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."'"

Comments

Samsung's accusations

[crazyjj]

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.

Re:Samsung's accusations

[BeeRockxs]

The court instructions are available online, and say nothing about more than 10 years. He's been lying to the press, too.

Re:Who IS a lawyer here?

[Anonymous Coward]

Samsung's Laywers only knew as much about the Jurors as the Jurors themselves disclosed. Any further investigation of the Jurors could be considered jury tampering. More importantly, the Jury's actions are only protected if they are taken within the law. If a juror's actions are illegal, they have no protection.

Now, in this case I don't think that the Foreman's actions were necessarily illegal, and as such I doubt he can be prosecuted or sued for them, but they do raise a number of questions about the propriety of the verdict and damage award. My guess is that there are two things that could result from this:

1) The verdict could be overturned and a new trial ordered. At this point, the jury is irrevocably tainted and replacing the foreman with an alternate and re-deliberating is just not an option.
2) The foreman may be held in contempt by the judge - I'm not sure what legal grounds the judge actually has to do this, but I know that if the case ends up having to be retried because of the foreman's actions, it will SERIOUSLY piss off the judge. And if there's one thing you DON'T want to do, it's piss off a judge in their own courtroom.

I suspect that the verdict will be overturned, as it's becoming clear that there are compelling arguments that the law was not followed, and thus allowing it to stand will weaken the judicial system as a whole. What would be interesting is if the judge decides somehow that Apple should have known that the foreman was tainted and withheld that information from the court, and as a result the judge decides to not only overturn the verdict, but reverse it and find in favor of Samsung. I doubt that would stand up to an appeal though, so I expect that won't happen, but you never know...

The juror is a minor part of the submission

[Maow]

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:

Apple’s attack on the legal standard for design patent infringement underscores the gaps in its evidence. First, the rule that “design patent infringement requires similarity so great as to deceive in purchasing” is not a “false premise” (Opp. 4) but rather the established standard for over a century. Gorham Mfg. Co. v. White, 81 U.S. 511, 528 (1871) (test is whether “the resemblance is such as to

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deceive such an observer, inducing him to purchase one supposing it to be the other”). Apple’s authority confirms this. Crocs, Inc. v. ITC, 598 F.3d 1294, 1303-06 (Fed. Cir. 2010) (infringement found where accused products were likely to “cause market confusion”). Apple’s experts conceded that purchasers would not be confused. RT 1101:11-1102:8; 1103:2-1104:18; 1424:3-1425:22.

It goes on like this for pages and makes a very compelling argument.