Apple v. Samsung Jurors Speak, Skipped Prior Art For "Bogging Us Down"

eldavojohn writes "PJ over at Groklaw has consolidated some of the more interesting juror comments made following the landmark $1 billion settlement. Apparently the foreman (a patent holder himself) took the jury through the process of how patents work and thus allowed them to return so quickly with a verdict without need of any instructions on how to work through all the material. Most sources are incredulous that all of the information was considered in the process. CNET quotes a juror as saying 'After we debated that first patent — what was prior art — because we had a hard time believing there was no prior art, that there wasn't something out there before Apple. In fact we skipped that one so we could go on faster. It was bogging us down.' While the fact that they they voted one way on infringement and another way on invalidity shows they were at least consistent, Groklaw is reporting on some odd inconsistencies in the aftermath of accounts from jurors. The appeal for something this huge goes without question but the accounts collected at Groklaw make this verdict and verdict process sound hasty, ambiguous and probably the result of one man's (the foreman's) personal opinion of patents."

Comments

Re:how much per phone is 1 billion?

[Aviation Pete]

It looks like samsung ships 20 to 45 million smart phones and tablets per quarter. If so then 1 billion is less than ten bucks per phone, possibly way less.

Wow - is this the math they teach you in school these days? Please at least do a cursory check before posting rubbish like that!

Explanation, because you really might not get this yourself: To fall below $10 per phone, at least 100 million phones must be sold. Now factor in that Samsung sells most of their phones with razor-slim margins to carriers, and the $20 to $50 which is really involved is a multiple of their margin.