Jury Members Discuss Thought Process Behind Apple vs. Samsung Verdict

[SirLance99]

Jury in Apple v. Samsung Goofed, Uh Oh. What's Wrong With this Picture?

www.groklaw.net/article.php

_The foreman told a court representative that the jurors had reached a decision without needing the instructions._

_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._

 

[theluggage]

How objective can a patent holder be in a patent infringement case? Non whatsoever in my opinion.

This was a case about whether particular products had infringed particular patents. It wasn't a debate into "Patents - good or bad?" and the jury's job wasn't to see how many patents they could invalidate or to change the (silly) US law on software patents.

Both sides were claiming patent infringement. Samsung was claiming patents on 'integrating a mobile phone, camera and email', 'bookmarking a picture in an image gallery' and 'using an app while listening to music' They were also trying to claim infringement via Apple's use of Intel chips, for which Intel had already secured a license.

D'ya really like them onions?

If the Jury was biassed towards patent-holders, why did they reject those claims? A Korean-style 'you both infringed' ruling would be the preferred outcome for a pro-patent evangelist - and a 'double whammy' against consumer choice and innovation.

 

[manu chao]

Yeah man, Apple invented rounded corners. How dare anyone use rounded corners on industrial designs since the existence of the square?

Pick any detail out of a larger picture and it will look ridiculous.

Say you have a design and you want to protect it from close visual clones. If it is something unique, like the apple with the bite taken out of it, you can trademark it, so nobody can put the same or very similar apple on their products.

Now, if you want to protect the look of a product, you cannot put down the whole product as a trademark but you can put down individual elements which taken together describe the look of product. The rounded corners alone is nothing that will ever legally stand, but combine them with five other elements and taken together they do have some legal meaning.

Taken back to the world of names. If Apple had a 'trade dress' that said:
- four letter words
- starting with an i
- first letter is lowercase
- second letter is uppercase
- second letter is a p
- ending with a d
- having an a as the second-last letter

Taken alone, any of these claims would be ridiculous but taken together they make perfect sense. Now, if somebody did a slight variation and released a product named "IPad", Apple would still score six out of seven claims, and almost everybody would probably agree that this is still close enough to infringe upon Apple's 'trade dress'.

That is what is happening with the rounded corners. Rounded corners alone would not have landed Samsung into any trouble but the combination of enough individual elements did.

 

[KnightWRX]

Did Hogan say that in court?

Doesn't matter where he said it. Things said out of court by involved parties can be used in motions in court to add damages/appeal decisions. Ask Apple about that notice they have to put on their website following a UK decision based on an Apple's spokeperson's words to the media.

Oh, and for people still chanting this isn't about Rectangles with rounded corners, people, 2 out of 4 design patents in this case were rectangles with rounded corners, namely USD504889 and USD618677.

Why do people keep ignoring the actual case claims just to try to make a silly point ? Don't pretend this wasn't about what it was about, especially with all the public documents. It just shows us that you don't even know about this case.

 

[tigres]

I won't buy Samsung products personally, in any capacity.

The reason for this is because of my knowledge of how they copy, steal, and sell appliances in the US for below cost to gain market share.

I have a relative who is with whirlpool, and they designed a fridge the is a side by side with the freezer drawer on the bottom. Of course many design efforts went into this (keeping a long story short).

They had a price point @8% above cost to aggressively market this product to US consumers- call it 1100 usd. Samsung comes in shortly after, with the exact same design, screw for screw, and sells it below US cost to manufacture. On top, it is also well known that the Korean govt. subsidizes the "loss" of Samsungs costs, so that the penatration into the market is successful and they can sell these retail at places like best buy for 899.

This is a daily occurance in the appliance field, and one that companies like whirlpool have been trying to battle for years.

As far as this lawsuit, I see remarkable similarities when it comes to market penetration on US soil as fast as possible.

They steal IP, copy product design, and undercut margins to gain a foothold on product placement in every catagory of manufacturing; and their govt does everything to assist. I personally pass on a cheaper SS made product when it comes to making such purchases.

 

[vrDrew]

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?

"The Jury didn't take six weeks to come to a verdict" isn't a particularly compelling reason to overturn their decision. Rather the opposite, in fact.

What it says to me, and to most Appeal Courts, is that the evidence presented at trial was so overwhelming and convincing that there is little room to argue they came to an incorrect finding of facts.

Samsung can argue for reversal based on matters of Law - i.e.. were any of the trial Judge's rulings incorrect. But from a factual basis, this case is over.

 

[KnightWRX]

I have a relative who is with whirlpool, and they designed a fridge the is a side by side with the freezer drawer on the bottom. Of course many design efforts went into this (keeping a long story short).

I bought my new fridge with that design. Whoever designed that thing should be shot. Sorry. The freezer component is absolutely the worse thing I've ever used, with the drawers getting in the way of getting things in and out and reducing a lot of the effective space.

Sure it's nice to not have to crouch in front of the fridge to pick stuff up, but god is the freezer non-functional.

----------

"The Jury didn't take six weeks to come to a verdict" isn't a particularly compelling reason to overturn their decision. Rather the opposite, in fact.

What it says to me, and to most Appeal Courts, is that the evidence presented at trial was so overwhelming and convincing that there is little room to argue they came to an incorrect finding of facts.

Samsung can argue for reversal based on matters of Law - i.e.. were any of the trial Judge's rulings incorrect. But from a factual basis, this case is over.

Actually, the were inconsistencies in the verdict (damage awards for non-infringing products) and other comments by jury members ("we wanted to punish Samsung") that went against the very jury instructions given to them that might provide some grounds to overthrow a few pieces on appeal, or even just with Judge Koh on the 20th of September.

Now, a big part of Samsung's appeal though is probably going to relate to the discovery process and the evidence it wasn't allowed to present. With a lot of the evidence missing from the trial, the jury had no chance to even examine prior art on many of the patents.

 

[tigres]

I bought my new fridge with that design. Whoever designed that thing should be shot. Sorry. The freezer component is absolutely the worse thing I've ever used, with the drawers getting in the way of getting things in and out and reducing a lot of the effective space.

Sure it's nice to not have to crouch in front of the fridge to pick stuff up, but god is the freezer non-functional.

Well sorry for the disappointment with the product, but that really was not my point to argue. Call whirlpool, they so have a great customer service dept. I own a built in kitchen aid that they replaced a top mounted compressor that was 9 years old for free.

Back on topic- I know you knew my directive of my op.

 

[KnightWRX]

Well sorry for the disappointment with the product, but that really was not my point to argue. Call whirlpool, they so have a great customer service dept. I own a built in kitchen aid that they replaced a top mounted compressor that was 9 years old for free.

Designs are not protected under warranties. Just saying that the design itself is just bad, it's a terrible analogy to make. If a company steals that design, they are making the same piss poor product the original made.

 

[kdarling]

When the first iPhone came out didn't Steve Ballmer completely dismiss it because it didn't have a physical keyboard?

Ballmer dissed the iPhone because of its high price. He was right. Apple had to drastically drop it within a relatively short time.

Perhaps you are thinking of this quote:

"There are no plans to make a tablet. It turns out people want keyboards. We look at the (idea of a) tablet, and we think it is going to fail.” - Steve Jobs at All Things Digital 2003

Apple makes things usable. And yes, that is highly innovative, that is highly expensive to pull of.

Bounce back and tap to zoom were neither expensive to invent nor especially innovative. The patent applications themselves cite dozens of close prior art, demonstrating that the basic ideas occurred to many people.

The only expensive effort was pestering the USPTO until they gave in on some of these patents after first rejecting them, such as happened with the swipe to unlock applications.

Firstly, you only discuss licensing fees when you actually believe that the other side actually has a case and has a legal claim that could be successfully defended in court. But you won't pay patent royalties for something of which you believe you can invalidate the patent claim.

Exactly. Apple does the same thing... first try to invalidate, then prove non-infringement... for most of the patent cases against them, even with known valid FRAND patents such as when Nokia sued them.

 

[Aspasia]

Armchair jurors are always amusing, especially when a trial is not televised.

While they certainly can spout out their opinions, only those present in the courtroom who saw the evidence, heard the testimony and oral arguments, and participated in jury deliberations, know the full story.

 

[KPOM]

Jury in Apple v. Samsung Goofed, Uh Oh. What's Wrong With this Picture?

www.groklaw.net/article.php

_The foreman told a court representative that the jurors had reached a decision without needing the instructions._

_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._

And if they had come back after 3 days and said Samsung didn't infringe, a lot of these same "law blogs" would be congratulating the jury for making a swift, decisive action and not being bogged down by all the legalese and complex instructions.

The bottom line is that the jury took a "big picture" approach. They cut through all the arguments and asked themselves whether or not they thought Samsung copied Apple. If they said no, they'd have come back as quickly. They said yes, and then went down the line, product by product, to see what and what did not infringe. At the same time, they concluded very quickly that Apple's trade dress on the iPad had not been infringed. People seem to be forgetting that. This was a decisive win for Apple, but it wasn't absolute.

 

[Scythe5]

This is a sad day. And I say this as an Apple fan.

I love their products, but they seem to be turning into bigger and bigger control freaks as time goes on. I'm worried about Apple becoming *too successful*, because if they do they are likely to engage in monopolistic practices, which still stifle innovation and give people little choice in platform.

Apple really needs to learn to play well with others.

Apple has ALWAYS operated this way. It's always been their sandbox, their rules. They want to control their products - even if it means you cannot do what you want with it.

 

[kdarling]

While they certainly can spout out their opinions, only those present in the courtroom who saw the evidence, heard the testimony and oral arguments, and participated in jury deliberations, know the full story.

While we don't know all the jury deliberations... at least yet, as details are starting to come out now...

The evidence and legal arguments have been publicly available through both the hundreds of posted documents, and through in-courtroom live blogs.

• Justia documents(*)
• Groklaw listings
• Distric Court special website for this case

(*) There are tons of very interesting attachments available here... look for "expert reports".

 

[Scythe5]

I bought my new fridge with that design. Whoever designed that thing should be shot. Sorry. The freezer component is absolutely the worse thing I've ever used, with the drawers getting in the way of getting things in and out and reducing a lot of the effective space.

Sure it's nice to not have to crouch in front of the fridge to pick stuff up, but god is the freezer non-functional.

----------



Actually, the were inconsistencies in the verdict (damage awards for non-infringing products) and other comments by jury members ("we wanted to punish Samsung") that went against the very jury instructions given to them that might provide some grounds to overthrow a few pieces on appeal, or even just with Judge Koh on the 20th of September.

Now, a big part of Samsung's appeal though is probably going to relate to the discovery process and the evidence it wasn't allowed to present. With a lot of the evidence missing from the trial, the jury had no chance to even examine prior art on many of the patents.

It also not going to help that the foreman stated that they "didn't need the instructions".

Inconsistencies?....absolutely. The jury awarded damages for a product they said didn't infringe.

BTW, Groklaw has a pretty good write up about it.

 

[BvizioN]

if samsung is so up in arms with apple. just stop providing products to them so they can not make there phones and computers. basicly all they need to do is wait for apple to make a huge order. tell them there is a delay and provide them with a limit number so they think they are still ok and when the new product launches then boom, no more chips, or what ever samsung provides to them.

Ha ha, pretty smart, aren't ya?
Don't you think this all is covered in the contract signed between Apple & Shamesung? So... let's say there is a delay, there is a fat penalty too. You end the contract.... you probably pay billions.

But anyway, it's not on Shamys interest to do all that because that would mean billions of $ lost for the copycat company.

 

[KPOM]

Actually, the were inconsistencies in the verdict (damage awards for non-infringing products) and other comments by jury members ("we wanted to punish Samsung") that went against the very jury instructions given to them that might provide some grounds to overthrow a few pieces on appeal, or even just with Judge Koh on the 20th of September.

Now, a big part of Samsung's appeal though is probably going to relate to the discovery process and the evidence it wasn't allowed to present. With a lot of the evidence missing from the trial, the jury had no chance to even examine prior art on many of the patents.

There were 2 inconsistencies out of 700 questions. 2. That's to be expected even if they had spent weeks.

The Rule 50 motions are standard practice. Apple may file some, as well. While the judge may tinker with some other perceived inconsistencies, she is unlikely to toss out major portions of the findings. The standard of review is whether a rational jury could not possibly have made that ruling based on the facts presented, not whether or not the judge would have argued differently had she been on the jury. Courts are very deferential to jury decisions on the facts. The judge may make edits to the damages, either up or down. That is pretty common.

The exclusion of evidence is likely Samsung's best chance for an appeal. However, even there the threshold will be high, particularly since the jury found willful infringement.

 

[Scythe5]

Who knew? Everyone knows. And everyone would enforce it when it needs to. The patent system may be "broken" but it found a guilty party guilty in this trial and that's really all that matters right now.

Personally, I hope this goes to the Supreme Court so they order a revamp of the patent system or a least a review of it. Too many stupid cases going to court over little more than a vague idea.

What's with everyone taking sides in this? Some of you act like you just won the lottery. Others of you are actually committing libel in some of your statements.

 

[MyMacintosh]

I'll say the same thing there. Before iPhone, there were some tech demos here, there were some sorta kinda similar attempts at a feature there, there were some things that if you squint real hard you can say "Hey, maybe that was the inspiration for Apple." Then there was the iPhone.

There's an old cartoon, two scientists or engineers looking at a flowchart, and in the middle is a big blob with the label "And a miracle occurs". One of them says to the other, "I think you need to flesh that middle bit out a bit"

If your view of creation of the iPhone was "bits and pieces in the wild" leading to "and a miracle occurs" leading to "Apple introduces the iPhone", you really need to flesh that middle bit out a bit. It's not gather all the bits in a bucket, Steve Jobs says "Throw the switch!", Jon Ivy says "Yes, Master" and the lightning booms and there's an iPhone. There's a lot of long term, expensive work to go from the bits and pieces to a product. A lot of honing to decide "Yes, this is how people will expect it to work and this is how we make that happen". Apple spent many, many years, originally on a tablet and then switching to a phone to release it. This cost a lot of money. As the guy says at the start of part 3, if you have one guy pricing a product with manufacturing costs, development costs, and marketing costs, and another guy copies it so just has to do manufacturing and marketing costs - the second guy has a huge advantage. But he later throws all that out and all this IP stuff is just for the common good to put more stuff out there.

OK, let's talk common good. First, in a few years, all those patents will expire, and Google or Samsung can do whatever they want with them. That is, after all, how patents were to serve the common good - instead of trade secrets, people patent things, get exclusive use for a while, and then anyone gets it. But Google and Samsung want it NOW instead of waiting.

The next response could have been "Hey, you can do some cool things with these parts", go the the same bit bucket of parts as Apple went to, spent the years Apple did. There may be some that they come to the same conclusion that "this is the best way", but there's usually multiple approaches to take to things and Apple may not have always found the best way. So, Google and Samsung take the years to work with it and come up with something different, giving customers a real choice. But that would cost big bucks and take time, and Google and Samsung want it now.

So they copy it.

I am NOT a fan of the litigation. I really hope that Apple grabs this opportunity to create a standard deal along the lines of the deal they signed with microsoft - license the general gesture vocabulary and such at a reasonable price, mark a few things as iPhone's distinguishing characteristics like the bounce back, and a general agreement not to try to duplicate the look of the phones.

But the idea that there was nothing of value that Apple brought to the market in the iPhone, or that sudden spin on a dime the smartphone industry did to switch to multitouch phones with the same gestures and same general structure was completely coincidental to Apple's release is insane on the face of it. And if there is no benefit to Apple for spending the large sums and long development processes to create these breakthrough products - why do it?

Yes I agree that Apple put lots of hard work behind the making of the iPhone, and im not disagreeing with that. What I am saying is that the building blocks behind their innovations are not all original ideas like they have some people believe. They simply build off of other people's work and yes, make it better. would you disagree with that?

 

[kdarling]

The problem with the "After the iPhone, phones began to look like this..." argument is before the iPhone were HTC devices that featured a tall glass screen and rectangle design.

Both the 25 hour presentation limit, and all the blocked evidence, worked towards Apple's advantage.

Apple was able to show their cherry-picked before and after chart... yet due to legal timing technicalities, Judge Koh prevented Samsung from showing their 2006 UI concept designs:



Samsung was also blocked from talking about their phone designs, including the F700 model, whose December 2006 design registration came before the iPhone's:



I believe that Apple also successfully blocked the 2005 Pidion smartphone as prior art, which had a lot of design cues similar to the five year later iPhone 4:



It's interesting that, after being allowed to see prior art such as the Fidler tablet concept, the jury decided that the Tab didn't infringe on the iPad. We can only wonder if they might've had a different idea on the iPhone infringements if they had been allowed to see such blocked evidence as that shown above... evidence that not so coincidentally has helped Samsung win outside of the USA when allowed.

 

[MisterK]

Samsung is mediocre and that's what the populist internet likes.

Samsung and their supporters have done a commendable job muddying the waters with all this "patenting a black rectangle" business. Just take a look at the Samsung Fascinate and you'll see that it's not a single line item that damns Samsung as copycat... it's the whole.

They took the shape (same rounded corners, same bezel, same speaker shape), the icons (same white silhouette of a old style receiver on a green square, a yellow flower for the photos – by no means a standard representation), the trade dress (flat image on a white background for their packaging) the advertising (family using tablet under the bed covers), the 30 pin connector, and the cube wall plug. They combined a hundred little things to come up with something that was made to confuse. A hundred little things to not spend any money, thought, or time in improving smartphones.... and their customers thank them for it.

Apologists praise their lack of imagination. Anyone could have changed the smartphone industry forever... Apple just happened to do it and damn them for it. This isn't some case of patent law being broken or some edge case of Apple stifling innovation. This is the EXACT type of situation that patents and trademarks were made for.

This is a knockoff company that got caught red handed and Apple is being painted as the villain for caring. Their house was robbed, their hard work photocopied, and they should have kept their mouth shut. It's not enough to change the computer, mp3 player, tablet, and phone industries forever... they should ignore stolen ideas and get back to innovating because Apple owes us. I had a Samsung phone before the iPhone.. it was a Samsung A520. It was horrible because Apple hadn't shown them how to make a decent phone yet. They had their chance to enchant me and squandered the opportunity. They'll make things that are good enough until someone raises the bar and then they'll do the minimum again. The commenters of the internet are making villains of the pioneers and innovators.

Apple's designs and methods were so obvious but no one was doing them. It's where the industry was headed... science fiction movies are expected to be prior art, so the person who actually invents a replicator and expects compensation should be tarred and feathered. The flying car is something someone already thought of so the profits of the person who slaves on it for 20 years should be shared among everyone. So ridiculous. The world of the internet is coalescing around the support of the cheating "underdog". It's disgusting.

 

[John.B]

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2012082510525390

"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."


"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."

"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.


-----

Should be easy for Samsung to trim down the $1B awarded to Apple.

It looked to me like the jury went through everything thoughtfully and deliberately. 1) Infringing. 2) Willful infringement. 3) Penalties. Would you have been upset if they had come back with a "not infringing" verdict in that same time frame?

AFAICT, the damages award put the patent holder in far better financial position it would have been in had they licensed the copycat look/feel at the rates Apple was asking. Not to mention that Samsung used the opportunity to develop marketshare. You'd either have to have not seen the UI of the Samsung phones in question (hint: it's nothing like the usual Android UI) or you'd have to have Samsung-starstruck eyes to not miss that this was as much of a straight copy as Samsung could muster.

 

[69650]

Jurors in murder cases are not experts in forensic science. Jurors in fraud cases are not accountants.

The lawyers' job is to present the evidence in such a way that a jury can make an informed decision. There's nothing technical about it.

And if it had gone Samsung's way then you wouldn't be arguing for a "national IP court managed by specialist judges."
Perhaps you shouldn't make assumptions about what people would and wouldn't do if the outcome had been different.

Folk should remember that the jury's findings had nothing to do with the size and shape of the devices, so they were smart enough in that regard.

According to comments made by one of the jurors they made their mind up after the first day of the trial without waiting to hear all the evidence. That is not a considered judicial process.

Jurors make their mind up before the trial - is that what you want?

Is that justice?

If you were on trial for murder would you be happy with a jury that took one look at you and decided you were obviously guilty?

If Samsung didn't have grounds for appeal before they sure do now so I wouldn't celebrate too soon if I were you. The next lot might actually look at the evidence before making up their mind.

 

[MyMacintosh]

...Their house was robbed...

ironic

 

[NakedPaulToast]

I can't help but wonder if those defending this outcome and the patent system are as quick to defend Lodsys and its software patent infringement claims.