Jury Members Discuss Thought Process Behind Apple vs. Samsung Verdict

[John.B]

What's the difference. You're supposed to make your mind up at the end of the deliberations not after the first day. As a juror you're supposed to review all the evidence before making a decision. They cannot possibly have reviewed all the evidence after just one day. It still points to a biased jury who had made made their minds up before the court case even started.

No, they were supposed to decide, in order: 1) whether infringement took place (decided on the first day of deliberations), 2) whether infringement was willful (it was), and 3) damages (based on the results of 1 and 2).

But don't let that stop you from making up more stuff or making claims you can't back up. /sarcasm

ETA: I love that the guy who doesn't know anything about the US Constitution or our legal system, and instead wants a panel of Swiss judges to decide IP cases in the US of A, is somehow an expert on jury trial deliberations.

 

[subsonix]

No one brought a Galaxy due to the way it looked, they brought it because it was the best Android handset on the market at the time, people would still have brought a Galaxy with no bounce back feature or a grid icon layout with square icons with round corners!

And presumably you have done extensive market research on your own to come to that conclusion, surely it's not just guesswork and conjecture. /s

 

[NakedPaulToast]

While a few utility patents were about software (tap to zoom and bounce back), the biggest part of this case was about trade dress and design patents. Discussing the validity of software patents as a whole is quite a topic on its own and it just isn't really applicable here.

This case was about eight utility patents, five trade dress and design patents. But you've decided this case was more about trade dress and design than utility.

Utility Patents - '318, '915, '163, '516, '941, '711, '893, '460

Design patents - D'677, D'087, D'305, D'899

Trade Dress '983

This case was also about potentially invalidating said patents, but you've decided that's not applicable for discussion either.

 

[John.B]

Europeens do not defer any more rights to "government" than Americans or Canadians or any other democratic society does, that's just plain ignorance of the world outside the US, and really a big blind opinion on US regulations in general.

From where I stand, Europeans ceded their nations' rights to sovereignty when they created the EU. And they seem to be happy with that. I guess a lot can happen over the course of 67 years.

The US legal system is far from perfect, but I'm not about to turn over governance to some panel of Swiss judges in an -- at best, misguided -- attempt to fix it.

 

[69650]

No, they were supposed to decide, in order: 1) whether infringement took place (decided on the first day of deliberations), 2) whether infringement was willful (it was), and 3) damages (based on the results of 1 and 2).

But don't let that stop you from making up more stuff or making claims you can't back up. /sarcasm

ETA: I love that the guy who doesn't know anything about the US Constitution or our legal system, and instead wants a panel of Swiss judges to decide IP cases in the US of A, is somehow an expert on jury trial deliberations.

The jury had 700 decisions to make. Are you suggesting that they reviewed all the evidence and made 700 deliberations in one day? Get real.

If you could get off your high horse for a moment and actually bother to read what I said you will see that I suggested a panel of expert judges FROM AROUND THE WORLD. I know the concept of an international panel might be difficult for an American given that only 10% of Americans have a passport. I don't give a crap about your legal system unless it affects me and this will affect me if Samsung has to redesign their products.

 

[GadgetDon]

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.

You mean 2 out of 4 design patents included rounded rectangles among the elements that described the design. So it wasn't "oh no, there's a rounded rectangle, guilty!", just one of the elements that would match up.

And even if you toss out the trade dress stuff (which I'll happily do, I consider it something that should be handled completely differently), there were utility patents which have absolutely nothing to do with rounded rectangles and the jury found Samsung guilty on every device for one and most devices on another. So no, the case was not "about rounded rectangles"

Oh, and barring some wholesale admission of violation of their oaths (yeah, we got paid by one side to throw the case, or oh yeah, when we went home we all read the coverage of the case and man was it illuminating), these post-interview statements by jurors rarely are considered.

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The jury had 700 decisions to make. Are you suggesting that they reviewed all the evidence and made 700 deliberations in one day? Get real.

If you could get off your high horse for a moment and actually bother to read what I said you will see that I suggested a panel of expert judges FROM AROUND THE WORLD. I know the concept of an international panel might be difficult for an American given that only 10% of Americans have a passport. I don't give a crap about your legal system unless it affects me and this will affect me if Samsung has to redesign their products.

The jury had 700 decisions to make, but it was a lot simpler than that.

(1) were the patents valid? y/n.

(2) go through all the devices, check them out against each device to see if they show the patented appearance/behavior

(3) Was the violation willful.

I'd have been happier if they had taken longer. But for two flubs in all those, I think that shows a pretty careful attention.

Oh, and as for the panel of international judges - those judges will be more equipped to see if American patent law was violated how? I suspect they'd have been less equipped, and would be voting on whether it violated the patent law in their countries. This case is now going to a panel of judges for the appeal. Judges expert in American patent law.

 

[KnightWRX]

You mean 2 out of 4 design patents included rounded rectangles among the elements that described the design. So it wasn't "oh no, there's a rounded rectangle, guilty!", just one of the elements that would match up.

Can you point to the other design elements in the 2 linked patents ? You do realise those patents are "see drawings" and the drawings are rectangles with rounded corners...

And even if you toss out the trade dress stuff (which I'll happily do, I consider it something that should be handled completely differently), there were utility patents which have absolutely nothing to do with rounded rectangles and the jury found Samsung guilty on every device for one and most devices on another. So no, the case was not "about rounded rectangles"

Yes, 2 of the 4 design patent claims were about rounded rectnagles. The case was about other things as well, but to deny that the biggest part of it was the design patents themselves (D'677 and D'889) is simply trying to spin things.

Oh, and barring some wholesale admission of violation of their oaths (yeah, we got paid by one side to throw the case, or oh yeah, when we went home we all read the coverage of the case and man was it illuminating), these post-interview statements by jurors rarely are considered.

Except again, recently in an Apple v Samsung case in the UK where Apple's post-ruling, out of court PR got them in hot water with the judge.

 

[iZac]

This statement is flawed, because you are claiming Samsung are profiting from the infringements? It is not, the first gen Galaxy was the only thing that really looked like an iPhone and it's no longer on sale, the Touchwiz is also updated now.
No one brought a Galaxy due to the way it looked, they brought it because it was the best Android handset on the market at the time, people would still have brought a Galaxy with no bounce back feature or a grid icon layout with square icons with round corners!

While we all make judgements based on our own experiences, I'm sure many consumers did pick up a Galaxy because it was the best competing device at the time. However, I personally had a friend who, upon buying a Galaxy s1 apologetically stated "I know it's just a rip off of an iPhone, but I just can't afford one" honestly, that was their justification. I don't think any consumer is going to actually mistake a Samsung phone for an Apple one, but peoples decision making can be based on a wide variety of factors, not just function.

 

[Ironduke]

Fascism is alive and well in the USA

 

[KnightWRX]

groklaw is driven by free/opensource software advocates; hardly neutral, and neither are you, I or anyone else commenting on this forum. We pick the information that fits our worldview.

The information is neutral, I said that PJ taints the blog with her opinions. Please don't put words in my posts I haven't posted.

The information found on Groklaw is verbatim copies of court documents, usually PDF originals with HTMLized versions. There is nothing non-neutral about those, there is nothing cherry picked as all documents for a case are usually added to the timeline, motions by both sides and rulings for either party.

Attacking PJ's integrity and the neutralness of her court provided documents is just spreading FUD about what is Groklaw. And PJ is not a free/opensource software advocate, she's a para-legal.

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This case was about eight utility patents, five trade dress and design patents. But you've decided this case was more about trade dress and design than utility.

Utility Patents - '318, '915, '163, '516, '941, '711, '893, '460

Design patents - D'677, D'087, D'305, D'899

Trade Dress '983

This case was also about potentially invalidating said patents, but you've decided that's not applicable for discussion either.

Not all patents are considered equal. Look at the mountain of evidence presented for the design/trade dress portions vs the evidence provided for the utility patents. It's obvious that more weight and consideration was put into the design patent/trade dress claims and that's where most of the trial's energy was spent.

The utility patents might have been more numerous, but their final weight in the whole litigation was less. Numbers are not equal to importance, so discussing the broad topic of software patents and their general validity is quite out of scope (I am against software patents as a whole, so don't think it's because I'm opposed to your world view of software patents being bad, they are).

 

[GadgetDon]

actually they both copied Xerox.

No.

Apple took some concepts from what they saw at Xerox (desktop metaphor, popup menus, mouse, icons) and spent years on turning those concepts into an integrated usable and user-friendly OS. (Having briefly used the Xerox Star, it's amazing how far it was from the Mac.)

Microsoft copied the Mac interface, both those elements that came from Xerox and those refinements and added elements, to the point of not just keeping the menu bar but keeping the same core menus and even menu shortcut keys.

Had Microsoft actually done what Apple had done, gone to Xerox and created their own GUI, there might have been some overlap in the refinements, but it wouldn't have been so one-for-one.

 

[KnightWRX]

From where I stand, Europeans ceded their nations' rights to sovereignty when they created the EU. And they seem to be happy with that. I guess a lot can happen over the course of 67 years.

The US legal system is far from perfect, but I'm not about to turn over governance to some panel of Swiss judges in an -- at best, misguided -- attempt to fix it.

And from where I stand, the "Americans" ceded their states' rights to sovereignty when they created the United States of America. And they seem to be happy with that. I guess a lot can happen over the course of 250 or so years.

And from where I stand, the Canadians ceded their provinces' rights to sovereignty when they created the Canadian confederation. And they seem to be happy with that. I guess a lot can happen over the course of 150 or so years.

Forming a union of independant states or nations is not ceding your rights at all. You're not signing into dictature or anything close to that.

 

[3282868]

Is that even possible in the US?

ha nicely done

So is it true, did the juror(s) state their mind was formed by the first day?

 

[GadgetDon]

Thanks for the update - and to all the people who mentioned this.

I don't know why they didn't just go straight to this court and miss out the jury trial. That judgement would have far more weight and as you say these guys are experts so there would be no room for arguments afterwards about jury bias and all that.

This is basically what happened in the UK. We had a specialist judge with no jury who was able to look at all the evidence professionally and make a decision.

Ok people will still complain whatever the verdict but I would be far more willing to accept a verdict from a panel of patent experts.

It's in our constitution, it's called the "right to a jury trial". In our country, we have specific rights, and we kinda care about them.

And let me see if I get you right. Because the decider would be a judge and because he is an expert, there would be no possibility of bias.

Mua ha ha ha ha ha ha. Maybe you missed all the claims that Judge Koh was "in the bag" "getting paid off" before it happened? (And Anthony Scalia would be very happy to know that as a judge no one will ever consider him biased.) And in becoming an expert, one tends to develop positions on the subject, which is also known as a bias.

 

[69650]

Oh, and as for the panel of international judges - those judges will be more equipped to see if American patent law was violated how? I suspect they'd have been less equipped, and would be voting on whether it violated the patent law in their countries. This case is now going to a panel of judges for the appeal. Judges expert in American patent law.

Do you ever consider that there is a world outside the US?

Does it make sense to have 50 patent trials around the world all reviewing the same evidence and making the same deliberations? Or have one international IP court?

Let's be honest your viewpoint is all about blatant nationalism. You don't want foreigners making decisions that affect you. You want to wave your little flag and cheer for the home town company beating those foreigners.

 

[GadgetDon]

ha nicely done

So is it true, did the juror(s) state their mind was formed by the first day?

All the jurors had sat through the same presentations, saw the same evidence presented. They then went to deliberation and found that they all had come to the same conclusion, that Samsung had infringed. It happens. Usually, it happens when one side really did win their case by a wide margin. In cases where some members of the jury have a bias, it's rarely unanimous and there's some convincing to be done to bring the other jury members to that view.

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Do you ever consider that there is a world outside the US?

Does it make sense to have 50 patent trials around the world all reviewing the same evidence and making the same deliberations? Or have one international IP court?

Let's be honest your viewpoint is all about blatant nationalism. You don't want foreigners making decisions that affect you. You want to wave your little flag and cheer for the home town company beating those foreigners.

Except that not all countries have the same IP laws. Every nation has their own laws about what is patentable, what is infringement. There's a lot of overlap, but there are differences. And yes, I do believe that the U.S. has the right to its own patent laws, as does China, as does the UK, as does China.

And actually, the result I was hoping for was a double-loss, both sides found for significant infringement so the judge could use the threat of banning everything as a way to force a settlement. But on the concept of "how dare the U.S. have its own laws and its own system of judgement!" - yeah, I'll plead guilty to nationalism.

 

[nexusrule]

From where I stand, Europeans ceded their nations' rights to sovereignty when they created the EU. And they seem to be happy with that. I guess a lot can happen over the course of 67 years.

The US legal system is far from perfect, but I'm not about to turn over governance to some panel of Swiss judges in an -- at best, misguided -- attempt to fix it.

I don't know from where you stand, but I know you are really misinformed. The EU is nothing more than a federation of states wich share the same currency and where citizens of one of those nations are citizen of all those nations (they don't need passports to travel, they can reside and work in any nations without asking for permissions and so on). Each country has its own laws, often very different ones from anothers (from civil liberties to economic development to ethic matters and so on). The EU parlament make laws in cases where has sense for this laws to be applied in all Europe (things like pollutions, recycling, human rights) BUT then each national parlament can or cannot make these laws valid in its nation, also making modifications that has sense in the contest of its own culture, economics etc.

 

[trouble747]

If you could get off your high horse for a moment and actually bother to read what I said you will see that I suggested a panel of expert judges FROM AROUND THE WORLD. I know the concept of an international panel might be difficult for an American given that only 10% of Americans have a passport. I don't give a crap about your legal system unless it affects me and this will affect me if Samsung has to redesign their products.

Uh, what?

If Samsung does not want to expose its products or practices to U.S. law, it should not do business in the United States. It would be absurd to allow foreign corporations to violate the laws of a country in which it conducts business, simply because it happens to also conduct its business in other places.

And this great "panel of expert judges FROM AROUND THE WORLD"; what law, exactly, are you suggesting it apply? American law? UK law? Why would a panel of foreign judges reach a more just result in applying U.S. law?

Juries are generally arbiters of fact in our legal system. Legal questions are examined on appeal by judges.

 

[John.B]

The jury had 700 decisions to make. Are you suggesting that they reviewed all the evidence and made 700 deliberations in one day? Get real.

Since you are making up incendiary "facts" again, they deliberated for 21 hours over the course of three days, not "in one day" as you claim:

"The jurors came to their decision in 21 hours, just under three work days."

Link to the article that you obviously still haven't read: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57500358-37/exclusive-apple-samsung-juror-speaks-out/

To quote former US Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan from the state of New York:

"Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but they are not entitled to their own facts."

They first had to decide what infringed and what didn't. They found that some things did and other things (unregistered trade dress, for example) didn't.

Then they had to decide what infringement was willful, and Samsung's executives appear to have handed that decision to the jury on a silver platter.

Finally they had to decide what financial penalties were appropriate for each infringement. Again, they didn't agree with all of Apple's assessments, mostly based around Apple's supply constraints during the time of infringement.

From what I've read, it was a very organized, efficient, and workmanlike process.

If you could get off your high horse for a moment and actually bother to read what I said you will see that I suggested a panel of expert judges FROM AROUND THE WORLD.

You'd have to overturn what's widely referred to as the Copyright Clause of the US Constitution in order to overturn US-based patent and copyright law and implement your "international panels" (with Swiss judges). Good luck with that.

I know the concept of an international panel might be difficult for an American given that only 10% of Americans have a passport.

False. You're making stuff up again. As of 2011, 30% of Americans hold a valid passport. I've had a passport my entire adult life. That said, there is so much to see in this great country that many people don't bother going elsewhere.

I don't give a crap about your legal system unless it affects me and this will affect me if Samsung has to redesign their products.

This is about products in the US of A. AFAIK, Samsung is apparently free to continue to copy Apple's designs in Old Blighty or wherever it is you're actually from.

BTW, I've been to England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland (as well as the Republic of Ireland). You are the first person I've come across who affiliates themselves with the UK. Every Englishman I know thinks of themselves as being English. The Scots are Scots. The Welsh are, well, I won't go there...

 

[TMay]

The information is neutral, I said that PJ taints the blog with her opinions. Please don't put words in my posts I haven't posted.

The information found on Groklaw is verbatim copies of court documents, usually PDF originals with HTMLized versions. There is nothing non-neutral about those, there is nothing cherry picked as all documents for a case are usually added to the timeline, motions by both sides and rulings for either party.

Attacking PJ's integrity and the neutralness of her court provided documents is just spreading FUD about what is Groklaw. And PJ is not a free/opensource software advocate, she's a para-legal.

http://www.groklaw.net/staticpages/index.php?page=20040923045054130

"The information on Groklaw has been prepared as a service to the FOSS community in particular and the general public. It is not intended to constitute legal advice. PJ is a paralegal, not a lawyer. Mark Webbink is a lawyer, but he is not your lawyer. Groklaw is educational only. Even when lawyers write or contribute to articles, it is still not legal advice. You need to hire your own lawyer to solve your own legal matters. Groklaw is informational only. We use reasonable efforts in collecting, preparing and providing quality information and material, but we do not warrant or guarantee the accuracy, completeness, adequacy or timeliness of the information contained in, or linked to, this web site. If you know more than we do, let us know, so we can improve."

What part of "a service to the FOSS community in particular" did you miss, and yes, as a matter of fact, I did know that PJ is a paralegal.

It's court documents and opinions, and I have no problem with that, but neutral? No.

 

[trouble747]

Let's be honest your viewpoint is all about blatant nationalism. You don't want foreigners making decisions that affect you. You want to wave your little flag and cheer for the home town company beating those foreigners.

How silly. Believing that U.S. law is applicable to . . . the U.S. is nothing more than "blatant nationalism"?

 

[Tones2]

So how much of this money will be used to either increase the salaries of workers and / or reduce consumer prices? Answer: zero.

 

[nexusrule]

And from where I stand, the "Americans" ceded their states' rights to sovereignty when they created the United States of America. And they seem to be happy with that. I guess a lot can happen over the course of 250 or so years.

And from where I stand, the Canadians ceded their provinces' rights to sovereignty when they created the Canadian confederation. And they seem to be happy with that. I guess a lot can happen over the course of 150 or so years.

Forming a union of independant states or nations is not ceding your rights at all. You're not signing into dictature or anything close to that.

Not only that. EU is nothing like USA or Canada. The EU parlament cannot force anything on the single states making part of the federation, see matters like gay unions (some states has some not), drug tolerance (some states are way more tolerant than other), welfare, economic development and so on. The EU is just a federation of states that share the same currency and where citizens of each state can move/travel/reside/work in any states part of the EU as it was their own country.

 

[GadgetDon]

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.

No, the juror said that on the first day of DELIBERATION, after all evidence was presented, they talked and said "hey, we all agree that there was infringement!"

 

[zorinlynx]

My gods, all of you who responded to my post have missed the point.

I don't mean that it'll stifle innovation right now. What I mean is that when a company is allowed to have near monopoly status in an industry, their drive to innovate and come out with good new products goes down, because they have no competition.

If Apple held 96% of the phone market, I'm sure iOS wouldn't change all that much. They'd have a stranglehold on the market. People wouldn't want to switch because they would have a large investment in iOS apps (heck I'm there now) and this would only further the monopoly.

This has already happened with Microsoft back in the 90s and most of the 00s. Look how stagnant Windows was for the longest time. Only now that there is competition has Microsoft started to change things up and tried to improve the user experience, though many of us don't like what they did. At least it's something different and new.

Competition breeds innovation. Completely owning a market and being able to crush competitors stifles innovation in the long run.