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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?
I dunno about paying costs, that would leave him in RIAA-style life long debt. But a reasonable contempt of court fine could be justified -- though I don't know if that is legal. In many ways jury nullification is a positive thing, but in this case it seems to have swung the other way completely (assuming Samsung's accusations are true).
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Duh, he couldn't even get out of Jury duty.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
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?
When this happened, I was mulling over my position on jury nullification, and came to the conclusion that it is an important tool as a limit on state power. However, in a civil case it gets a lot more difficult. We need a stable set of rules so we know where the boundaries are, otherwise we are no better than a third world country where graft is the norm. The problem is now that civil damages exceed what criminal damages can do to an individual, where do we draw the line? Do we say Jury nullification is okay to be used when excessive damages are awarded for file sharing? Okay, then why is that different than patent infringement? I like jury nullification. Unfortunately every time I've been in voir dire, and admitted to the ability to use it, I've been thrown out. For jury nullification to be a valid defense against the state (and corporation too?), it must be used properly. It doesn't feel to me like it was used properly in the Samsung/Apple case.
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!
One way you could look at this that at least feels consistent to me is that jury nullification should work in only one direction. If we still feel comfortable with the idea that "better ten guilty men go free than one innocent man go to jail," then criminally we should only use jury nullification to err on the side of a lesser punishment and, if we want to use the concept of jury nullification for civil trials (and, certainly, the RIAA and MPAA lawsuits incline me to do so), we should also only use jury nullification to lower but not increase damages.
If we were to use that logic, in this case it'd mean that we'd be erring on the side of letting Samsung off, because "'rounded corners' is a stupid patent."
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
next time I get called in, I will waste no time with the stupid voire dire. I'll just hand them a card that says 'no, I won't blindly follow any judge's instructions, I vote my concience and I fully support jury nullification.'
I bet I'll be allowed to leave in 5 minutes flat.
(I'd prefer to be allowed to use JN but they won't allow it, sigh)
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
In many ways jury nullification is a positive thing...
Don't get confused about this. This has nothing to do with "jury nullification". Jury nullification is a very specific and very limited situation. It is your right not to give a criminal conviction to a person who you believe is actually guilty according to the law or who you are told is guilty by the judge. In other words, it is that you can't be forced to give a guilty verdict which you would consider to be deeply morally wrong.
This doesn't give the jury the right to decide anything they want. For example, in a criminal trial you can give a not guilty verdict even if you think the person probably did break the law. You cannot, however, give a guilty verdict if you think the person didn't do the crime but probably did something else bad.
In a civil trial, the jury should only decide what they think is most likely to be true. There's no opportunity for jury nullification since there's no guilty verdict available at all.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
Or you could, you know, DO YOUR CIVIC DUTY and not try to get out of jury duty.
Tired of "idiots" on juries? Serve on one yourself.
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.
They won't impanel me anyhow. Lawyers hate engineers on Juries.
Anyway, I believe Velvin Hogan is an engineer - Samsung might not be regretting having him there (now), although it could be argued things would've turned out much better if they had someone smarter.
The famous (in these parts) Terry Childs (SF Network Admin) trial that had an engineer on it, and he posted on Slashdot about it. He seemed a few degrees smarter than Hogan.
Besides which, if they want my time, they can pay for it. Same as they pay for the prosecutor, bailiff and judge's time.
Well, if that's your opinion of civic duty maybe you should be taxed more to pay for jurors' to be impaneled, seeing as you're too (valuable|precious|...).
Legally? Yes, absolutely.
If you're not under oath to tell the truth, then you don't have to tell the truth.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure