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Judge Suggests Apple Is "Smoking Crack" With Witness List In Samsung Case
infodragon writes "Today in the ongoing Apple vs Samsung court case Judge Lucy Koh's patience wore thin as Apple presented a 75-page document highlighting 22 witnesses it would like to call in for rebuttal testimony, provided the court had the time. As those following the case closely know quite well, the case has a set number of hours which are already wearing quite thin. As quoted by The Verge as they sat in the courtroom listening in, Koh wondered aloud why Apple would offer the list 'when unless you're smoking crack you know these witnesses aren't going to be called!'"
She certainly does seem unhinged. I can't imagine that this won't end up being some sort of mistrial and tried again.
Her behavior through this whole trial has disgusted me. This stuff is really damn important. Why are the companies being so limited in the amount of time they can have witnesses on the stand? In such a case with such a long history and of such importance, shouldn't the jury be allowed to hear all evidence that is relevant that the two sides want to produce? I mean, I can understand not want to drag it out over six months, and if the lawyers started putting completely irrelevant witnesses on the stand just to try to filibuster the trial, I can understand her wanting to crack down on them. But this is ridiculous.
At this point, if I were a lawyer for either side, it would be awful hard to care which way this trial goes because it just seems obvious to me that whatever the jury decides is going to be pretty unimportant once this trial is overturned and the next one begins.
It really is starting to strongly sound to me like Judge Koh is more concerned with her own ego and power trip than in being an impartial judge conducting a fair trial.
Reminds me of Judge Jackson in United_States vs. Microsoft. He got so pissed at Microsoft's behavior in court that he said some rather unfriendly things about the company in interviews (see http://www.wired.com/politics/law/news/2001/02/42071).
Which was probably not so smart and might have contributed to his verdict (breaking up Microsoft) being overturned on appeal.
I always wondered why he did not keep his mouth shut and sanction Microsoft's legal team instead. They did some things that might have counted as perjury, such as presenting a faked video as evidence.
C - the footgun of programming languages
Considering she already handled around 20 cases involving Apple, she's not a very fast learner ...
I am a consultant at a big 4 firm, and my hourly rate (before any discounts) is more than $550, and I am nowhere near senior manager let alone partner. His time is worth a lot. He is not being paid millions to do this, but that rate would be par for the course, if not a little cheap.
Except that isn't what Apple is asking for. They are asking for $24 of your new Samsung toy, plus 100% of the profit of Samsung's mobile division. If you were Samsung, would you want to settle out of court when that was the offer on the table?
Apples makes nothing other than designs and owns very little other than cash. The whole house of cards (their market cap) can can fall based on a marketing failure of their next product. This is the ONLY reason they need Android and Samsung to fail. Apple is a middle man with a design that is currently in style. They must stay in style to keep it moving. There is NO fall back plan other than spreading out the cash on hand. The stock value is based on maintaining future sales, not capital equipment. Samsung OWNS factories, they design and manufacture things from raw material to end user product very big and very small. Large R&D centers that produce products that just about every company that makes something that uses power uses in their products, ships, earth moving equipment, large industrial power control devices, home appliances, LCD screens, power supplies, chips, dips, chains, and whips.