chicken.

I've seen some reports that Apple approached Samsung with some highball settlement terms as a starting point for negotiations, but I'm wondering if Samsung's execs just decided to dig in their heels because of pride.

I'm making a big assumption here, but in Chinese culture, "face" --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Face_(sociological_concept) -- is a big deal, especially the higher up you go in the food chain. I've seen relatives do stupid things just to "save face" or "give face". Not being Korean, I don't know whether "face" is a big deal, but I know their culture operates on similar ideas.

luser001• 14 years ago

From reading Grisham (?) novels, I think each side only get a certain number of jury challenges. Maybe they ran out of challenges.

WildUtah• 14 years ago

It's amazing that no matter how much you pay lawyers, they can be this incompetent.

First they somehow never managed to get the patent review process going that Google proved could wipe out bogus trivial patents. Then Samsung's legal team missed deadlines to produce their prior art research. Then they stuffed the arguments about tablet computer trade dress into the largest part of their time and won that but failed to save time to make a case about smart phones.

And most importantly, they let an obviously biased holder of silly patents who feels great pride in them get on the jury and lead it straight to this conclusion as foreman. Did they sleep through voir dire?

Did the Samsung lawyers deliberately throw the case for some reason? Maybe the Korean corporate culture rubbed them the wrong way and they simply couldn't communicate effectively or they were hit with an epidemic of contagious chronic fatigue or something.

davedx• 14 years ago

In my experience, this is fairly standard for lawyers. Sometimes they are all too human. The problem is the consequences of their occasional (YMMV) incompetence can be so huge and far-reaching, as with this case.

paul92902• 14 years ago

It looks like they felt the most damning evidence were emails where Samsung was told to back off from copying Apple but did not heed their partners advice.

mrich3• 14 years ago

I believe they used this trial to buy some time. They have many grounds to file an appeal now (think of the evidence they introduced too late, which was rejected). Until then, the verdict will not be final. Meanwhile, their old products which infringe can be phased out of the market without much cost. The newer products have their own style (Galaxy S III for example).

The biggest danger they face now is the potential blocking of their most profitable products from the US market. But they likely can fix this all in software in the time until this ban can come into effect.

rst• 14 years ago

In US courts, you can't ordinarily introduce new evidence on appeal. You can argue that the trial court made errors in applying the law, but if those errors involved excluding evidence, the most you can expect out of that is another trial. (And even that's pretty rare; if they were counting on being able to do that, it's a hell of a gamble.)

streptomycin• 14 years ago

Well that juror's patent sure is innovative...

http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect2=PTO1&Sec...

timc3• 14 years ago

Did he just describe a DVD/BluRay video recorder or a HD recorder which the harddrive is removable (basically all of them)?

That patent is ridiculous.

ceol3• 14 years ago

It describes a DVR-like device that has the ability to copy media from the Internet to some sort of flash drive to later view on a television. It can also function as a web browser and a video editor.

It's quite specific, so I'm not sure why you find it ridiculous.

vladd• 14 years ago

The jurors in this case were reviewed by both Apple and Samsung legal teams during the "Voir dire" process - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voir_dire#Use_in_the_United_Sta... .

The process goes like this: each party, taking turns, gets to ask a question about potential jurors background or their current situation. Jurors that show potential bias or inability to deliver an independent ruling are thrown out (either by the judge's decision or by using a limited amount of discretionary vetoes that each party has).

It's a major failure for Samsung's legal team to allow Hogan to stand, considering his background. I doubt these lawyers to be ever able to represent again a tech company in a court of law.

beedogs2• 14 years ago

Honestly, the more these cretins open their mouths, the more I think Tim Cook might have to commission an "unsend" feature for Mail.app.

taligent6• 14 years ago

Well considering only one of the jurors had an iPhone and two had Android phones maybe it would be Google needing to add this feature ?

neya2• 14 years ago

I do not blame anyone, nor do I support anyone. My fair view is that Samsung DID cross the border by making their phones look too similar to the iPhone..BUT Apple shouldn't have won either, because what they have is a bunch of Bullshit patents just to hinder their competitors' success. (Rounded rectangles, Slide to unlock, Elastic bounce, seriously?)

One thing I can conclude honestly (also from my own personal experience) is that we live in a very unfair world, being ruled by an unfair system, where someone who has the highest amount money will always WIN and RULE the system. Our governments are in bed with the entertainment industries for a reason. Think about it (ACTA, SOPA..etc). I was expecting the result to be something like what happened in Korea, where Samsung And Apple were found guilty and BOTH had to pay for damages. But this is a ridiculous - Apple has been sued by numerous competitors and yet it didn't infringe even a single patent? Come on...clearly this system is biased.

For those who think Apple deserved to win, Apple did not do this to protect their IP, they are just suppressing their competitors by suing them. Why is Apple going after HTC and Motorola? I personally own a HTC and it looks and feels nothing like an iPhone. Apple might have 'innovated' as many claim it to have, but it has hindered more innovation than it has ever contributed. The case for HTC, Samsung and others today might be the case for you and me tomorrow as well, considering we start a phone company tomorrow. We are as vulnerable as they are. And Apple is the most innovative company in the world? Come on..innovation by litigation??

Well Apple, your end is very near, which is reflected by your panic, suing your competitors. This won't last very long and there will be someone to say 'Fuck you' to you very soon. Till then, enjoy your happiness while it lasts.

mrcharles5• 14 years ago

Anyone still defending Apple as the underdog now needs to sit up and realize that Apple is now the 800lb gorilla.

rickmb• 14 years ago

Not really. Take the patent system away, and all Apple has is a nice market share, a fat war chest and it's own ability to produce interesting products.

Apple has taken the posture of the 800lb gorilla with a questionable legal maneuver, leveraging a patent systems its competitors were happy to support to keep smaller players down until it was used against them. And Apple can still lose the next move in this legal chess game if Google takes them on.

This is very different from for instance the Microsoft of the '90s that had so much market power of its own it could dictate terms and kill competition simply with money and threats.

That was a real 800lb gorilla. Apple is playing a very dangerous game by faking it through dubious legal tactics. But one court decision that doesn't go their way can completely kill that.

danielweber3• 14 years ago

Regardless of whether this ruling was correct or incorrect, I don't think anyone imagined Apple as the underdog in quite some time. (If you used a time machine to tell 20-year-ago me that Apple was the new evil empire while Bill Gates was off trying to cure malaria I would have laughed you off.)

Also, being the underdog or the overdog should not affect one's property rights. If a tiny small company does/does not deserve protection, then so does a big one.

blinkingled3• 14 years ago

Agree. This post of yours sums it up nice and impartial. I have a hard time trying to convince myself the jury wasn't prejudiced in a way or other.

But at the same time Samsung still ventured bit too far into the imitation land. They should have got fined just enough to act as a deterrent but this verdict enables more than that - it virtually guarantees Apple a monopoly over selling touchscreen devices by asserting their patents' validity to the extent that they will have little trouble shutting off competition from anyone other than Microsoft. That's the _real_ bad news here.

taligent6• 14 years ago

Well this is just hyperbole.

Since when are pinch to zoom and the specific Apple bounce back effect mandatory requirements for making a touchscreen device ? Especially given how for the bounce back effect there are now at least three non-infringing alternatives in shipping devices from Samsung, HTC and Motorola.

neya2• 14 years ago

Edit: And this original article saying 'We wanted to send a message' is plain BS. I find nothing wrong in Samsung's designer talking about the iPhone in his e-mails or comparing Samsung's phones with it. If Apple would have done it, it would have been 'taking inspiration', now since Samsung has done it, it is a 'copycat'. What an unfair system..If the guy wanted to send a message it clearly should have been 'Fuck patents and litigation, focus on innovation'.

Instead, the message I see from this guy is 'Apple will pretend to innovate, whoever innovates beyond them will be sued and will never WIN'

BONUS: Apple's 'innovation': http://phandroid.s3.amazonaws.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10...

lusr• 14 years ago

It sounds like the patent owner took the case personally, made every other juror there fantasize about owning patents and being screwed over, and greed won their opinions at the end of the day.

norswap• 14 years ago

I did not follow the case at all, but how did the litigators obtain internal Samsung emails ?

printer• 14 years ago

Some days ago I posted this link: http://www.billbuxton.com/multitouchOverview.html These word sum it up for me:

"In making this statement about their awareness of past work, I am not criticizing Westerman, the iPhone, or Apple. It is simply good practice and good scholarship to know the literature and do one's homework when embarking on a new product. What I am pointing out, however, is that "new" technologies - like multi-touch - do not grow out of a vacuum. While marketing tends to like the "great invention" story, real innovation rarely works that way. In short, the evolution of multi-touch is a text-book example of what I call "the long-nose of innovation.""

The link also provides a nice overview of the history of touch.

veyron• 14 years ago

For those not watching the stock marker: Nokia (NOK) up nearly 9% on this ...

Pharaoh45• 14 years ago

Anybody who confuses say... a Samsung Galaxy S II for ANY version of the iPhone is just plain stupid.

splamco• 14 years ago

The jurors blatantly disregarded the court's instructions. They were to be thorough, unbiased and apply the law, not send a message. Good chance for a mistrial.

vacri2• 14 years ago

"sending a message" and "being 100% fair" are mutually exclusive. "Sending a message" is explicitly overpunishing a transgression so that news gets around about the harshness of the penalty.

nnq• 14 years ago

...I still don't get it why corporations are STUPID enough not to implement a system where old emails get deleted (in an unrecoverable way) after something like a week (ok, maybe they would have to invent their own messaging protocol with DRM-like features baked in, but still, it would totally worth the effort considering the legal risk of emails) ...or for god's sake, do "important" communication by voice-calls if not just face-to-face private meetings, but just don't leave this electronic "paper trail" that can turn back to legally "blow you up" at any time!

Apple v. Samsung juror: we “wanted to send a message”

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