Unredacted Documents In Apple/Samsung Case, No Evidence of 'Copy' Instruction 178
another random user writes "Previously redacted documents presented in the Apple-Samsung case seem not to offer actual evidence that Samsung told its designers to copy the iPhone. Documents that have now been unredacted seem to show that there was never any 'copy apple' instruction. There was a push towards things that would be different, such as what is now seen in the Galaxy S3: 'Our biggest asset is our screen. It is very important that we make screen size bigger, and in the future mobile phones will absorb even the function of e-books.' Groklaw suggests, rather shockingly, that Apple's lawyers might have been a little selective in how they presented some of this evidence to the court, by picking little parts of it that offered a different shade of nuance."
Re:It's a legal problem, baby, got me on the run.. (Score:5, Informative)
Re:It's a legal problem, baby, got me on the run.. (Score:5, Informative)
Despite the reputation lawyers have, it's not their job to lie through their teeth and actively misrepresent the truth either.
Re:Something is wrong with PJ (Score:5, Informative)
Hello pot, kettle here!
I don't think you understand how FRAND operates. FRAND patents have to be put in a pool available to all for a set fee. They are essential in order to be able to operate in the space, things like communicating with cell towers... whereas a rounded rectangle patent isn't.
What PJ has pointed out was the stupidity of the current patent system where Apple is able to argue a patent for tapping the screen is worth an order of magnitude more than a patent -- if removed -- would render a device unable to function in any way with any modification, such as its radio transmitter.
Basically, you either have a strong bias for apple, are intentionally trying to slur groklaw, or are ignorant. There isn't anything wrong with being ignorant, but you shouldn't point firngers at others because of it.
Re:Samsung marketing hard at work... (Score:5, Informative)
Note that Samsung owns and operates 6 of the 8 plants that China Labor Watch inspected and reported on. Samsung, unlike Apple, is directly responsible for working conditions at their respective supply/assembly plants.
CLW also claimed in an earlier report that working conditions at Samsung (or supplier) plants were much worse than Foxconn.
Samsung also ships far more phones than Apple does iPhones.
Taken all together, Samsung is a far worse labour rights violator than Apple is. We'd better see grass-roots petitions and condemnations against Samsung pronto.
Re:It's a legal problem, baby, got me on the run.. (Score:4, Informative)
In re: misrepresent the truth.
You need to take a legal ethics class (go figure, lawyers are required to take an ethics class). A lawyer is not allowed to lie to the court, either in what they say or the documents they file. It makes it very hard for lawyers when they `know` that a client is guilty. Yes lawyers have to represent their clients as best they can but, at the same time, they cannot lie to the court. I believe that this is why there is an unwritten law that a lawyer never asks a client if he is guilty, there are some things it's just better not to know.
PS: IANAL but my wife is and I still remember when she took her ethics class.
Re:Case Reset... (Score:5, Informative)
Second, jurors are allowed to bring their life experiences into the jury room - that's why they have voir dire in the first place. He brought in his patent experience, the programmer on the jury brought in his experience, etc.
From the voire dire, Judge Koh talking to Hogan:
THE COURT: Okay. All right. Would that in any way -- you'll be instructed on what the law is and would you be able to follow the instructions I give you on the law, even if it may not completely correspond to what you may know about the patent system or the intellectual property laws?
PROSPECTIVE JUROR: Yes, I follow your instructions. ...
THE COURT: Okay. All right. Thank you. Let's go, I think, to ms. Halim, Mr. Okamoto, and Mr. Hogan. You raised your hands. Okay. let's please start with Ms. Halim.
PROSPECTIVE JUROR: Okay. I have two patents. One is issued when I was at weitek, also I.C. Design. Another one was at silicon graphics.
THE COURT: And it was also on I.C. Design?
PROSPECTIVE JUROR: Yes, right.
THE COURT: Okay. Were patents issued?
PROSPECTIVE JUROR: Yes.
THE COURT: And you were the inventor on both?
PROSPECTIVE JUROR: Yes.
THE COURT: Okay. All right. Anything from that experience -- basically you obviously will bring your life experience to your role as a juror, but would you be able to set that aside, your previous experience with patents, and decide this case based solely on the law as you're instructed and the evidence that's admitted during the trial?
PROSPECTIVE JUROR: Yes. ...
THE COURT: Now, same for Mr. Tepman, as well as to Mr. Hogan. You all have a lot of experience, but will you be able to decide this case based solely on the evidence that's admitted during the trial?
PROSPECTIVE JUROR: Yes.
THE COURT: Okay. Mr. Hogan says yes. What about Mr. Tepman?
PROSPECTIVE JUROR: I think so, too.
It doesn't seem like the voire dire transcript entirely agrees with you. He was specifically instructed to not bring his patent experience into the jury room.
Re:Case Reset... (Score:4, Informative)
Fortunately, we know from Hogan what was said.
Emily Chang: Were you ever confused? Were other people ever confused?
Vel Hogan: I wasn't confused but there was a, a few of the jurors that were confused so what we did in the jury room before we did anything after we did the election of who was going to lead the jury I told them let's just lay out on the table any concerns or open questions you may have that's left over and let's just get that out of the way first.
Emily Chang: Now when you first got into the jury room initially, this was Wednesday right?
Vel Hogan: Yes.
Emily Chang: Was? There are reports that you were initially divided but did you, did you have a feeling this was going to sway overwhelmingly in Appleâ(TM)s favour?
Vel Hogan: No. No. In fact if you'd have asked me at that moment in time, I thought it was gonna ultimately maybe lean the other way.
Emily Chang: Why?
Vel Hogan: Why? We were at a stalemate but some of the jurors weren't sure of the patent prosecution process. Some weren't sure of how, ah, prior art could either render a patent accept... ah, acceptable or whether it could invalidate it and so what we did is we started talking about one and the day was over. When I was at home thinking about that patent, ah, claim by claim, limit by limit I had what we would call an aha moment.
Emily Chang: Um hmmm.
Vel Hogan: And I suddenly decided that I could defend this if it was my patent.
Emily Chang: Really?
Vel Hogan: Really. And with that, I took that story back to the jury, laid it out for 'em, they understood the points that I was talking about and then we meticulous, meticulously went patent by patent claim by claim against the test that the judge had given us because each area, each patent had a different ah legal premise to judge on. We got that all sorted out and decided which ones were valid, which ones weren't valid.
Emily Chang: So the initial stalemate that you found yourself in, what was that about?
Vel Hogan: It was about a particular, ah, patent, ah, the '460 patent, and whether or not the prior art really did invalidate that pattern, that patent and so with that moment I had, I realized that the software on the Apple side could not be placed into the processor on the prior art and vice versa.
Or how about...
Hogan: To try to make it as easy as possible - I have addressed this in other interviews that I have had - what it amounts to is there has been a big fuss since the deliberation that prior art was not considered. Prior art was considered.
When we had to determine the validity of Apple's patent against the charges of Samsung's with the prior art examples, what we had to do - to make it clear - is that not only did we have to validate, if you will, the Apple patent, but in looking at the prior art we had stipulations in the law that tested both sides and if the test wasn't passed then it was clear either the patent was valid or it wasn't.
Prior art didn't mean that the prior art wasn't valid. It was valid. But the stipulation under the law is for the prior art to be sufficient to negate or invalidate the Apple patents in this case, it had to be sufficiently similar or, more importantly, it had to be interchangeable.
And in example after example, when we put it to the test, the older prior art was just that. Not that there's anything [wrong] with older prior art - but the key was that the hardware was different, the software was an entirely different methodology, and the more modern software could not be loaded onto the older example and be run without error.
continued from the same interview...
And we're talking about Samsung's patent claim about combining a mobile phone with email [and a camera]?
Hogan: Exactly, in fact that is the one issue that we left on Wednesday night, the first day of deliberation, that had hung us up. And I, being the foreman, said because we had