Slashdot Mirror
Samsung Accuses Foreman Hogan of Misrepresentation
sfcrazy writes "Samsung is clearly accusing Hogan in its recent filing of influencing the jury in favor of Apple. Samsung said in its filing: 'Mr. Hogan's own statements to the media suffice if such a showing is required. Once inside the jury room, Mr. Hogan acted as a "de facto technical expert" who touted his high-tech experience to bring the divided jury together. Contrary to this Court's instructions, he told other jurors incorrectly that an accused device infringes a utility patent unless it is "entirely different"; that a prior art reference could not be invalidating unless that reference was "interchangeable"; and that invalidating prior art must be currently in use. He thus failed "to listen to the evidence, not to consider extrinsic facts, [and] to follow the judge's instructions."'"
They also allege that Hogan has an old grunge against Samsung because they own part of Seagate (which had sued him into bankruptcy 20 years ago) and that he's a patent-owner himself (and very pro-patent)--neither fact he disclosed during the jury selection process.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
The man is an utter fool, and pretty much guaranteed a mistrial. He should be forced to pay costs.
IANAL, but I believe that a lot of what Hogan has said during post-trial interviews cannot actually be submitted to court as evidence? Or at least, the Judge can't use his statements to influence her decision on what to do with him. Can anyone clarify on this?
The stuff about him being sued by Seagate is definitely grounds for a mistrial, though.
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
Some of the statements he made after the trial, he seemed to be enjoying the limelight until he realised what a hole he was digging and seemed to shut up. I was mind-blown.
He actually seemed proud, of the fact that he was able to convince the other jurors that they could ignore the "prior art" arguments because they were "bogging us down".
He stated very matter of factly, that the trial was over from day one when Apple presented their "smoking gun" which, in fact, turned out to be quite the opposite to anybody who actually READS the thing now that the unredacted documents are available, and didn't just look at Apple's cherry-picking and assumption leaping.
He ignored the judge's instructions as to how to calculate the award amount (and seemed quite proud of the 'punishment' he awarded (paraphrasing because I can't be bothered to look it up): "I approached it by thinking, what if these were MY patents", and "so we made an appropriately painful award").
The award amount itself was sent back to the jury room how many times, because they couldn't do simple arithmetic (and such was their hurry to get out of there, they awarded a few tens of millions even for things they said DIDN'T infringe).
The whole trial was a farce... Declaring mistrials is very uncommon but this travesty needs to be one of the exceptions.
it was Apple which probed Samsung's timing of their knowledge about Hogan's past.... a question which they themselves failed to answer when Samsung's lawyers filed a rebuttal. Very strange... looks like Apple could get hoisted by their own petard... and rightfully so!
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
Wait, George Foreman and Hulk Hogan have been made into a Composite abomination of some kind?
Are they trying to sell the George Foreman and Hulk Hogan Combination Grill and Hair dryer or something?
Once inside the jury room, Mr. Hogan acted as a "de facto technical expert" who touted his high-tech experience to bring the divided jury together.
So, he talked out of his ass.
He must be a regular here on Slashdot! And he probably has karma out the Yin Yang to boot!
WHAT IS THIS MAN DOING HERE?
We need some real answers, not AC speculation.
1. Why didn't Samsung's lawyers know every detail about every potential juror? Is that not allowed in this court? Did each side not get to ask questions of each potential juror?
2. How much of the jury's actions are protected and how much are not?
3. Are Apple's lawyers required to share everything they find out about the case in their own digging with the opposition?
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
IMHO an interesting factor here is that we're talking about one (possibly dishonest) fuckwit. What about the other eleven jurors? Part of the reason for an independent jury is to be able to stand up to the government (I agree!) but another reason for a jury is that it is multiple people, so like elections themselves, fringes should get marginalized. If a judge has a bad day there is no check against that except (maybe!) appeals. If a juror has a bad day, there are supposedly eleven checks against that.
I like the idea of eleven checks. What could possibly go wrong? ;-)
That didn't happen here; one fringe dude is alleged to have magically taken over. I realize it's not magic (people are easily manipulated) but you've got to have some faith in people's resistance to that, or else there's no point to juries at all (nor is there a point to democracy itself!).
I think the bigger strategic lesson here isn't to so quickly turn against democracy or jury nullification, but rather, we really need to do a better job of teaching people to tell other people "fuck you." No, really.
Or to put it another way (and look at the guy in the best light), one juror who believed in nullification, blew off the statutes and did what he thought was best to promote the cause of justice (in his sick twisted sense, but hey, we all are like that in some ways). But eleven other jurors did not believe in justice, and wanted to uphold statutes instead. This one guy, through lying, was able to make them think they were successfully doing that, even if maybe it went against their sense of right and wrong. If they had also believed in nullification and had been working for justice (their sense of it) too, then the lone defector and his lies would have mattered much less.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
The Samsung CEO has reportedly been seen holding his monocle and yelling:
HoooGAAN!
Reading through Samsung's submission over at Groklaw, the whole juror misconduct is a rather minor part.
It goes on for pages about Apple's arguments during trial and disputes their claims, for example:
It goes on like this for pages and makes a very compelling argument.
Forget about any legal exposure. Does South Korea have a "Mafia"? I don't think I would want to find out.
Everyone around here seems to play up the Samsumg complaining about sour grapes angle. I want to play up the "just keep one's (fine, fine) mouth shut" angle, especially as a juror post jury trial.
Picking random yahoos off the sidewalk, making sure they're sufficiently clueless/pliable, then subjecting them to a barrage of conceptually complex technical and legal points, from experts and lawyers from top schools and companies, and expect them to come to reasonable and accurate conclusions.
Imagine doing medicine or bridge/building design the same way.
This might have worked for a low tech agrarian society. But it is not a reliable decision-making system today. The jury system is at best cute and quaint, but certainly not a reliable way to reach accurate and reasonable conclusions.
His own words to the press make it clear he deceived the rest of the jury.
Attorney here. Very tough to overturn because of jury misconduct. Trial judges HATE to do it and appellate courts hate it more. It will be interesting to see if this case is so extreme that the judge intervenes.
> Why would Samsung go through the effort of setting up this farce when they could just as easily have won the case outright had the jury not been rigged? That makes no sense.
Well, you see, they wanted to set themselves up to lose so that they could go through the whole process again and hopefully win that time. Of course, that only happens if they win on appeal, but their lawyers wanted to make it really, really hard for their client to win and were hoping to rack up a ton of billable hours by making the case needlessly complex.
Now do you understand the argument they were making?
If any, when did he acquire it?
Similarly for Samsung stock.
After reading a few dozen comments I am at least relieved to see that the number of people with no concept of how the patent system works are in the minority. In a perhaps vain act of charity I will offer up this tiny bit of essential knowledge to that minority in the hope that one or two will read it and gain some understanding of this (and other) patent issues plaguing innovators.
Patents are granted by people. People make mistakes. People can be bought. The granting of a patent does not in any way make the patent holder right, it merely grants them a legal basis on which to approach a court with a complaint.
Trials like the one being discussed here are most often the very first significant examination of the validity of a patent by others outside of the patent office. The rulings of the court are seldom challenged twice and they can have extensive and lasting repercussions on innovation around the world. Any hint of impartiality by the jury must be investigated since the entire industry can be affected by the decision. When making decisions that affect entire economies one cannot afford to simply assume anything.
This does not even touch on the issue that even a patent that has never had a win in court can be used to extort money from small companies. One can afford to run an entire law firm just on the income from businesses that have more to lose from paying for a legal defense than from paying off their accuser.
My $0.02 will always be worth more than your â0.02, so