Slashdot Mirror
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."
I can not see the judge confirming this verdict. It was way too quick
So what was this Foreman's patent in? Did he have some reason to want there to be stronger legal precedent for, software/design patents? Why did the other Jurors simply follow this mans lead? Was it group think, at its worst or were they just eager to get the hell home because the entire trial was boring and silly in their minds and the fastest way to get out of there was to slap down a billion dollar number and then call it a day?
and the rest of the jury just followed along like lemmings. The foreman fancied himself an expert on patents, what with his vast experience of having secured 1 patent
What a disgrace. Unfortunately rule 606(b) of the Federal evidence code precludes using the jurors' statements in an appeal. So they can prance and prattle like jackasses, but there's not much to do about it
Did the juror text this info to the reporter with "send from my iPhone" at the bottom?
Could jury know trial would likely go to appeals? They might have known that this trial is a waste of time and not likely to get resolved prior to Supreme Court.
>Since the site is fairly anti-apple,
PJ was pretty much rabidly pro-Apple in her assessment of Apple vs. Psystar. So much so you got called a troll if you didn't agree.
So i'd say that your assessment of Groklaw is wrong.
--
BMO
They're now taking things BADLY out of context. For instance, the quote about not needing the jury instructions, was NOT about the whole decision, it just about resolving their original 2 mistakes of including damages for phones they found non-infringing--well duh they didn't need instructions about how to fix that.
And pay careful attention to the quote in the summary: the juror says they debated the prior art, then he says they "skipped that one". Hmm. He does not say they failed to consider prior art. He says the first one was bogging them down with the debate on prior art because they found it hard to believe there was not any. Then he says "they skipped that one", which, in context, probably means they put all questions regarding that patent aside to move on and see if the others were easier. But they did rule on it, which means they came back to it--and given their reports that debate was heated, it seems unlikely that they put it aside for a while, then came back and arbitrarily found for Apple without finishing their consideration of the evidence. It is really not reasonable to read that quote as saying the jury skipped consideration of prior art.
Reading Groklaw's opinions of this trial has become rather like reading FOSS Patent's opinions of the Oracle/Google trial, or Enderle/Didio's opinions of the SCO trials. They've become so emotionally attached to the outcome they wanted, that everything about the trial is twisted to become part of the (imaginary) wrong that Samsung and the world are suffering at the hands of this (allegedly) rogue jury. Seriously, don't you notice that their comments disparaging the jury (who spent 3 weeks listening all day to the details of this stuff, far more than any of us will ever know about it) sound like SCO or Oracle disparaging their respective juries???
Not only that, I suspect when he said they skipped it (the previous sentences indicate they had a very heavy, although civil, debate about it going on), they most likely circled back to it later once tempers had cooled. This is perfectly acceptable. I've been a jury foreman before and we had similar instructions from the judge. If you needed to skip something while gathering more information, or just to review other evidence while deciding on a previous question, then do so. You may not be able to come to a decision on every question in the order they are given to the jury. If you can't resolve an answer, then skip it and come back to it later.
Samsung spent hours trying to present prior art evidence. They actually spent a relatively large portion of their case on it. Implying that the jury somehow 'skipped' it because the outcome isn't what you may have been hoping for it reaching a bit. Every jury gets very explicit instructions, and any time there is a deadlock, you can stop at any time and refer questions to the judge on how to proceed.
I think the effect this case will have on the broadness of design patents is more important than the actual money. (Also, I thought Nokia's market was primarily the not-quite-smart market?)
Bio questions? Ask me to start a Q&A journal. Computer analogies available for most topics!
Unfortunately, they're hard to find. There's a piece here and there, but no really good source that's been consistent. Maybe this trial was just too polarizing.
So you got nothing, except an excuse to smear groklaw. You smell quite shilly.
Appeal approved!
Of course, if they had actually ignored the prior art. Forget the spin in the post, and actually read the quote, carefully this time, and explain exactly how you conclude that they did not consider prior art.
I thought Nokia's market was primarily the not-quite-smart market?
Yes, hence the decision to use a Microsoft OS.
which I have followed and loved for years
but I refuse to read him, because I know how badly he misrepresents things, how completely unable he is to objectively evaluate. (And what a liar he has been in the past--see opposition to Oracle's purchase of MySQL and his letter to EU commission.) So to the extent that he was right, I would consider that an accident of his prejudice aligning with reality, for once.
Someone who has been "following Groklaw for years" doesn't make this mistake. Either that or you are one of those people who still insists that PJ is actually 5 people at IBM.
And your argument is backed up by nothing.
--
BMO
IANAL, etc., but while they might have assumed that there would be an appeal - it was pretty much a given, regardless of the result, really - but it's not supposed to matter. One of their obligations as jurors is to set their personal opinions aside and provide both sides with a fair trial. If they can be shown to have failed to do that, then the only fair and legal way forward is to throw the entire thing out and start over from scratch with a new jury.
There are generally two way of appealing a verdict; attacking the opposing legal team (e.g. withholding and/or misrepresenting evidence), and attacking the court (e.g. failure to follow procedure, clear bias). I'm guessing Samsung's legal team will go mostly for the latter. Not withstanding the rulings from Judge Koh are heavily in Apple's favour, particularly in the case of denying some of their evidence (potential bias), there is a growing sentiment in the press that the jury badly failed in their duties, with the clear failure to sanity check their rulings against their penalties as Exhibit A.
My prediction; successful appeal from Samsung on grounds of a mis-trial then back to District Court for a do-over and, no doubt, subsequent appeals and counter appeals... It's going to be a loooong time before we can stick a fork in this one.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
How does the judicial system compensate for a jury foreman aggressively promoting himself as a de facto expert witness?
Groklaw consistantly sides with the law, and with common sense. I go to groklaw.net to cut through all of the bias and sensationalism of the mainstream press.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/25/technology/jury-reaches-decision-in-apple-samsung-patent-trial.html
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-25/apple-s-1-billion-verdict-may-lead-to-samsung-sales-ban.html
http://gizmodo.com/5937762/samsung-vs-apple-apple-winning-big-updating
http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-19377261
Now that's bias!
Of course it's inappropriate when the patents aren't valid.
Design patent for a 2000+ year old design? Apple should know better - they just tried it to see if they could get away with it.
Stealing ideas from innovators in other fields and then patenting them with the words "on a phone" or "on a tablet" - wtf is that? again, they did it to see if they could get away with it.
I bet there isn't a single patent that Apple has that is valid.
Should just wipe em all away, bunch of idea thiefs. Should just take all of their assets away and distribute them amongst us, the people who's money they've been stealing for years and years.
Fuck Apple!
>What is this world coming to when we want to "invalidate" the findings of a jury? What is the purpose of law and trials and jury if we're just going to "overturn" any ruling that is unpopular?
When the jury boasts that it reached it's verdict without considering all of that pesky boring evidence, what indeed is the purpose of jury trials?
I really want to make a bunch of personal comments, but lets skip that for the moment.. I'd like to bring to your attention at least this one detail..
"The jury appears to have awarded damages for the Galaxy Tab 10.1 LTE infringing — $219,694 worth — but didn't find that it had actually infringed anything....A similar inconsistency exists for the Intercept, for which they'd awarded Apple over $2 million "
http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2012082510525390
Your assertion that somehow juries are some kind of paragons of perfection is incorrect. The fact that they could not get simple things like "not infringing" = "no damages" right is a clear indication they did sloppy work, did not understand/did not follow the instructions, or directly ignored them. This is the behavior you are arguing is the inviolate will of the jury.
This enforces the above. That they couldn't decide this one 'going down the list' and circled back later.
http://www.cnet.com/2300-1_1-10013512-4.html
You could try actually reading his post before jumping on his math he said per QUARTER. How long ago did the galaxy come out. I can tell you it was many QUARTERS ago they have probably sold well over 100million phones since they started "infringing" these patents which is why he said "less than ten bucks per phone, possibly way less" because he was implying an unknown multiplier based on length of time this has been going on. So yes they have come out way on top. Not to mention they will probably win in appeal.
PJ was pretty much rabidly pro-Apple in her assessment of Apple vs. Psystar. So much so you got called a troll if you didn't agree.
That was pretty much a case of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend": If you go back and read the postings PJ was convinced that Psystar were being bankrolled by the same anti-GPL forces behind SCO (maybe) and that if Psystar's attempts to use anti-trust and "first sale" to overturn Apple's EULA succeeded, they'd be used as precedent to attack the GPL (questioning that logic would get you accused of being a paid Microsoft shill).
In a survey of 100 programmers, 111111 thought that duck-typing was a good idea.
"When the iPhone debuted, it was widely criticized for having no buttons/keys. Now people think the iPhone's design is 'obvious.' "
- Dan Frakes
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Corporations being "persons" is a 500 - 600 year old doctrine of law. Back to the Maritime and before to about the time North America was even discovered. Investors stopped financing trade voyages because they would be 100% liable if the ship went down. They many times lost their homes, money and land to pay the families of those lost on the ship. The Corporation simply created a legal "person" to take on that liability and limit the investors losses to the amount they invest.
It was nothing new created by the Supreme Court. Corporations are made of people. Yes they can be killed (aka Dissolved) and individuals within it can be personally liable for their actions.
Sounds like the USPO.
At least the OP is schooled in math. Are you claiming that Samsung has only been selling smartphones and tablets for 3 months? Fact is, they've been selling Android smartphones since 2010, and only 2 years (8 quarters) of sales would constitute 160 million devices, using the low end of his claimed numbers. That's well below $10 per device.
Now, I don't know where he got those number, maybe they're worldwide and should be adjusted for just US sales, or adjusted just to the specific devices at issue, or adjusted for ramping sales, etc. But you said nothing to refute the numbers he gave.
$10 per device might be a reasonable for licensing an OS, or a large block of necessary patents. But that's not the case here. The two utility patents were for "pinch to zoom" and "bounce back" windows, neither of which is essential to core functionality. Additionally, it appears that the jury simply skipped over considering prior art, and that perhaps the patents should have been invalidated.
For example, the '915 patent covered "pinch to zoom," for which prior art was clearly demonstrated.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
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.
Doesn't this qualify as a mistrial? Was the material in the form of foreman's explanation vetted by the court? Is it admissible as expert testimony? As a guideline perhaps?
Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
"PJ has been extremely anti-Apple and pro-Samsung in this case."
I don't believe that is true in any way. Groklaw has simply followed the law and the merits without regard to the parties. That her analysis ends up supporting Samsung's case doesn't mean she's "pro-Samsung."
One need only look at how she's covered Oracle cases to see that - Oracle vs. Lodsys, Oracle's the good guy; Oracle vs. Google, Oracle's the bad guy.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
She bats for freedom an innovation. As odd as it may sound, it's true. Right after the Oracle Google verdict, there was a case between Oracle and a patent troll, where she supported the stand Oracle took, and remarked on the fact that it depends on the case who the bad guy is. She's consistent with her views and her stance in this case is perfectly consistent with the stands she's taken for many years, if you had bothered to go back a bit. Very different from FOSSPatents who picks a side, and when inconvenient news hits, he just ignores it.
You don't need to get anything from Apple; for example, owners of the Galaxy S II - not an Apple device - saw their local search feature get removed by an update due to the lawsuit.
Dilbert RSS feed
Apple laid claim to ideas in the commons. They have stolen from us all.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Laying liability onto a fictional construct does not require granting personhood. Its a compeltely stupid concept that attempts to create a new class of citizen.
Good-bye
I thought the "pinch to zoom" patent was actually a lot more specific than that: it referred to continuing a multi-touch gesture after releasing and replacing one of the points involved within a certain duration. This was not in the "prior art" shown.
I had a sig once. It was lost in the great storm of '09.
"[Hogan] the jury foreman, who is a patent holder himself told court officials that the jury didn't need the answer to its question to reach a verdict"
"The foreman told a court representative that the jurors had reached a decision without needing the instructions. "
"Hogan holds patents, so he took us through his experience. After that it was easier. "
"In fact we skipped that one," Ilagan continued, "so we could go on faster. It was bogging us down." ...But we took our time. We didn't rush.
Join the Slashcott! Feb 10 thru Feb 17!
So the decision to exclude evidence (of Samsung's phones in development prior to the iPhone's release) based on a technicality did in fact influence the outcome. Who would've guessed.
As I said before the verdict, the whole purpose of having deadlines in a court case is so that the trial proceeds in a timely manner. Why? So the delays in the trial do not negate the value of any potential outcome. i.e. the cost of achieving justice does not exceed the value of justice. Here we clearly had the opposite case, where the value of justice (billions of dollars either way) obviously would far, far outweigh the cost of a trial delay. The judge erred in disallowing that evidence due to a missed deadline, and I suspect we're going to have to sit through and pay for yet another trial to correct that error.
after reading this, it's clear to me that the trial should be repeated.. I already wondered why prior art which was shown by samsung was put aside..
Surely only sales in the US should be considered. Pinch to zoom is a standard feature of Android, surely Google should be the ones being sued.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
Well, that actually would make a lot of business sense.
After all, if this drags on long enough, Samsung will be fighting over old technology that's no longer being sold, and then they can just drop the entire thing or settle. Without losing their market share or momentum. Apple's real goal of crushing their competition will have been thwarted, and Samsung just has to pay a fine.
As for prior art, there has been hardly anything that hasn't involved stealing ideas from someone else in the last couple of hundred years. What we need is a more sane approach to it, like do in the fashion industry. Without everyone tacitly agreeing to allow some copying of ideas, the industry itself would simply implode and cease to work properly. Because they do, though, there are rarely legal challenges and everyone prospers (or at least has the ability to try to do so). Innovation requires copying and improving upon existing ideas. Without any ability to do so, people simply go to where they can. ie - China, currently.
Apple is slowly killing itself off in the mad rush to protect everything down to the placement of a screw and the color of a connector. They're so focused upon the minor tiny crap that they are losing sight of the reality of the marketplace. People buy your product because of the total package that you offer. They could care less what some minor effect or component looks like or where it came from. The more money they waste and the more bad press they generate, the closer they come to the mess they created in the mid 90s. They go down while clutching onto their patents and pride while the majority of the consumers have simply moved on to less expensive and less restrictive products.
Except this time, there is no Jobs to rescue them. And Wozniak isn't coming to save anything, either.
Apparently the juror wanted to "send a message" abotu infringing patents (yeah, the guy who has a patent and is probably trying to set a precedent about getting a billion dollars for himself sometime in the future).
Groklaw said:
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.
Mind you, if a patent like GSM radio communication sells for 1 cent per device, I can easily see why 'pinch to zoom' should sell for at least $10 per device :)
(reading that as a satirical comment) How do you figure that? Patents necessary to work with a standard protocol, such as GSM, normally fall under FRAND, so they must be licensed, and at reasonable cost.
If one assumes Apple's patent on pinch and zoom is valid, they don't have to license it at all - at any cost. They can simply prevent others from using it. It's not needed for the functioning of a smartphone, let alone necessary to implement a standard. And, if Apple can show that they lost sales because that was a highly desirable feature, they have every right to ask for the equivalent of the profits they would have made as damages.
But, I don't think the utility patents were valid. It seemed to me that there was prior art sufficient to make any minor refinements fall under the "obvious" dis-qualifier.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
The fact that juries are even used in patent disputes... can everyone please think about that again? I know jury trials are enshrined in the US constitution, but they aren't fairer or better. They were, when the constitution was written. The amount of specialist knowledge required in many types of modern legal dispute means that jury trials are more about the charisma of lawyers than anything else. I think it is time to start phasing them out in favour of panels of experts in cases like this, and legal experts (judges) in other cases. There will always be some cases where a jury trial is warranted, but they are becoming a minority.
Copying from one great artist is stealing. Copying three or more is research. And that's OK.
But lay claim to the commons and you steal from all. It is to say "Not only do I stand on the shoulders of giants - but noone else may."
To claw back from the public domain works owned by the public, or extend temporary rights indefinitely is the same. It is unjust. It is a violation of the social contract. We will not honor the law when it is so unjust. The attempt erodes the rule and force of law, and steals from the commons again the order and comfort general respect for the law provides.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
The patents that were upheld had nothing to do with rectangles with rounded corners but rather to do with interface design patents. Other Android OEMs have been able to avoid the issues that Samsung had by simply not slavishly copying Apple's implementation patents.
Prior art be damned if Samsung ignores the prior art themselves and instead blindly copies Apple's implementation.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
"(Here's some commentary from Reuters and CNet. Also remember, BOTH APPLE AND SAMSUNG VETTED THEM, and were able to remove whomever they wanted; I understand Apple got rid of a Google employee)."
But bear in mind Samsung can only have so many removed, and this trial was a few miles from Apple's buildings. In that context it's next to impossible to remove every juror and find objective replacements who have no bias towards Apple when the area is so dependent on it for it's income and wealth.
This is the underlying problem. Such an important trial shouldn't ever be allowed to be held so close to one party's offices under any circumstances. It doesn't happen in criminal trials - where there is a danger a member of a community would be prejudged by everyone in that community if the trial is held in that community, hence why they move the trial elsewhere, and it shouldn't happen in civil trials either when the stakes are so high.
You know personally, the problem I have with all this is not so much Samsung being found guilty of infringement which has been the focus of every discussion surrounding this case, the problem I have is that all Samsung's claims were thrown out - what happened to them? where is the commentary on them? If Samsung was found guilty of infringing Apple's rectangulary phone patent which is merely opinion depending on how close you believe a phone can be to such a patent, then how could Apple not be found guilty of infringing Samsung's wireless patents in Samsung's counter-claim, a fact which is provable and not open to mere opinion like the design patents are.
It's that that is the most damning evidence for me that this trial was fundamentally flawed, if Samsung infringed fine, but it's just nonsensical to say Samsung infringed, but somehow Apple didn't, as Apple's works are simply far more blatantly infringing than Samsungs are- Apple kit used tech Samsung has patents on, and contested in this trial, there's simply no question about that, yet those claims apparently vanished into the ether and Apple got everything they wanted. I fully except this may have just been a pro-patent jury who were always going to back patent enforcement and bad luck to Samsung, but then why did they not back Samsung's patents too? The fact they only backed Apple's does pretty much confirm this was not merely a pro-patent jury, but a pro-Apple jury.