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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!'"
Maybe she just doesnt have any tolerance for stupidity. I doint think she would tolerate you for missing it.
"His name was James Damore."
This is infront of a jury.
"We had 22 witnesses ready, but were denied time to present their testimony"
"They were ready to say all sorts of things to support us"
It is all about getting the jury on your side. Being "unable to present your case" is one such method.
And the other side cannot cross examine imagined testimony.
in favor of Apple.
Now I think her wild mood swings must mean she's medicating?
No, she has just gotten to know Apple better than she did before.
Yes, Judges become judges so they judge the exciting world of Patent Ownership rights.
She is probably just pissed at the entire case, and trying to do her best to keep fair headed.
Apple is strong on these patents because of apples previous history. They made the Apple Macintosh, they didn't file all their patents, and got eaten alive by their competitors.
Samsung is trying to keep their products innovative and new. And a lot of apples patents are not really as impressive as Apple says.
To be a Judge where you are probably more interested in making sure every one get fair justice. These cases seem like petty bickering over nothing. However there are laws on the books and need to be followed.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
I love this Judge, shes blunt and will not take Apples bullshit.
She needs her own show on TV.
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Anyone else think the legal system would make more sense if they were smoking crack?
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
A judge isn't supposed to be hassling and berating the lawyers on both sides like this.
When both sides deserve it, a fair judge should hassle and berate both sides. Justice isn't well served by tolerating games.
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A judge isn't supposed to be hassling and berating the lawyers on both sides like this.
Interesting choice of words. So you'd be ok with it if it was just one sided berating? Judges have done far worse to lawyers when they start resorting to court room theatrics like Apple and Samsung. Berating both sides just shows fairness, and that both sides are being asses.
Calling someone out on their (procedural) bullshit is part of a judge's job. It's not her fault both sides are doing it, and she'd be negligent if she didn't hassle or berate them for intentionally wasting the court's time.
Everything is better with chainsaws.
Two points.
One: this is a jury trial. As such, there are twelve jurors, private citizens like yourself, who have their lives on hold (without pay!) listening to two corporate behemoths whine at each other. Dragging this out for an unreasonable amount of time will create real problems for real people.
Two: Judge Koh has more than just this case on her docket, and it isn't fair to everyone else in her district that Apple v. Samsung take up an unreasonable amount of time and prevent other cases to come to trial.
If you can't present your case with 25 hours of face time before the jury, well, you can go fuck off. The lawyers in this case don't get hired by trillion-dollar multinationals by being tame, they're going to bend any rule they can get away with. The judge needs to present a strong barrier to that.
(Oh, and bonus point: All three parties know that this is going to go to appeal anyway, unless a settlement is reached or something.)
in favor of Apple.
Now I think her wild mood swings must mean she's medicating?
No, she has just gotten to know Apple better than she did before.
No, both sides have been enormous cunts for the entire trial, and she's pissed at both of them for that reason. It got bad enough that if Samsung loses, they're basically guaranteed a full appeal at this point. Probably the same with Apple. So we're almost certainly going to get to relive all this AGAIN! WEEE!
Uh, Apple has 4 hours left to give any of their arguments. They gave her a list of 75! witness that she had to read and familiarize herself with overnight. Even apple themselves said they would only get 20 of the witnesses on the stand in 4 hours.
To recap.
4 hours
20 planned witnesses
75 objections to review.
That's straight up bullshit.
They are being unprofessional, she is simply taking them down a peg.
Firstly, IAAL. Secondly, judges are people. There is no "one" appropriate judicial temperament. While, I think she has made one bad decision on exclusion of evidence during discovery, she has not acted any differently than many judges I have encountered during my practice. Some of them were good jurists, others were arbitrary and capricious. She does not seem to be arbitrary or capricious. Discovery is always a thorny process in the Federal system. There are some strict rules, and there is incentive to hide things as well. Now to the issue of the day. Let's pretend you were a judge, and you had just presided over a multi-day proceeding regarding the claims of these two litigants, only to hear that a litigant wants to call 75 witnesses, significantly more than they have called during the trial proper, in rebuttal. It is ludicrous. When one is scheduling a multi-day trial one, generally has to move significant other trials around. It delays proceedings for _Thousands_ of cases. When a party wants to call 75 witnesses, you have to estimate 1-2 hours per witness minimum. With about 6 real good hours of trial a day possible, that is 25 days of trial at the absolute minum. I think "are you smoking crack" is a proper measured response, considering that you have basically ruined your trial calendar for a year minimum to make up for that. If I were the presiding judge, I may have responded by saying, "You can put 75 on there but if even one is cumulative there will be sanctions: including attorney's fees, costs, etc. and a letter to your relevant State and Federal Bars." If I felt that the parties have been wasting the court's time, "Are you smoking crack?" would be the least of what they might hear, while I consider dismissing their claims by sua sponte summary judgment or JNOV.
No, both sides have been enormous cunts for the entire trial, and she's pissed at both of them for that reason. It got bad enough that if Samsung loses, they're basically guaranteed a full appeal at this point. Probably the same with Apple. So we're almost certainly going to get to relive all this AGAIN! WEEE!
This. Since almost the beginning, when Samsung's lawyers started lining up evidence for the judge to strike down, this trial was merely a pre-game for the appeal. In big trials like this, appeals are inevitable (unless the process is exhausting enough to make a settlement more appealing), so this move suggests Apple's lawyers are now finishing off with enough material to make the appeal trial that much more interesting.
A judge isn't supposed to be hassling and berating the lawyers on both sides like this.
Good grief man, have you ever seen any real trials?
It is EXACTLY the job of a judge to ride herd over lawyers on both sides, as they will take whatever advantage they can eek out. You cannot have some mild judge that gets rode over by the alpha personality that almost every trial lawyer exhibits.
A judge must make, then strictly enforce, rules - or else the lawyers will just take over.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
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.
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Considering she already handled around 20 cases involving Apple, she's not a very fast learner ...
I disagree. Invalidating as many patents as possible is best for everyone. A settlement just means Apple can sue someone else for the same stuff.
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It really doesn't matter whether 50 cents worth of your shiny new Samsung toy goes to Apple, or vice versa.
I think you underestimate the seriousness of this issue to these companies. This isn't about tiny license fees. Apple is ultimately aiming for a complete sales ban on most (all?) Samsung smartphones (and then HTC). A few years ago Apple fans were proudly shouting that the iPhone had 70%+ of the smartphone market, and was growing by 200% to 300% every year. They don't talk about market share these days - now they brag about profitability - and the reason is that the iPhone market share is falling, and is down to 32%. The Samsung Galaxy phones are widely popular - UK sales data show the S2 and S3 outselling the iPhone every month except April 2012 - and if you check the "Android fragmentation" graph you will see that Galaxy devices (GT-x) alone comprise a huge proportion of the Android market.
Apple executives are terrified that what happened with the desktop market - Apple initially gaining huge market share, and then falling to below 5% - will be repeated in the phone and tablet markets. And in a completely free market, that is what would probably happen, since competitors will produce lower price products with similar capabilities and over time erode market share of the dominant manufacturer. Thus the obvious answer is to try and avoid the dangers of the free market by asking the government to stop your competitors from being so competitive.
Or maybe she was never biased. But people here on Slashdot automatically assumed she was because she ruled against Samsung on a procedural violation.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Actually, there are quite a few aspects of the Apple operating system that did not come from Xerox:
The Finder and its interface
Drag-and-drop file manipulation, including dropping files onto a trash icon
Drop-down menus
Multiple views of the file system (e.g. icon vs. list)
OS support for drawing into partially obscured windows
Desk accessories
Direct editing of file names
Copying data in multiple formats to the clipboard
Automatic updating of windows when rearranged
However, it is not quite true that Apple did not protect its ideas. At that time, computer software was protected more by copyright than patents, as the court precedents that determined that software features are patentable had not yet been established. Rather, Apple was tricked by Microsoft into licensing the key original features of the Mac operating system to them. In return for developing software for the Mac, Microsoft asked for a license to some features of the Mac GUI, including some of the unique features listed above. Because Microsoft was pursuing a very different approach to a GUI, with data displayed in separate panes of the display rather than in overlapping windows, Jobs apparently felt that their OS was not directly competing with the Mac, and agreed. Microsoft then turned around and released a version of Windows that blatantly copied Apple's approach. Betrayed, Apple sued, arguing "We licensed those features for the original version of Windows, not the one that imitates the Mac." The court reasonably responded, "Well then, you should have specified that int he license," and Apple lost.
But it is probably true that this early experience contributed Apple's modern no-tolerance approach toward companies they perceive as crossing the line that separates competition from copying.
Oh, I like this judge! Shades of Judge Judy, yeah, I'll accept her ruling.
Wait, is that their crack pipe design you're describing? I can't tell from those phrases.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
Sumsung is a much larger and older company than Apple, with much more diverse income sources and more than double the revenue. I have no doubt they will be a thorn in Apple's side for years to come, regardless of how many lawyers Apple can afford.
No, as you would have noticed if you'd read more carefully, I pointed out that protection back in those days was based on copyright law, not patent, so the issues you raise were irrelevant. However, based upon subsequent court precedents, it is clear that many of those features would be considered patentable by modern standards. They were, in fact, not merely ideas but based on a specific implementations--you may have heard of them; they were known as the Apple Lisa and Apple Macintosh.
As an aside, it is preferable for such features to be protected by patent rather than by copyright, as the term of patent is much shorter than copyright. Any design or technical features patented at that time (if modern rules had applied) would have passed into the public domain quite a few years ago, but any copyrights are still valid. Indeed, the original patent on the mouse had expired by the time the Apple Lisa was introduced.
A few years ago Apple fans were proudly shouting that the iPhone had 70%+ of the smartphone market
[cite needed] The iPhone has never been more than 20-30% of total smartphone sales. See here for a glimpse of 2010 [1] and 2011 [2] numbers - none are are even as high as the 32% you are quoting (from where?). Fact is, Android (particularly Samsung) have replaced Nokia, RIMM and Blackberry, not to mention Windows mobile/phone devices. iOS has never been stronger - and neither has Android.
Apple executives are terrified that what happened with the desktop market - Apple initially gaining huge market share, and then falling to below 5%
Unless you never lived the 80's you know this isn't true - Apple pioneered with their AppleII, but IBM always had the corporate market which they basically gave away to Microsoft due to poor agreements on software licenses. Apple's share has never amounted to a large percentage of computing device sales.
Apple has always been about profits and not marketshare.
[1] http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/09/16/iphone_drops_to_23_8_smartphone_market_share_android_jumps_to_17.html
[2] http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/iphone_and_android_gain_marketshare_through_february/
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The iPhone has never been more than 20-30% of total smartphone sales.
Perhaps, but what I actually said was that Apple fans *claimed* it was higher, and they would link to some page like this as evidence ("If you look at this January 2009 data, The iPhone was actually less than half of a percentage point away from owning 70 percent of the mobile browsing market.") or "iPhone grabbed 72% of smartphone market share in Japan" or "iPad owns 96% of enterprise market and iPhone share climbs to 53%". And even now we are seeing stuff like "Apple's iPhone Has Staged A Monster Comeback, Android Is Now Dead In The Water". Yes, a platform that with almost a million phones being activated every day is apparently now "dead in the water". Those Apple marketing guys are good at getting their message broadcast.
Apple's share has never amounted to a large percentage of computing device sales.
According to this, Apples market share in 1980 was 15%. Okay, that is "huge" on the scale of all PC clones combined, but it beats out the market share of individual manufacturers like Dell and Lenovo today. This article says "In 1984, the Apple II had 15% of the market, Apple's best showing ever. (When combined with the Mac, Apple had over 20% of the market that year.)". The same page says that Apple's low point in 2001 was 2.3%. So from a high of 20% to a low of 2.3%... that's a big fall, losing 88.5% of the market, which was my real point.
But copyright only matters if you copy the actual bytes, while patents apply even if you implement it from scratch and have never seen the patented invention before. Its reach is much wider and protection against infringing them is much, much more difficult to achieve, since you can infringe without even knowing.
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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.
How about: Both Apple and Samsung get nothing since they can't come to an agreement. In other words: Neither Apple, nor Samsung can now use rounded rectangles, glass screens, or shiny black finish. Since you can't play nice or be fair, nobody wins.
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However, they do tend to post their reasoning and references behind their assertions... And that is a damn sight better than blind assertions or having to choose faith from authority. Sometimes the judges (being human which also means being biased, low-information, lazy, sick, impatient, etc at times) are indeed wrong or performing poorly. Once they put on the black robe they don't become perfect after all.
I've been impressed with the number of times I would normally have to do a [citation needed] but been pleasantly surprised at the fact that they took the time to dig up old exhibits, get other opinions from lawyers and specialists, list the relevant court documents directly from PACER or otherwise expand on the logic behind their reasoning. It's a very technical discussion of very complicated issues which is oddly and refreshingly accessible to even a lay-person who is not trained in lawyer-fu and doesn't speak legaleze. I would go so far as to assert that if politicians were required to reference all of their assertions at least as well as Groklaw references and explains theirs then politics would be a dead and unnecessary art after a couple of straight forward debates (barring incomprehensible idiots amongst the population who would cut off their nose to spite their face).
To use an example; I could assert that Romney frequently tends to come off as awkward and stiff under public pressure whereas Obama still tends to come off as collected and calm under the same. Some people would disagree with me because of a variety of reasons possibly including that they have political reasons not to like Obama or to speak in favor of Romney. However, a reader asserting bias in my observation is basically showing the bias of the reader themselves. My statements can be evaluated on their face and I could source plenty of incidents of this happening. So, is my assertion fundamentally an opinion at this point? Yes. An opinion which can be backed by examples? Yes. Biased? Not really. Partisan? No.
Groklaw explaining court proceedings works like that, and they do post their opinions and their relevant references inline in the same pieces. You also have access to the raw documents yourself and are free to draw your own conclusions because you have the same information available to you as they do. But you also have to think a little on how well you believe yourself to understand the matters at hand better than they do.
Completely partisan analysis as you assert implies they are hiding, misrepresenting, or otherwise masking information which I have seen no evidence to support. Care to provide examples? I haven't seen any incidence of them failing to back or retract potentially controversial assertions.
- Toast