Judge Suggests Apple Is "Smoking Crack" With Witness List In Samsung Case 318
infodragon writes "Today in the ongoing Apple vs Samsung court case Judge Lucy Koh's patience wore thin as Apple presented a 75-page document highlighting 22 witnesses it would like to call in for rebuttal testimony, provided the court had the time. As those following the case closely know quite well, the case has a set number of hours which are already wearing quite thin. As quoted by The Verge as they sat in the courtroom listening in, Koh wondered aloud why Apple would offer the list 'when unless you're smoking crack you know these witnesses aren't going to be called!'"
The Reality Distortion Field (Score:4, Informative)
Apparently died with Steve.
Apple caught buying expert witness for 75k$ (Score:3, Informative)
Sorry ... can't do it. (Was:Please ignore...) (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Lack of judicial temperament (Score:5, Informative)
Re:court strategy for jury (Score:5, Informative)
This is infront of a jury. "We had 22 witnesses ready, but were denied time to present their testimony" "They were ready to say all sorts of things to support us"
It is all about getting the jury on your side. Being "unable to present your case" is one such method. And the other side cannot cross examine imagined testimony.
Clueless alert! The sort of evidence wrangling going on here will never been seen by the jury. All this stuff takes place before the jury is seated or while the jury is in the jury room. When the jury is in the courtroom the only things that are ever discussed are testimony and evidence that has been officially admitted. Seriously this is foundational to the way our justice system works. If a lawyer were to bring up evidence that had not been admitted that lawyer would be held in contempt.
Re:Lack of judicial temperament (Score:5, Informative)
Re:When Did Judge Judy Become a Patent Lawyer? (Score:2, Informative)
Regardless of which side it favors, this is very unprofessional behavior coming from a judge presiding over a very influential case that could result in millions, even billions, of dollars in damages.
Firstly, the suggestion that you should get a better class of justice if you have billions of dollars to argue over is truly vile and despicable. Either these sort of comments are acceptable by a judge or they are not. The wealth and claims of the parties is irrelevant to that.
Secondly, to answer your question, Lucy Koh worked at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, a Palo Alto, California law firm as a litigation partner representing technology companies in patent, trade secret and commercial civil matters from 2002 to 2008. So I imagine she 'became a patent lawyer' around then or a bit before.
Re:Please ignore... (Score:4, Informative)
LMAO. I checked /. before I left for work and didn't want to be tempted. I feel it was a mater of personal integrity not to mod posts in a story I submitted. I knew I would be tempted so I posted just before I hit the highway. It's better to remove temptation before you act and personally I try to conduct myself in manners of personal integrity no matter how big or small. Funny thing is I work in the financial industry and many of my peers would see this shameful, apparently so do many on /.
Re:At first I thought the Judge was biased (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, there are quite a few aspects of the Apple operating system that did not come from Xerox:
The Finder and its interface
Drag-and-drop file manipulation, including dropping files onto a trash icon
Drop-down menus
Multiple views of the file system (e.g. icon vs. list)
OS support for drawing into partially obscured windows
Desk accessories
Direct editing of file names
Copying data in multiple formats to the clipboard
Automatic updating of windows when rearranged
However, it is not quite true that Apple did not protect its ideas. At that time, computer software was protected more by copyright than patents, as the court precedents that determined that software features are patentable had not yet been established. Rather, Apple was tricked by Microsoft into licensing the key original features of the Mac operating system to them. In return for developing software for the Mac, Microsoft asked for a license to some features of the Mac GUI, including some of the unique features listed above. Because Microsoft was pursuing a very different approach to a GUI, with data displayed in separate panes of the display rather than in overlapping windows, Jobs apparently felt that their OS was not directly competing with the Mac, and agreed. Microsoft then turned around and released a version of Windows that blatantly copied Apple's approach. Betrayed, Apple sued, arguing "We licensed those features for the original version of Windows, not the one that imitates the Mac." The court reasonably responded, "Well then, you should have specified that int he license," and Apple lost.
But it is probably true that this early experience contributed Apple's modern no-tolerance approach toward companies they perceive as crossing the line that separates competition from copying.
Re:court strategy for jury (Score:5, Informative)
More likely, opposing counsel would object, the comment would be stricken from the record and the jury instructed to disregard it (both immediately, and possibly with a reminder in jury instructions.) If it was grossly prejudicial, opposing counsel might move for and be granted a mistrial (they might move for it anyway, because, hey, it doesn't hurt to shoot for the moon.)
Contempt would probably only be a result of breaching a previous specific order.
Re:court strategy for jury (Score:5, Informative)
Thank you for pointing that out. People forget or simply don't understand that in a jury trial the judge acts as the finder of law and the jury acts as the finder of fact. Deciding what evidence can be presented to a jury (admissable) is decided by a judge and, as you point out, done so out of sight and sound of the jury to remove the possibility of unadmitted evidence influencing the verdict. Deciding what presented evidence is true and believable and what is not is up to the jury.
Re:At first I thought the Judge was biased (Score:5, Informative)
No, as you would have noticed if you'd read more carefully, I pointed out that protection back in those days was based on copyright law, not patent, so the issues you raise were irrelevant. However, based upon subsequent court precedents, it is clear that many of those features would be considered patentable by modern standards. They were, in fact, not merely ideas but based on a specific implementations--you may have heard of them; they were known as the Apple Lisa and Apple Macintosh.
As an aside, it is preferable for such features to be protected by patent rather than by copyright, as the term of patent is much shorter than copyright. Any design or technical features patented at that time (if modern rules had applied) would have passed into the public domain quite a few years ago, but any copyrights are still valid. Indeed, the original patent on the mouse had expired by the time the Apple Lisa was introduced.
Re:At first I thought the Judge was biased (Score:5, Informative)
A few years ago Apple fans were proudly shouting that the iPhone had 70%+ of the smartphone market
[cite needed] The iPhone has never been more than 20-30% of total smartphone sales. See here for a glimpse of 2010 [1] and 2011 [2] numbers - none are are even as high as the 32% you are quoting (from where?). Fact is, Android (particularly Samsung) have replaced Nokia, RIMM and Blackberry, not to mention Windows mobile/phone devices. iOS has never been stronger - and neither has Android.
Apple executives are terrified that what happened with the desktop market - Apple initially gaining huge market share, and then falling to below 5%
Unless you never lived the 80's you know this isn't true - Apple pioneered with their AppleII, but IBM always had the corporate market which they basically gave away to Microsoft due to poor agreements on software licenses. Apple's share has never amounted to a large percentage of computing device sales.
Apple has always been about profits and not marketshare.
[1] http://www.appleinsider.com/articles/10/09/16/iphone_drops_to_23_8_smartphone_market_share_android_jumps_to_17.html [appleinsider.com]
[2] http://www.macobserver.com/tmo/article/iphone_and_android_gain_marketshare_through_february/ [macobserver.com]
Re:At first I thought the Judge was biased (Score:5, Informative)
The iPhone has never been more than 20-30% of total smartphone sales.
Perhaps, but what I actually said was that Apple fans *claimed* it was higher, and they would link to some page like this [arstechnica.com] as evidence ("If you look at this January 2009 data, The iPhone was actually less than half of a percentage point away from owning 70 percent of the mobile browsing market.") or "iPhone grabbed 72% of smartphone market share in Japan" [analytica1st.com] or "iPad owns 96% of enterprise market and iPhone share climbs to 53%" [bgr.com]. And even now we are seeing stuff like "Apple's iPhone Has Staged A Monster Comeback, Android Is Now Dead In The Water" [businessinsider.com]. Yes, a platform that with almost a million phones being activated every day is apparently now "dead in the water". Those Apple marketing guys are good at getting their message broadcast.
Apple's share has never amounted to a large percentage of computing device sales.
According to this [roughlydrafted.com], Apples market share in 1980 was 15%. Okay, that is "huge" on the scale of all PC clones combined, but it beats out the market share of individual manufacturers [wikipedia.org] like Dell and Lenovo today. This article [lowendmac.com] says "In 1984, the Apple II had 15% of the market, Apple's best showing ever. (When combined with the Mac, Apple had over 20% of the market that year.)". The same page says that Apple's low point in 2001 was 2.3%. So from a high of 20% to a low of 2.3%... that's a big fall, losing 88.5% of the market, which was my real point.
Another Perry Mason wannabe. Sigh (Score:3, Informative)
"One: this is a jury trial. As such, there are twelve jurors, "
No this is a civil trial. Twelve is not a specified number for the jury. IIRC this trial actually has nine.