Apple Asks Court To Sanction Samsung; Samsung Fires Back; More iPhone Prototypes 404
djl4570 writes "Samsung released to the press documents that had been excluded by Judge Lucy Koh. According to Samsung 'The judge's exclusion of evidence on independent creation meant that even though Apple was allowed to inaccurately argue to the jury that the F700 was an iPhone copy, Samsung was not allowed to tell the full story...The excluded evidence would have established beyond doubt that Samsung did not copy the iPhone design,' An article at another site described judge Lucy Koh as 'Livid.' The defendant released exculpatory evidence that had been suppressed by the judge. This after many stories in the tech press portray the case as Samsung versus Lucy Koh instead of Samsung versus Apple."
An anonymous reader sent in Groklaw's detailed take on the spat. Related to the trial, colinneagle sent in more info revealed about iPhone prototypes. One early design would have featured shaped glass, but materials weren't up to spec at the time.
Judge contridicted herself. (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's look at the dates (Score:3, Interesting)
"The first iPhone was unveiled by Steve Jobs, then CEO of Apple, on January 9, 2007, and released on June 29, 2007."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPhone [wikipedia.org]
"Using Vodafone as its network provider, the phone was first introduced at the 3GSM World Congress that was held in February 2007. Sales to the European market started November 2007."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samsung_SGH-F700 [wikipedia.org]
The iPhone was announced a month prior to the F700, it had a real smartphone OS, a full fledged browser and email client, no slide-out keyboard. So is Samsung saying that Apple used a time machine because the iPhone was in development long before 2006 and was in customers hands 4 months before the Samsung device.
I don't see how this could be illegal (Score:5, Interesting)
A judge can "suppress" evidence within the courtroom. That's fine, that's even necessary. If evidence was illegally obtained, say through an illegal search and seizure, of course a judge should prevent it from being used in court. I may think it was wrongly suppressed in this case, but it's the law.
But Samsung isn't trying to release this evidence in court. They're releasing it for public knowledge. They may be doing so in an attempt to overturn the inevitable ruling, but a judge cannot prevent a company from releasing its own property in a case like this (national defense, maybe, or if it was "stolen" information, but that's not this case).
So it's logical to conclude that Samsung believes:
a) The judge is completely biased, possibly bought off, perhaps just a rabid Apple fangirl
b) That they cannot win this case, and will need to appeal, therefore:
c) Pissing off the judge cannot hurt them, as this judge would never rule for them anyways, and
d) Anything they can do to improve their odds on appeal is worthwhile
So Samsung is playing the long game. They've given up on this battle, and are already preparing for the next one.
In fact, if they can show that this judge ruled more harshly in retaliation for doing something that is completely legal, they improve their odds of getting it overturned on appeal. So they should actually be trying to anger this judge (through entirely legal means, of course).
Re:The judge;'s job isn't to get livid. (Score:5, Interesting)
Bingo. Samsung already has a no-lose case going. Either they win, or they appeal the ruling based on the obvious biases of the judge.
The cynic in me can't help but wonder if that's really the plan. She'll rule in favor of Apple, Samsung will appeal, this whole thing will drag on for years... meanwhile the lawyers and judges in the case are making $$$ and both Apple and Samsung get to keep their names in the headlines for a good long while.
Re:Hopefully Samsung's gig is up (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:The judge;'s job isn't to get livid. (Score:4, Interesting)
maybe they didn't think they'd need it until apple used f700 as an example of how they copy.. despite it being an example of the designs obviousness in fitting to pocket.
Re:Let's look at the dates (Score:3, Interesting)
Regardless of which came first (personally, I think it was a case of parallel, concurrent development and that neither side copied the other for those two devices) I think Samsung is playing up the F700 a lot because they want to win in the court of public opinion, not because the F700 actually matters. This controversy is good for them, both in terms of PR and in terms of helping to establish cause for a mistrial, possibly.
If you take an actual look at the F700 [theverge.com], you'll see that it's nothing like the iPhone at all. The primary picture floating around is as staged as the much-lambasted images that Apple used to "show" that Samsung devices looked similar to the iPhone and iPad. The F700 was a dumbphone with a slider keyboard and a vastly different UI (the UI shown in the images floating around is not the primary one).
Even if the F700 was admissible (which it shouldn't be, since Samsung's lawyers tried to play fast-and-loose with the rules and got burned), I don't think it would be a big deal in the case, since it doesn't demonstrate the vast majority of the features discussed in the design patents (e.g. the bezel isn't what's described in the design patent, the glass isn't what's described, the icons aren't what's described, the indicators in the UI aren't what's described), which would need to be present to establish prior art by demonstrating that Samsung had had those ideas before the iPhone.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Well damn. (Score:2, Interesting)
trouncing them because Samsung is a shit company that can't create anything in the consumer space worth owning
Show me an Apple smartphone that can do half of what Galaxy Nexus can, then we'll talk.
Re:The judge;'s job isn't to get livid. (Score:5, Interesting)
Exactly what is the reason for choosing to suppress the evidence? I've been trying to figure that out since this started, but there is no explanation (that I could find, anyway) of why something as seemingly germane to the case as original design documents that predate what you are accused of copying would not be allowed.
Re:The judge;'s job isn't to get livid. (Score:2, Interesting)
I think just about any bookee will give long odds on Samsungs evidence remaining excluded on appeal, and if it is allowed on appeal, it is essentially an admission that Koh shouldn't have excluded... They weren't so late as to justify exclusion, there is plenty of precedent for evidence being introduced later than this and being allowed.
They missed the deadline which was set months earlier. That's "so late as to justify exclusion," by definition. The only argument is whether they shouldn't have gotten a delay. The precedent there - and the rule, Rule 37 [cornell.edu] - says:
If a party fails to provide information or identify a witness as required by Rule 26(a) or (e), the party is not allowed to use that information or witness to supply evidence on a motion, at a hearing, or at a trial, unless the failure was substantially justified or is harmless.
Clearly, since it's an issue, the failure wasn't "harmless". The only question is whether it was "substantially justified". That usually comes up when a party didn't know or have reason to know about a piece of evidence until it's too late. What is Samsung's "substantial justification" for not revealing it's own product history? They certainly knew about it.
This is all just silly (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:The judge;'s job isn't to get livid. (Score:2, Interesting)
What imaginary deadline are you pandering about good sir? Last I had read, the evidence was submitted late IN the discovery period. I thought the deadline would be at the end of the discovery period? Is there some intermediate deadline in the discovery period past when evidence can no longer be submitted before the actual end of the discovery period? Please enlighten me.
Re:The judge;'s job isn't to get livid. (Score:4, Interesting)
New evidence in a court case is admissible if required to use as a rebuttal to the opposition's claims. As Apple raised the issue of the F700 Samsung should have been allowed to present documents about it regardless if they were in the discovery period or not.