Slashdot Mirror
Misunderstanding of Prior Art May Have Led to Apple-Samsung Verdict
One of the interesting tidbits that came out of last week's billion-dollar verdict in Apple v. Samsung was that the jury's foreman, a patent holder himself, was instrumental in leading the other members through the various complicated infringement claims. Now, Groklaw analyzes an interview the man gave with Bloomberg News (video), in which his statements reveal a basic misunderstanding of what qualifies as prior art. Quoting Groklaw:
"In discussing the first patent on the list, he says they got into a discussion about the prior art that was presented at trial. Here's why they discounted it: 'The software on the Apple side could not be placed into the processor on the prior art and vice versa. That means they are not interchangeable. That changed everything right there.' That isn't disqualifying for prior art. It doesn't have to run on the same processor. It doesn't have to run at all. It can be words on a piece of paper. (If you don't believe little old me, here's a lawyer noticing the video too now.) ... The foreman, in answering criticisms, says that the jury paid close attention to the jury instructions. But looking at this one, did they? I'm sure they meant to, and I'm also sure they did their best according to what they understood. But this was an error, and it's one I don't think the judge can ignore, if anyone brings it to her attention."
Being judged by an idiot who knows nothing about the law is a cornerstone of our civilization.
That if you were on this jury, that foreman would be valuable ewed as the expert by easily impressed everyman and you'd be arguing how silly his position is while the other jurors shot you down because "he has expertise, where's your patent?" ugh. I am glad for my mental health I was nowhere near that jury room.
Samsung can use his misunderstanding during their appeal.
On the other hand, there's no guarantee that the next jury will be any better than this one.
Guys, this is just getting started. Samsung isn't going to let a 1BN judgement go un-apealed.
Samsung, though. (This case is about Samsung and not Andriod. Don't get your panties in a knot) really did go out of their way to copy apple design, look and feel. Touchwiz, the Samsung created UI addition to Andriod, really is a (bad) attempt at making devices more apple like. (I know. Ive got a galaxy tab and a galaxy S2 - I rooted them both to remove it)
One of Apple's biggest assets is their design, look, feel, etc (Trade dress). Did you expect apple to take it laying down?
I am kinda caught between 'shouldn't being a patent holder be considered a conflict of interests and caused the defense to disqualify the person?' and 'wait, a jury member with actual knowledge of a field? that is almost like a peer!'.
Meh, at this point I try not to follow these case too closely... while I hate software patents and think they need to be abolished, I find the reporting and oversimplification almost as bad...
"We skipped that one" turns into "we skipped that one and came back to it"
It didn't "turn into" anything.
What was the jury supposed to do other than to return to consider the item later? They had no choice, they HAD to consider it to arrive at a verdict.
You claim Slashdot is full of pro-Apple bias, but it seems equally clear it's full of Apple Haters not willing to consider basic facts.
The new statements however, make far less sense than the simple "we skipped a complex item to return to it later".
Microsoft Engineering Bill Buxton has this nice collection of multitouch systems going back to the early 80s. Pinch to zoom dates back as early as 1982. This collections of prior art makes it plainly obvious that people "skilled in the art" not only would find something like pinch to zoom obvious, the in fact did and implemented it long before the iPhone ever existed.
Was it implemented on a computer you could hold in your hand? No, simply because the technology was not small enough to fit in your hand. But just because Apple was the first to implement it in your hand, does not mean they were in anyway inventing something novel, unique, and non-obvious that deserves patent protection. Apple made a logical, obvious, iteration to a decades old technology. I don't see how this is possibly a point of contention, and the fact the jurors went the other way on this leads me to believe the headline is 100% correct, or something else fishy is going on.
"We skipped that one" turns into "we skipped that one and came back to it"
It didn't "turn into" anything.
Here's the original context from the link you were too lazy to click:
"It didn't dawn on us [that we agreed that Samsung had infringed] on the first day," Ilagan said. "We were debating heavily, especially about the patents on bounce-back and pinch-to-zoom. Apple said they owned patents, but we were debating about the prior art [about similar technology that Samsung said existed before the iPhone debuted]. [Velvin] Hogan was jury foreman. He had experience. He owned patents himself...so he took us through his experience. After that it was easier. After we debated that first patent -- what was prior art --because we had a hard time believing there was no prior art."
Ilagan responded to those who suggested the jury came to a verdict in haste. Some are skeptical that the jury could reach a decision so quickly when they were tasked with answering more than 700 often complex patent questions. Members had spent three long weeks in court and the fact that they reached their decision just before the weekend also raised suspicions that the jury winged it at the end.
Now tell me, tell me where it says they returned to it? In 2-3 days they skipped it and returned to it? It happened fast and they skipped at least one instance of prior art. Please come to terms with it and deal with it instead of being blindly pro-Apple.
I remember when I could have 6 or 7 A-HA! moments in one night.
The software on the Apple side could not be placed into the processor on the prior art and vice versa. That means they are not interchangeable. That changed everything right there.
That just doesn't make any sense. If the fact that the given prior art is not interchangeable disqualifies it to make Apple's patent obvious, then the fact that Samsung's code is just as not interchangeable should disqualify it too from infringing. Or this is bullshit but then that means Apple's patent is obvious. No matter which is true, I don't see how it can go one way for prior art and the other way for Samsung's code.
If a gesture to produce a result can be patented "Pinch to Zoom", maybe I should then patent the following.
* Swallow pill to cure: Every orally delivered medicine, past and future now owes me big time
* Push button to Switch on: Every device in existence will now have to invent a new gesture to switch itself on.
* Click button to Submit: Most websites and applications..
* Pull handle to open: All doors.
This isn't about prior art, it is about what is patentable: The implementation (invention) or the gesture to interact with the implementation.
What I've seen & heard is that most juries and jury members take their role seriously, are diligent, want to do it right, and do so to the best of their ability.
And in a lot of more common cases -- especially the more basic ones like those from centuries ago when this system was just getting started -- they do fine. Their ability to judge who's lying, who's not, etc. is as good as anyone else's. Its all human nature.
But when that system got expanded to very intricate cases of highly technical laws and subject matter, the fundamental premise of the system was stretched past its breaking point. I've seen some of the closing instructions for cases like this. Even as a person with a top notch graduate degree, and directly relevant experience, and the luxury of seeing the instructions in print, and being able to review them at my leisure at the computer while looking up any more confusing terms, it can still be very difficult to follow.
The chance of a random juror, whose training and experience is in other areas, and has to hear many instructions primarily verbally, and at great length in one sitting, and without any modern technologies for making it better, actually fully understanding the material, is essentially zero. And that's no knock on the juror.
The article could well be right that jurors misunderstood. In fact most of the time, they almost certainly do. Its a problem with the system and not with the individual.
Doesn't this prior art argument apply to Samsung's device as well? If the iPhone processor isn't the same as Samsung uses, then Apple's software doesn't run that processor and no patent was violated.
The forman, Velvin Hogan is, IMHO, a patent troll. His "invention" is a TiVo, with options for a few minor and obvious additions (removable storage!, how inventive). He filed for the patent 3 years after TiVo first shipped.
Seems to me he's just an opportunistic SOB hoping to make some money from some company who would rather pay than fight. Of course he wants to defend patents against invalidation due to obviousness or prior art. His would be worthless if that were easy to do.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
I think Groklaw did a pretty solid job of going over the quotes. The later section about how much they studied the instructions do not invalidate his rather shaky interpretation of what counts as prior art, esp since he did not use the same standard to determine what counted as infringement.
we need special juries in cases covering stuff like tech, prior art, patents, med, doctors.
As a court room is a poor place to learn about deep issues covering tech cases and the pay is way to low.
I think there was a few cases where where only 1 IT person the jury and some went to prison now with that jury had more then 1 IT person on it then maybe that person will not be in lockup right now.
Cases need viewpoints for people in the field and only havering 1 can get you a one sided view
I had jury duty this year, and I can say from that one experience, that jury's definitely want to do what is right... but they will often fail miserably, and will almost always follow those they feel have more knowledge on the subject at hand. What I saw was a couple very angry people who let their anger cloud their judgement and made them very stubborn and hard to deal with. One seemingly intelligent person who did a lot of steering when it came to the majority of the group, because they saw him as their leader and what he said, no matter what it was, was good enough for them. A couple undecided people who were actually open to listening to both sides, and myself, who had to argue my points again and again to get people to come to their senses. It was a nightmare... and that was a much more simple case than this one. We deliberated for six hours on six points, three of which were clear cut. I can't imagine sitting on a jury for a case of this magnitude and coming to a decision in less than a work week.
Sounds worse than that. Does anyone know how he could have possibly have thought running on the same processor has anything to do with this at all? Right now he sounds delusional, not confused. What's his source?
Also I really like to know if he said that to the rest of the jury. If they're not utter idiots they would have realized the lawyers would have covered such a simple, basic point if it existed.
I do not know how this could even be possible given that the foreman has a patent of his own. Surely he had to deal with the possibility of prior art (or at least be made of aware of that that is) when he applied for his own patent.
Having read a lot of discussion regarding the qualifications of the jury, I thought they looked good -- on paper. However, when you account for the fact that most of them are fairly old, I cannot help but hold reservations on whether they are still "up-to-date" with today's technology, laws, etc. To me, this jury is highly unqualified for this case.
Mistrial.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Ha, Slashdot is so pro-Apple it's painful. "We skipped that one" turns into "we skipped that one and came back to it" and that gets modded up despite there being no such context in the original source! Oh Slashdot, you so funny when you act like a kid and mod up the other kids!
You are a fool. First off, even without any references to check, the implied meaning in that statement is almost crystal clear. But I suppose in case you are too stupid, we can reference the interview the juror gave (which is actually the REAL original source).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9cnQcTC2JY
In it, at about the 4:00 mark he talks about trying to not get hung up on one question, so they do the simple things FIRST, so that when they come back it would be easier. At the 5:15 mark he says "we're gonna move on and come back to this". At the 6:10 mark he talks about how eventually they would come back to those question, and having moved on and answering the other questions taught them enough that it made those skipped questions easier to answer.
...the Apple products have a slight advantage on usability and battery life and construction (Gorilla Glass on their products for example).
Gorilla glass is not exclusive to the iPhone
In gigantic lawsuits involving the deepest of pockets, there should be an alternative 'fast track' available. Both parties (corporations, natch) pony up 25 million dollars (non-refundable, win or loose) and the initial trial is heard by the Supreme Court instead. With this much money and ego on the line, these suits always end up with the Supremes anyway, so why not pay a voluntary tax and shave of years of pointless, plodding (but billable) years, so we can all get on with progress - which ususally goes to the highest bidder anyway.
Of course prior art was misunderstood. It usually is, including the misunderstanding that Groklaw is propagating. For the purposes of dismissing a patent, prior art does not just have to be something similar, but must be something that is, in whole or in part, exactly the same as what's claimed in the patent. If the patent claims a specific processor function that the prior art didn't have, it's not prior art!
Software is algorithms, and algorithms are mathematics. That's why they should never be allowed to be patented in the first place, which would have avoided all this Apple v. Samsung trial about bounceback anyway.
The algorithms are not patentable, but their assembly into a system is, just like a screw conveyor is not patentable, but its use in a new material feeder is.
You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
This case is a prime candidate for a successful Rule 50 motion, which states essentially that in a jury trial, if a court finds that a jury would not have sufficient evidentiary basis to rule as it did, the judge may overrule the jury's decision or, alternately, vacate the jury's verdict and order a new trial. The judge can't use it to impose his or her own opinion; it has to be a fairly clear-cut case in which the jury acted unreasonably or contrary to law. So, for instance, if a jury finds a criminal defendant not guilty and the judge thinks there was enough evidence to convict, that's too bad. In the Apple-Samsung case, though, there was a clear and articulated misapplication of the prior art standard, which causes the verdict to fail as a matter of law.
----------
Something cleverYou are 100% correct. This guy is undoubtedly seeing dollar signs on his own patent, and if the jury had invalidated Apple's patents, I honestly believe that he thinks it would hurt his ability to monetize his own patent. It's very telling to me that he had an "aha" moment not about what the decision should be, but how to "explain" to other jurors why they should side with Apple. It seems to me that he had already made up his mind which way this trial must go, and he was just trying to figure out a way to convince the other jurors to go along with him.
The thing I'm wondering, though, is does that matter? I mean, once a jury has rendered a verdict, can you actually have it overturned because it's later found out that a juror has ulterior motives? Isn't that why the lawyers have an opportunity to strike jurors before the trial starts? And if so, why the hell didn't Samsung's lawyers ask the jury pool if anyone had any patents? It just seems to me that if I were Samsung, I'd want a jury that doesn't have any patent holders on it. Not that there's anything wrong with patent holders, but I would fear that any patent holder on the jury would be financially motivated to push for a system much more in favor of patents and would rule with Apple on the case to protect their own interests, which I'm convinced is what actually happened in this case.
IANAL though, so I can't answer these questions. Maybe someone else here who is a laywer can weigh in.
He says: "the software on the Apple side could not be placed into the processor on the prior art and viceversa, and that means they are not interchangeable", so no prior art.
By this reasoning Samsung is not infringing, because you can not take Samsung software and run it on Apple "processor", or viceversa.
giant, rich, greedy corporation with $billion dollars at stake? check.
jury full of "peons"? check
how much would it take to bribe said peons? probably not much in comparison to the $billion
Takes me back to zoolander and the $10000 in the briefcase.
The jury is supposed to consider just the facts put before them, and just in the context they are instructed to. They aren't supposed to be experts, and are not supposed to use outside information. The judge instructs them on what the law is and how to apply it, and decides on what facts are entered in to evidence. The jury then is supposed to make its decision on that alone.
The reason is if they don't, well shit like this can happen. Some juror thinks they know what is the law better than the court, and they go and cause problems.
That's easy - patent holder patent lawyer. There are lots of things which the average user of a law gets wrong. Do you think the average 50 year old person with a drivers license knows the exact legal definition of reckless driving, or what the speed limit is on an unmarked road. Of course not, but they drive the road every day - they know the basic rules, and if they have detailed questions or problems, they go get a lawyer.
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
Was the trial to determine if the patents were valid? If so, then prior art should have been considered. But if the trial was to determine if Samsung violated Apple's patents then prior art is irrelevant. A different lawsuit should be used to make the patents invalid if they should be invalidated.
If the fact that finding out that a jury royally fucked up, does not lead to a judgement to be overturned, then I would rather never be judged by my "peer" like in the US system. Imagine that the judgement is not about patent law but a death penalty case. You would be on death row because of a fucktard in the jury decide you are guilty no matter the evidence.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Samsung can claim that the jury did not understand the testimony...
The later section about how much they studied the instructions do not invalidate his rather shaky interpretation of what counts as prior art, esp since he did not use the same standard to determine what counted as infringement.
They did not follow the jury instructions completely. I was on a jury once (not at all related to patents) and one of the main instructions was to only allow the evidence shown during the trial influence your decision. Since the foreman used his own personal experiences to influence his (and others') decisions, he was not basing his decision on the trial evidence, but his own experiences.
WTB [sig], PST!!!
The lawyer that let that guy on the jury should be disbarred.
Ha, Slashdot is so pro-Apple it's painful
This is where I stopped reading, because if you can present an observation that blatantly flawed right out of the gate, then I expect nothing of value from the rest of your comment.
The funny thing is, Mr. Hogan declared that it wasn't prior art because it didn't run on that processor. If that logic is used, wouldn't that imply the same thing about Samsung and Apple? Apple's software isn't prior art to Samsung's because Samsung's software definitely isn't going to run on an iPhone.
Fortunatly you didn't give any details so there is no question, I hope, that I'm making an actual assessment of your arguements. That said ...
Somewhere right now there is a guy saying the EXACT SAME THING about some joker who kept "arguing his points again and again to get people to agree with him, no matter what it was."
Who knows, he might even be on /. :)
If you can't be good, be good at it!
What an ageist remark! Young people typically have no more experience (and often a lot less) with the various types of patents. Automobiles and fashion design are closer to the issues at hand in this case than software. How many software engineers commenting here have also worked in those trades?
You don't see (other than the odd kit car here or there) replicas of famous signature cars (e.g. Corvette). It's not that the other auto vendors are above copying, it's because various design elements are trademarked. While some small tailor shop can crank out Armandi clones and typically not get caught it's equally illicit. But Ford vs. GM vs. Honda, etc. are all too big and easy to nail if they copy patented and/or trademarked design elements.
Most of the action wasn't on the more familiar to software developers, "utility patents".
Now whether the jury ought to have asked questions to the judge or settled for explanations from the foreman I'll leave that to Legal experts.
That person(s) on the jury held patents shouldn't have been an issue. But whether they were supposed to apply their own expertise is another. Of course, those of us that believe in Jury Nullification aren't unhappy that jurors take a look at the bigger picture and not be led by the nose by lawyers ... but that's a horse of another color.
It is truly a pity that the jurors are speaking up, it reminds me of when the M$ antitrust judge spoke out of court and got bounced (due to perfectly sensible comments regarding the strategies employed by M$ at the time). Even the appearance of bias should be avoided.
I believe that must be rephrased as "Samsung is losing, get over it losers". Only the jury decision is out, the judge has not even written the verdict.
I rooted them both to remove it
Which is amusing. If Apple's biggest asset is design, and Samsung copied it... yet people such as yourself (and many others I know) don't care for Touchwiz and remove it.
Also, why did you need to root your phone? You might not be able to remove touchwiz entirely, but installing a different launcher allows you to change the default on a semi-permanent basis
I was recently called to report for jury duty on a patent litigation trial at a US District Court. The patent involved "computer code" as the judge put it. Weeks before arriving, I filled out a questionnaire which included questions about my occupation, which I stated as Software Engineer.
As we went through jury selection, it quickly became clear that the attorneys wanted to state their case in their own way without anyone on the jury attempting to re-explain or translate for the others. Out of the first 14 jurors interviewed, only 1 person had had ANY experience with "computer code" (30 years ago in the Navy, and he mentioned COBOL). One side or the other threw that guy off the jury. We didn't get past Juror #15 before they had agreed on the jury pool. I was juror #28!
I can't believe that Samsung allowed this guy anywhere near the final jury. Well, unless there were 10 other patent trolls in the pool that they needed to get rid of before him.
They call me the working man. I guess that's what I am.
...that Apple (AAPL) has already filed an appeal on the ruling based on these facts.
This trial was a company to company trial on some very technical information. If the jury members were not knowledgeable in the are of Patent law and the technology in the lawsuit, then they were not a suitable jury. They were not a jury of equal peers. I don't necessarily want to see this go to trial again, but when it's reported that one person swayed the jury so quickly in about 300 different points something has to scream afoul.
I am not knowledgeable on Patent law, but I do know enough ask questions. My guess is that much of the jury was happy to have someone so knowledgeable in the jury pool, and they were all too happy to be done this this trial. To breeze through so much so quickly and to have unanimous decisions should have raised more then the eyebrows of the media, the judge should have cocked her brow in shock.
Life takes interesting turns, but the most interest is when you're off the beaten path.
'The software on the Apple side could not be placed into the processor on the prior art and vice versa. That means they are not interchangeable. That changed everything right there.'
I guess that would have pretty much ended the apple v microsoft trial, since apple was using 68000 cpu's and microsoft windows ran on intel stuff. Not sure what the xerox star ran that apple copied to make their 'original work'.
And hey, weren't nokia and a number of other companies making smartphones for about 10 years before Apple? Isn't apple therefore running over any of their prior work?
Stupid, stupid, stupid. Its a freaking cell phone.
...probably stands for Did Not Attack!
(credit to Dana Carvey)
My God can beat up your God. Just kidding...don't take offense. I know there's no God.
Maybe I don't understand the role of a juror. Are they allowed to present new evidence, or cover arguments that were not covered in a case? Isn't it the role of the lawyers on each side to provide details like if prior art can be considered or not?
It would be like a juror deciding he was an amateur forensic investigator, and chose to add additional evidence based on his observations. Such possibilities don't inspire confidence in our legal system.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
You're not allowed to ferret out evidence related to the case at hand. That does not mean you can't use your own existing knowledge of a given domain. If a trial hinges on whether the earth is flat or round, but no evidence is presented at the trial showing one way or another, you can still use your knowledge that the earth is round. It's possible people will use domain 'knowledge' that is incorrect, the hope is that at least the prevailing knowledge on the topic is correct. If that's not the case, or you have a forceful personality pushing bad ideas, well, that's just a failing to jury trials.
Jherico
What can the average user can do to ensure his security? "Nothing, you're screwed"
That foreman is a patent holder. Therefore he should have never been allowed on the jury, let alone selected as the foreman. The conflict of interest is glaring. What we had there was a kangaroo court and a lynching, so to speak.
"I remember when I could have 6 or 7 A-HA! moments in one night."
I was going to say that you must be female to have that many in one night.
Then I realized you weren't talking about what I thought you were talking about:
That was back in the days when MTV ran "Take On Me" music video in regular rotation.
But I suppose I could still say the same thing. My wife certainly gets a certain dreamy-eyed faraway look whenever A-HA! comes on the radio with "Take On Me"...
:-P
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
That does not mean you can't use your own existing knowledge of a given domain.
Have you ever served on a jury? You are specifically instructed to base your decisions only on the evidence presented and NOT on knowledge obtained elsewhere. It doesn't matter if it is something you saw on Nancy Grace or something you learned in a graduate class, if it isn't presented as evidence, you can't consider it. If no evidence is presented, you return a verdict of Not Guilty. Your domain knowledge has not been ruled admissible by the judge, it has not been made available to the lawyers for review, and no opportunity has been given to the defendant to question or refute it. Please do everyone a favor and do everything you can to get out of jury duty.
Yeah yeah... hehe. Let's just say, it was a murder case, and the main reason most jurors wanted to convict him and slam him with every year they could was because it was shown that he was a repeat marajuana dealer and a general shady character, so it was obvious that even though there was clear evidence that he did have a hand in someone's death, it wasn't absolutely clear that he did not do it by accident. The stubborn guys wanted to hang him basically, the seemingly intelligent leader/foreman thought that it was pretty clear cut that he did it but didn't want to slam him with all the years for each of the items he was accused for, the "followers" as I shall refer to them were basically for whatever the foreman said, and the undecideds wanted to discuss the facts as they were presented to us and hear what everyone thought before making their own decisions. I had to keep returning to the facts because there was a lot of "he's a bad guy, he must be guilty" talk going on, and it was quite out of hand. I can only assume, and somewhat logically conclude from the few juror interviews that have come out so far, that this type of issue was also going on in the Sammy vs. Apple case.
However, he owns a patent. This is an obvious conflict of interest. This would be something like a person who owns and profits from copyright sitting on the jury in a case where someone was being sued for copyright infringement.
If you watch his interview, it's apparent he's factually mistaken horribly in regards to most things patent related. He's also under this Apple-fanboi-esque assumption that a patent must be an identical match in every minute detail to an existing thing for that thing to be considered "prior art." So he's completely ignoring obviousness and likeness, which are key in prior art claims. Making this observation failure is key to the validity of many Apple patents. If something is original and unique just because it has rounded corners, something's really broken. Worse, probably, is that he uses likeness and obviousness to determine the infringement of another thing. So you have a guy who's perfectly willing to take a patent and make a deduction which I can only expect is similar to: "look, these icons are spaced/oriented in this manner, and that's similar to what the Samsung device here has, and there's a button here which is really obvious by the design, even though it's not identical to the Apple patent, so obviously this is infringing." While at the same time making the deduction when presented with evidence of prior art: "well... it wouldn't run on an Apple processor, so it can't be prior art, even if the software is functionally identical and looks identical." Complete absurdity.
Also, he clearly states he was trying to expedite the whole process to avoid being hung up on actually looking at evidence. Sounds like solid grounds for an appeal to me. It appears very clear he had his decision made on day 1 and was influencing the other jurors to ignore evidence and vote the same as him. This makes me curious if being a negligent juror is actually a federal crime. If it's not, it should be.
That comment is wrong in many ways. The AC above me makes the legal points why your comment is nonsense. In my own experience on a jury, we couldn't even get the judge to clarify his instructions to us. Every time we asked the bailiff to clarify a certain instruction she would go to the judge to discuss it and she always came back with the response for us to read the instruction again and follow it as best we could. In no instance did the judge ever reword the instruction or give any other details. The instruction was there in relatively plain language, and we needed to follow that instruction. We weren't allowed to assume the instructions meant anything other than what was specifically stated. The same goes for the evidence, we weren't allowed to consider any evidence other than what was presented in court. We could question each side's interpretation of the evidence to determine how relevant it was, but we were only allowed to consider what was presented to us. That made all the difference too, the relatively young prosecutor had a minor problem with one of her charges that caused us to find the defendant not guilty of that specific charge, when in fact he should have been found guilty of something that he wasn't charged with. We were not allowed to reinterpret that charge or the judge's instructions in order to find the defendant guilty of what he actually did versus what he was being charged with. We deliberated for hours on that until it became clear exactly what we were being asked to do, and after that it took minutes to reach a verdict.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
In the stupid , value destroying, lawyer nanny state world that IS software patents, this is exactly right.
See, software IS a machine - the specific machine that the software turns your general purpose CPU into for however long the program runs . IN fact, this is EXACTLY what IP apologists claim when they say there is no difference between software and hardware patents and in fact, there is nothing clearly distinguishable AS a software patent (their STUPID claim, not mine)
Which is why we can't pass legislation against it! HAW HAW HAW HAW !!!
So if the iPhone runs on a different chip than the previous art, they are not the same machine, so the previous art cannot be applied !!! HAW HAW HAW HAW!!!
Of course, that would also imply that if the Samsung runs on a different chip from the iPhone, then none of Apple's patents can be upheld against Samsung either.... hey.. wait a darn minute here...
Oh, I get it. The sense and logic of software patents is not to be found in the internal coherence of the ideas or the laws that permit them or the effect it has on innovation or the economy, it's to be found in how much coke it puts up the nose of IP attorneys and their clients !!!
Shit, why didn't someone just tell me that going in?
Watching you FOSS idiots whine like little children.
'The software on the Apple side could not be placed into the processor on the prior art and vice versa. That means they are not interchangeable. That changed everything right there.'
On the Apple side of what? There's a processor on the prior art? So they're acknowledging prior art? What does it mean to have "interchangeable" software?
If you actually watch the video, you'll see that the patent he is talking about is the "460" patent, is a Samsung patent on a method of transmitting emails from a mobile phone with a camera. Indeed, the jury did rule that Apple had not proved that Samsung's patent was invalid. However, they also ruled that Apple did not violate it, so even if the jury had found Samsung's patent invalid based on prior art, it would not have changed anything.
Actually, he was talking about why they decided that Samsung's "460" patent, which "covers a method of transmitting emails, with and without embedded images, from a mobile phone with a built-in camera" was not invalidated by prior art. And indeed, the jury did find that Apple had not proved that patent invalid
And also that Apple did not infringe upon it.
Holding a patent should not invalidate one from serving on a jury on a patent related case; unless the case is related to your patent, in which case you never would have made it past jury selection.
I was on a jury for an attempted murder case. To the letter, your description matches what happened in that case (I was one of the undecideds). To say the least it was an eye-opener to this legal layman.
After the verdict I came to the realization that if most juries are like this, perhaps there really is a method to the madness. Many of your peers may be irrational or lazy, but by mixing up the pool well enough it produces the best results (i.e. the best you're going to get).
this forum. Are we all somehow unclean in your eyes? Like we are all parties to a corrupt bargain with the devil?
Some patents are bogus, some aren't...regardless it is the law of the land. If you don't like it, then change the laws.
Being a patent holder doesn't make someone a mindless shill for a corrupt system, it doesn't mean they think all patents are valid or that they care about intellectual property rights much at all. I'm a patent holder, as are many people on this forum. If the foreman is like most of us, his patent is the result of work he did at some company and it wasn't really optional. Grow up.
1. You can't possibly know from a screen shot of the first page of a patent whether or not it is invalid
2. All inventions are combinations of previously invented things with minor tweaks or refinements. All of them. Every single one of them. I defy you to name a single invention which is *not* a combination of previously invented things. I'm serious, the light bulb, the television, everything. Almost always they are a fairly simple combination of those things which is pretty obvious in hindsight when subjected to they same kind of reductive scrutiny you are applying here.
3. Samsung had every opportunity to disqualify this guy during jury selection. They didn't, that's how the law works.
I'm going to go ahead and guess that you are 17 years old.
'The software on the Apple side could not be placed into the processor on the prior art and vice versa. That means they are not interchangeable. That changed everything right there.'
This guy should read about Allan Turing, who proved some very interesting theorems.
BTW, an x86 emulator for ARM has been in existence since 1987 (PDF)
Yes, I have served on a jury. The idea that you can only consider the evidence presented doesn't mean you have to operate in a vacuum. If someone's alibi hinged on their ability to fly like superman and the opposing side didn't present any evidence one way or another, are you unable to use your knowledge that people can't fly unassisted when deciding? No, that would be stupid. Jurors are assumed to have a basic level of understanding of the world in order to do their jobs, and further, the lawyers on both sides have ample opportunity to reject people on the basis of bias (caused by too much specific knowledge in a given domain, or for no stated reason at all).
Jherico
What can the average user can do to ensure his security? "Nothing, you're screwed"
If he held a patent and it didn't come up in jury selection, well that's the fault of the lawyers. If it did come up in jury selection and he lied, I'd assume that would have a heavy impact on appeals, maybe even void the verdict. He'd probably get some jail time too. If it did come up in jury selection and he told the truth, it's up to the judge to decide if it constitutes bias (and they'll often base that off of asking the person if they feel they'd be biased) and it's up to the lawyers to decide if they want to use one of their limited number of juror exceptions.
Jherico
What can the average user can do to ensure his security? "Nothing, you're screwed"
Here's a quote from Walter Issacson:
http://www.s4biturbo.com/
If you have special knowledge or information about any of the facts of a particular case , you should not communicate that information to other jurors. In deciding a case jurors are expected to bring to bear all the experience, common sense and common knowledge they possess; but they are not to rely on any private source of information
Emphasis mine
That means you can't use the fact that you happen know the defendant is left handed, or that the company he works for is releasing a new thing next week (because you work for the company too). On the other hand, if you know that guns can't be fired underwater, or that silencers as presented in movies don't actually exist, and it's pertinent to the case, you can fucking well say so. You just can't look stuff up that you don't already know.
Jherico
What can the average user can do to ensure his security? "Nothing, you're screwed"
Your examples are nauseating. How about you use a real world example?
In fact, this very case show why you are wrong. The persons 'every day' knowledge was WRONG.
If the opposing side doesn't present an argument to a point in the case it is not up to you to create an imaginary argument.
What if I said, well it's common Knowledge that God is real, and god can grant wishes, therefore God could grant someone the power to fly away like superman one time.. if he had enough faith.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
That can lead to serious problems, like we see in this case. The judge provided a description of what constitutes prior art, and the foreman decided that his experience was more valuable and used a different definition. He's ignoring the judge's instructions in favor of his own (incorrect) experience. That's obviously a problem.
If you and or your jury decided that 'can't consider anything other than the evidence'
I don't know why you're quoting that, I didn't say that. I said we can't consider any evidence other than what was presented in court. Not that we can't consider anything other than the evidence.
"Our two-party system is like a bowl of shit looking at itself in a mirror." - Lewis Black
" juror room with your existing body of knowledge"
since most people 'body of knowledge' is wrong, that's pretty scary.
AS an examples let takes, oh say you:
"if you know that guns can't be fired underwater"
They can.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dvgu3VaO8sE
http://blogs.howstuffworks.com/2010/01/26/will-a-gun-fire-underwater/
So a guilty person would be let free because of your 'body of knowledge'. Well done.
Silencers:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68uwYqUbMQU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrYj7wQsPs8&feature=related
I couldn't find a video of a smaller caliber weapon using oil.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
A juror who knows the earth is round in a trial where no evidence was presented to show that it was round CAN NOT give statements to the other jurors about the earth being round. At the very best, he can use his knowledge to talk about the testimony and point out what the evidence/testimony says.
However, he owns a patent. This is an obvious conflict of interest. This would be something like a person who owns and profits from copyright sitting on the jury in a case where someone was being sued for copyright infringement.
If you watch his interview, it's apparent he's factually mistaken horribly in regards to most things patent related. He's also under this Apple-fanboi-esque assumption....
So drivers who have driving licenses should not be on the jury of a hit run case?
By your own description the foreman has a very similar view of patents as the two corporations, ergo - they were judged by their peers, end of story on the bias of the foreman. The time to attack a juror's worldview is during selection, attacking the juror after deliberations is no better than attacking the messenger. The fundamental injustice in all this is that the patent office is enabling (some would say encouraging) these kinds of "Gulliver's travels" court cases to tie up the courts and bankrupt business with this utter nonsense, in the end the consumers and taxpayers (ie society) are the mugs paying for all this.
The patent system is a punch line, unless you happen to be involved in a billion dollar court case. Patents are the best way we have for rewarding inventors and inventors should be rewarded both financially and socially, but if someone can claim 'round corners' as an invention then patents become meaningless since everything is now an invention. Sure if you were the first ape like creature to chisel the corners off something your idea was novel and worth a few bananas to society, but it's the fucking 21st century, "round corners" on something is no more than personal taste.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
The patent refered to is samsungs patent for emailing a picture taken by the phone. I couldn't read it all due to boredom, but it seems to be hardware specific. It mentions memory addressing and chips used for functions. I imagine that is how Samsung got a valid patent for emailing pictures in 2009. Obviously this doesn't apply to the iPhone, so the prior art doesn't disqualify samsungs patent, but apple did not violate that patent.
So drivers who have driving licenses should not be on the jury of a hit run case?
I don't see how you made that leap. Jurors with licenses don't have any bias based on someone hitting a pedestrian. Jurors who stand to benefit from a conviction of the hit/run case would clearly have a conflict of interest, but I don't see any reasonable situation where that's the case. Owning a patent or profiting from copyright should preclude you from being on the jury of infringement cases, because you're no longer impartial, as required by the 6th amendment. Even if they pass selection, a lack of impartiality can be demonstrated, so the verdict should be nullified.
By your own description the foreman has a very similar view of patents as the two corporations, ergo - they were judged by their peers, end of story on the bias of the foreman. The time to attack a juror's worldview is during selection, attacking the juror after deliberations is no better than attacking the messenger. The fundamental injustice in all this is that the patent office is enabling (some would say encouraging) these kinds of "Gulliver's travels" court cases to tie up the courts and bankrupt business with this utter nonsense, in the end the consumers and taxpayers (ie society) are the mugs paying for all this.
It's not a peer basis. A is claiming B infringed on A's patents. B is trying to prove A's patents are invalid by prior art. The foreman would benefit from a very narrow description of "prior art" which he has clearly demonstrated he believes in, and his use of prior knowledge rather than facts and information presented in the case indicates partiality. The other jurors deferred to his judgement because of this, and his knowledge (flawed) is not admissible court evidence, so the entire thing is wrong. But yes, in the end we pay for it. If a company goes bankrupt, we suffer. If a company gets a huge fine, their product prices increase. They never really have any liability, even with patents and copyrights. It's a totally broken system, used more these days to troll than to protect and foster innovation.
The jury is supposed to consider just the facts put before them, and just in the context they are instructed to.
Exactly, and when this goes to appeal, because of this, I believe that it will be sent right back to a lower court. The foreman went beyond that standard.
Because his patent attorney took care of all the nitty gritty dirty details like that for him.
I've been working in the High-Tech Industry for 14 years and for 4 companies. In those companies, I always found 1 or 2 guys that have a billion of patents and their traits are always the same, they think they are the smartest guys alive and other people are wrong. And amazingly, and sadly, they are truly believe that...
Slashdot comments on Groklaw's comments on Bloomberg's comments on a juror's comments about a trial.
Obviously a better indicator of guilt or innocence than the actual evidence.
If someone's alibi hinged on their ability to fly like superman and the opposing side didn't present any evidence one way or another
if opposing council did not point out that the alibi was completely unbelievable then they would soon be looking for a new career.
i spent five minutes thinking and all i got was this crappy sig
However, he owns a patent. This is an obvious conflict of interest.
No it's not.
This would be something like a person who owns and profits from copyright sitting on the jury in a case where someone was being sued for copyright infringement.
No it's not. But only a really really really [insert infinite more reallys] bad lawyer would let that person remain on the jury. Do you know how jury selection works? Sure doesn't sound like it.
he clearly states he was trying to expedite the whole process to avoid being hung up on actually looking at evidence.
No he doesn't. You clearly have reading comprehension problems.
This makes me curious if being a negligent juror is actually a federal crime. If it's not, it should be.
Fuck your sig, I'm modding you troll. I'm so sick and tired of seeing you post shit that's blatantly incorrect. Almost every post I've see of yours has two things in common -- they try to ruffle feathers and they contain fallacies. At this point, I'm pretty sure you know you're wrong all the time and you're just a clever troll. If you want to stop being downmodded stop being a douche bag, don't whine about it in your sig.
I am not a lawyer, but it sounds like this foreman was acting as an expert witness, one whom the jury was forced to listen to and one side could not question or rebut or even question.
Yeah, a lot of people have misconceptions, which is often why there are expert witnesses to clarify issues that aren't commonly in the general body of knowledge. However, that doesn't mean that any knowledge not gleaned from an expert witness is forbidden.
Jherico
What can the average user can do to ensure his security? "Nothing, you're screwed"
I propose that patents first have to be open to challengers in a court of law before being allowed to be filed. If no one shows up to contest your patent after say 2 months, you're free to file at the patent office. But if someone does show up, you've got to be ready to defend it in court.
Also, I propose technical courts with judges and juries with extensive knowledge of technical matters (from bio tech to electronics to software). The people who constitute regular court judges clearly lack the training and experience to make sound judgements on deep tech.
For reform minded people to start a boycott Apple campaign. I know someone will say, all companies are doing this blah, blah, blah. But Apple is the most obvious and largest player in this right now. Hitting them, and hitting them hard will definitely make other companies re0consider doing the same and following Apple's lead on trollish patents. Besides, really think about it and what an awesome time this is for this. First a campaign against Apple will hit them before they release the new line of iCrap. This will definitely start scaring them a bit as it might impact their bottom line. Second, this can happen around the time of the U.S. elections, potentially making patent reform a campaign issue. Imagine iCrap 5.0 comes out during the election cycle, with huge online campaigns about the patenting of a square phone design, all mixed in with political ads. We can make real patent reform an issue if we really want to. I'm sure many of us techies won't be the only ones interested in this, as some of the big players getting their pants sued off, might consider assisting in the campaign. Well at least those not contributing to the lawsuit trolling.
Just some thoughts, but even though many of us may feel powerless - we have to remember, we are the ones who make the tubes what they are, the tubes belong to us. :)
Peace.
Indeed, I was under the impression (different country, different legal systems, but still) that it was the job of the judge (and/or other court staff) to keep the jury informed on points of law- not the job of the lawyers of the plaintiff and defendant.
That is, the plaintiff says "under [some law] the following situation means we should win", and the defendant says "but [some law] means that the following situation means we should win". The judge then ensures that the relevant laws are explained to the jury in such a way that they're able to understand them and make a decision based on the facts.
What I'm really saying is- if TFA is true, that's a failing of the judge. If the jury were able to wildly misinterpret a key point of law, leading them to make a poor decision on the outcome of the case, then the judge hasn't done their job. The jury, who might never have heard of "prior art" before the case, should fully understand what it is and how to interpret it by this point in the trial. If some shmo is spouting off from his personal experience, or stuff he read on the internet, or stuff that his uncle told him when he was a kid, then something's definitely gone wrong.
This guy clearly introduced new evidence within the confines of the jury room. I can't believe this verdict will stand.
They were in time. Apple produced the Samsung device as evidence of rife copying by Samsung. Samsung wanted to provide the evidence that showed that device being BEFORE the iPhone, it was in the time allotted but it was refused.
However, he owns a patent. This is an obvious conflict of interest.
No it's not.
Clearly you have never read the 6th amendment. Impartiality is required.
This would be something like a person who owns and profits from copyright sitting on the jury in a case where someone was being sued for copyright infringement.
No it's not. But only a really really really [insert infinite more reallys] bad lawyer would let that person remain on the jury. Do you know how jury selection works? Sure doesn't sound like it.
Did you know that lawyers can't do background checks and ask anything they want to potential jurors during selection? You also state "remain" implying a person is already on a jury, implying jury selection has already occurred. Nice.
he clearly states he was trying to expedite the whole process to avoid being hung up on actually looking at evidence.
No he doesn't. You clearly have reading comprehension problems.
Have you watched the interview? He clearly talks about skipping over anything that wasn't unanimous. So instead of having debates and discussing evidence, he would sidebar it and move on. He claims this made it "easier" to do the hard things, but that makes no sense and he doesn't elaborate. This is consistent with what I said: he tried to hurry along the process. Moving all discussion in a case into one big lump sum at the end when 95% of the questions have been answered? That sounds an awful lot like trying to give people a reason to rush the process, and I don't see any reason aside from rushing that one would skip over a question just because they actually needed to deliberate on it. That's what juries are supposed to do. Why avoid deliberation? Feel free to watch yourself.
This makes me curious if being a negligent juror is actually a federal crime. If it's not, it should be.
Fuck your sig, I'm modding you troll. I'm so sick and tired of seeing you post shit that's blatantly incorrect. Almost every post I've see of yours has two things in common -- they try to ruffle feathers and they contain fallacies. At this point, I'm pretty sure you know you're wrong all the time and you're just a clever troll. If you want to stop being downmodded stop being a douche bag, don't whine about it in your sig.
Because ad-hominem comments are the best way to indicate to someone any issue in their argument. Presenting facts is hard, isn't it? Why are you so angry?
Job's biography contradicts your statement about Gorilla Glass; it mentions Jobs being frustrated with the plastic screen of the prototype, visiting Corning, who sold him the original Gorilla Glass for the iphone.
It's true it may be a failing of the judge, however, it is also be a failing of the jury foreman. It's his job to communicate to the judge the questions that the jury has. Instead of asking for clarification on what prior art is, he presented his own opinion as fact to the rest of the jury. Additionally, according to the jury foreman, he based his opinion on the fact that he owns patents and if he had Apple's patents, he would want to pursue a case against Samsung.
This is appears to be a serious breach of the jury foreman's duties.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
Man, it's so funny how long so many people are willing to sit around and find a reason why a decision made by a rational jury is invalid. It didn't go the way you wanted. As much are you fandroids whine and complain, this will only INCREASE competition.
The prior art at the trial was total BS and you know it. Yes the 10 commandments had rounded corners too. You're not a trade dress or design patent lawyer, so stop acting like you are.
Stop being so bitter and let it go.
I was a juror for a trial involving injury. One of the prospective jurors was a doctor and they asked if he could rely solely on the opinions of the experts who testify and not be biased by his own medical jusgement. He said that he would listen to them but he couldn't ignore his years of experience and training. He was dismissed and I don't believe it was a peremptory.
On the contrary, I thought it was a very effective rebuttal. He demonstrated very clearly why you're supposed to consider the lawyers' arguments and not what you believe is probably true. If the case revolves around a gun being fired underwater and neither side argues that guns can't be fired underwater, you should not be deciding the case on whether or not you believe a gun can be fired underwater.
Fanatically anti-fanatical
To me it seems as if a patent attorney gave him advice
about his own patent filing where the advice was "ignore" the
prior art and file. When filing this makes a lot of sense because
prior art is a list of what the patent does not cover which the
new filing would avoid in favor of a wider interpretation.
HOWEVER this was a court of law where a conflict of
patents and the validity of the patents comes to play.
In this case (case in front of the court) prior art
and the validity and trespass make the prior art key
to the ruling. For the jury to ignore prior art tells me
that the jury did not act correctly.
Most importantly there are a couple patent types
at play here. Rounded corners -- OMG these happen
normally as things wear and are necessary to keep the device from
catching, putting out eyes i.e. a long list of consumer
protection mandates for children and adults apply.
So in my opinion the foremen led the rest of the jury
astray asserting knowledge of the law that does not
apply... at best this is a "do over".
Now I believe that the iconic art was too closely copied
by Samsung but icons are critical and without icons
telling the difference between the men's and women's
rest rooms would be an exercise in luck. Icons are
critical and in many Asian languages must be copied
with precision. In a global market icons quickly move
from art to the public commons because they must be used.
Let everyone patent anything they want. Don't even pay people at the patent office to check it - their job is just to file it.
If you want to sue for patent infringement, that's awesome. Sue away. But before it gets anywhere near the courtroom your patent is reviewed by educated people with knowledge in the field to assess its legitimacy. This is paid for by the initial cost of securing a patent.
If it's illegitimate based on prior art or someone else's patent or just plain obviousness, your patent is dissolved. Otherwise, it moves on and you hopefully make yacht-loads of money on your great, non-bullshit idea which someone else stole.
The jury is supposed to consider just the facts put before them, and just in the context they are instructed to. They aren't supposed to be experts, and are not supposed to use outside information. The judge instructs them on what the law is and how to apply it, and decides on what facts are entered in to evidence. The jury then is supposed to make its decision on that alone.
The reason is if they don't, well shit like this can happen. Some juror thinks they know what is the law better than the court, and they go and cause problems.
Wait, what? You are saying that jurors (and you quite obviously mean the jury foreman in the case) aren't supposed to be experts, because they could go and do non-expert things like have no clue about their field of expertise?
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
I would think that deliberately ignoring jury instructions would fall under contempt, at the very least.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
Hindsight is always 20/20. Given that situation, with that group of people, not a single person with any certainty can or could say the outcome would be different. Accept it as-is sans the chest-thumping. Patents are only as good as the people and systems involved. These are flawed like all things by the simple fact humans were involved. Plain and simple.
Next.
I guess you never got rabidly modded down by the fApplers here.
Art is good http://www.maltepe.edu.tr/ozel-yetenek-sinavlari
And because you cannot run Android on iPhone's processor and you cannot run iOS on Samsung's processor, they have not performed multitouch on iPhone's processor, and the patent has not been infringed at all.