Judge Refuses Apple Request For Samsung Ban, But Denies New Trial, Too 156
A reader writes with this news from the Register: "Apple has failed in its attempt to obtain a permanent ban on several Samsung products in the U.S., but Samsung's accusations of jury misconduct have also been rejected. As she has so many times before, Judge Lucy Koh kept things even between Apple and Samsung by rejecting most of their requests. After Apple won $1bn in its patent infringement case against the Korean firm, it set about pursuing another win in the form of permanent injunctions on the products in the case. The fruity firm wanted a California court to stop sales of the Sammy mobile phones and tablets in the U.S., but the judge said the company hadn't done enough to legally support such a ban." More details at Groklaw.
Thank the ghods. (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm glad we have a judge with sense here. Banning the sale of the product will only hurt consumers and the economy, with no real benefit to either company.
This patent bullshit is getting old and really needs some reform. :P
Comment removed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Thank the ghods. (Score:5, Informative)
The question "Are you on crack?" was not in response to them wanting to submit a huge amount of paperwork. It was about claiming that they could go through a large number of witnesses in the remaining time and that Samsung should have to prepare for them.
The game that they were trying to play was to make Samsung guess which witnesses would be called in the last two days. MoFo (Apple's lawyers) tried this because they were getting away with similar tactics leading up to the trial.
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I don't think that this must be attributed to common sense but to a "I am tired of this apple-samsung bullshit and have other work to do" sense.
Re:Thank the ghods. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Thank the ghods. (Score:5, Informative)
Sad this judge should set a retrial as to how bad the jury screwed up not just with the foreman but as in terms of all the prior art they didn't even bother to look at that instructions said they had to. AN appeal will come from samsung, so as with cases like this its never over for years.
Sigh, this again.
The jury ignored prior art only for patents where they found no infringement. It there is no patent infringement, the 'prior art' argument is moot.
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Doh, saw this right after I posted. Exactly. This also explains why she is refusing any current request for a retrial as well. you'd think people can understand the difference between "somewhat frustrated judge" and actually being biased, but apparently not.
Re:Thank the ghods. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the OPs point was that the way the jury behaved was very questionable in many respects. Their verdict was inconsistent with itself and had to be sent back for them to try again not once but multiple times, if I recall correctly. Also, the foreman pretty much admitted to presenting himself as an expert and telling the jurors things that are simply not true about patent law. Not to mention the general bogosity of the patents themselves.
The question here is, if this case is not re-tried and cannot be appealed, what does that say about the reliability of the US legal system? How could anyone sanely subject their company to a jury trial about patents when the process appears to ignore its own rules of engagement?
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It works very well for preserving the wishes of the rich elite that can hire the lawyer's guild to squash peple they don't like.
Sorry, you thought it was designed to achieve justice?
Government has always been twisted to serve the elite.
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I don't think there's any suggestion it can't be appealed is there? simply that a retrial wont be ordered.
I'm not surprised though, from what I was reading from other sources about this outside the tech community this wouldn't be unusual, apparently retrials based on jury misconduct are extremely rare in the US and the jury is allowed to get away with the sort of thing the guy in this case did. It's only if there was say evidence of outright corruption such as a bribed jury that a retrial would come into pl
Well, it's a good thing you're wrong, then. (Score:2)
As has been discussed pretty thoroughly at Groklaw, there are ways to overturn a jury verdict. One of the ways is to prove juror misconduct. The question at hand is whether the jury foreman is/was guilty of that or not. When you take all of the evidence into account (including, btw, that there was no such thing as a 10 year limit during the jury selection), I think it's pretty clear that this juror had an axe to grind and failed in his duty.
Don't believe me? How about the official record [groklaw.net]?
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The jury ignored prior art only for patents where they found no infringement. It there is no patent infringement, the 'prior art' argument is moot.
This is not correct as Hogan admitted post trial to the many erroneous legal theories that he led the jury into. Judge Koh ruled that no matter how many errors the jury engaged in during jury deliberations federal law disallowed any consideration of these errors to overturn the jury verdict or order a new trial.
Re:fed law disallowed any consideration of errors (Score:3)
"Judge Koh ruled that no matter how many errors the jury engaged in during jury deliberations federal law disallowed any consideration of these errors to overturn the jury verdict or order a new trial."
Isn't that the loophole of the century? The way to play Jury 2.0? Sneak a biased member onto the jury who says them, and then jury errors don't matter?!
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It's the case in many countries, including the UK. The jury making a mistake is not grounds for an appeal or retrial unless some rule was broken. If you get a bunch of idiots who are easily lead by one member of the group then bad luck.
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How do you sneak a biased juror past the process? Either side can ask questions of potential jurors, and answering them falsely is perjury. Perjury is very likely a valid reason for a retrial, and the judge apparently didn't find that it happened. Either side can ask that a juror be removed for cause. I don't know how it is everywhere, but in my limited experience as a candidate juror each side could, at the end, name two jurors they just didn't want.
In other words, Samsung's lawyers have nobody to b
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And what question should one ask during Voir Dire to determine whether Velvin Hogan would act as an expert witness during deliberations, telling jurors (falsely) that if prior art doesn't run on the same processor it can't be prior art?
Hogan screwed the pooch during deliberations and consequently the verdict is a farce.
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Yes, while that's true... it's still misconduct. Just because the jury found no infringement doesn't mean they can ignore evidence, though this is civil, so I suppose there's a bit more leeway.
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Except the $1 billion award is based on Samsung infringing the iPhone's design patent. The judge disallowed evidence of prior art to that patent [mxphone.net] because Samsung missed a filing deadline. Specifically, the pic shows internal Samsung prototypes before anyone outside of Apple had ever seen the iPhone.
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the ridiculous veridict is only because Hogan convinced the other members of the jury that there was patent infringement and that prior art didn't count.
Oh, come on. That's not entirely true.
Hogan also convinced the jury that Samsung's patents didn't count because there _was_ prior art.
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why? She's showing signs that she might not even accept damages. She basically said flat out samsung has substantial noninfringing use. That is usually the bar for defining patent infringement in the first place.
So the question is more like "why does she need a retrial if the result is no damages awarded"?
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No, but the billion dollar award is not official until several motions by Samsung are heard.
On the other hand Apple has been ordered to pay damages for the injunction against the galaxy tab that they got granted.
News reports on the day of the trial: Samsung lost a billion dollars to Apple. Actual payments ordered so far: Apple has to pay 2.6 million (IIRC).
It is far from clear who is going to win this trial, but MoFo has scored some impressive wins for Apple.
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It hasn't even been treated as valid. There are many steps before that's a real $1B award, one of which is reality and facts which tend to stand in the way of "Enormous verdicts which don't reflect on reality".
The fact that the jury awarded damages to devices they ruled were not infringing as well as damages on invalidated patents means that there's a guarantee that even if Samsung does have to pay apple as a hypothetical, it's not going to be $1B under any circumstances whatsoever.
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The jury's verdict meets the reasonable man standard. While the foreman may have been more hostile than warranted and Samsung has grounds to have the evidence looked at, in an appeal the burden will be on Samsung not Apple. I don't see how Samsung, based on what we know at this point can possibly meet that increased burden.
As for prior art, the comments below apply.
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Unfortunately Steve Jobs is not alive to celebrate his thermonuclear war flops.
Re:Thank the ghods. (Score:4, Informative)
Unfortunately Steve Jobs is not alive to celebrate his thermonuclear war flops.
Yeah... they could only squeeze a billion dollars in damages out of that verdict... I mean... it's like a token verdict... I mean, Apple technically won, but reality is the damages they were awarded really means they lost. What can you even buy with a billion dollars these days? a cup of coffee? a gumball? a postage stamp? A billion dollars isn't even worth the ink and paper it's printed on! So maybe they can recycle the paper in the money and get something for their troubles... recycled note pads or something...
Samsung electronics had $148Bn in revenue last year. So let's just say you earned $50k last year; this is like losing a court case about how your work was supposedly derived totally on the designs of someone else, and you being ordered to pay $335 and being told you are OK to keep "doin' your thang".
So the question is, how big of a deal is $335?
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Samsung electronics had $148Bn in revenue last year. So let's just say you earned $50k last year; this is like losing a court case about how your work was supposedly derived totally on the designs of someone else, and you being ordered to pay $335 and being told you are OK to keep "doin' your thang".
So the question is, how big of a deal is $335?
Revenue isn't the important number. Any damages that Samsung has to pay to Apple will come out of their *operating profit*. For Q1-Q3 2012, Samsung reported an operating profit of $18.3 billion. Assume another $5 billion for Q4 (not yet announced) and their total 2012 profit comes to ~$23 billion. So a $1 billion payout to Apple would be about 4% of Samsung's total 2012 profit. No company wants to cough up 4% of its total profits to a competitor. It wouldn't bankrupt them, but it would hurt.
To use your anal
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Samsung electronics had $148Bn in revenue last year. So let's just say you earned $50k last year; this is like losing a court case about how your work was supposedly derived totally on the designs of someone else, and you being ordered to pay $335 and being told you are OK to keep "doin' your thang".
So the question is, how big of a deal is $335?
Revenue isn't the important number. Any damages that Samsung has to pay to Apple will come out of their *operating profit*. For Q1-Q3 2012, Samsung reported an operating profit of $18.3 billion. Assume another $5 billion for Q4 (not yet announced) and their total 2012 profit comes to ~$23 billion. So a $1 billion payout to Apple would be about 4% of Samsung's total 2012 profit. No company wants to cough up 4% of its total profits to a competitor. It wouldn't bankrupt them, but it would hurt.
To use your analogy, that would be the equivalent of somebody making $50k having to pony up $2k. Not enough to bankrupt, but certainly enough to sting.
Bad analogy guy would even disagree with you there. My conversion to a base of $50k was to make it similar to the average US salary (this is gross revenue, not net, so the $335 was appropriate). But let's play it your way... Their electronics division had a net of $12Bn last year (nice and round since there are 12 months in a year). That means they were ordered to basically forego 1 month of profit. So if you think about how much money you blow on worthless things every month (like going to the movies,
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Well, go find some tech CEOs and ask them how they feel about giving up 1 month of profit and get back to us.
My guess that you won't find any who are as nonchalant about the idea as you are. And Samsung will be no different. Because regardless of what percentage it is of their total profit, $1 billion is still real money.
The premise was that Steve Jobs' aforementioned "thermonuclear war" was essentially a loss from this court decision... And if you are really delusional enough to think that an 8% drop in operating profit is the equivalent of nuclear devastation, then so be it and have a nice day (no one in the business world would agree with you though, fyi.)
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You must be trolling... the 8% has no magnified impact on the bottom line because it is already AT THE BOTTOM. Samsung's revenue just from the new S3 sales will more than make up for it, so they are sitting back thinking "hell if that's all it cost us to copy the iphone we should have done it 5 years ago!"
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And only a small piece of that $148B was from sales of smartphones. They do a hell of a lot of business elsewhere, be it TVs, Blu-Ray players, RAM/Flash chips, display panels, etc.
You shouldn't be comparing the total revenue but that related specifically to the products involved.
Re:Thank the ghods. (Score:4, Informative)
Very true. Which is why the idiot Steve Jobs said:
So the Judge Koh has denied Steve Job's death wish. Besides, as I understand she has yet to rule on the $1 bn damages figure, arrived at by the jury. And again, even if she upholds it, it looks very likely that Samsung would prevail on an appeal, since many of the underlying patents based on which Apple brought this case, are looking very shaky on review, around the World.
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I actually appreciate Jobs' sentiment there. It's nice to see that in this day money isn't the universal resolver of disputes. You can't just screw someone and say "Here's some cash, get over it." You have to actually stop screwing them.
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Out of context. Jobs was referring to the Picasso quote. The meaning is that good artists just copy what others do (Samsung). Great artists find forgotten inspirations and make something revolutionary from it.
The iMac G4 was inspired by Luxo Jr. from Pixar, which in turn was inspired by the Luxo desk lamp Lasseter had on his desk. You can't say the iMac is a copy or a rip-off from the lamp, but you can see the unique inspi
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Inspirational as to general theme, not copy. One impressionist isn't necessarily copying another.
As percentage is a BS metric since Apple has higher profit margins, R&D will look low, punished for success. Apple also doesn't do much pure research like IBM or Intel, instead directing most research into actual products. Apple also doesn't build foundries and have
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Re:Thank the gods. (Score:3)
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I agree with Judge Koh that the limited infringement doesn't warrant banning Samsung's products. OTOH, Both parties were time constrained, and Samsung didn't get some evidence of prior art submitted, and of course they weren't able to make detailed checks of the jurors. That seems unfair, particularly when the Juror in question seemed to pretty much be boasting about how he manipulated the other jurors.
Samsung and Apple had the same deadlines for submitting evidence. Laziness isn't an excuse to change a verdict.
Re:Thank the gods. (Score:5, Interesting)
Samsung and Apple had the same deadlines for submitting evidence.
Why do you think that makes things even? The prosecution could take years to prepare a case before submission if they want to. They have all the time in the world. So the defending side obviously will always have less time.
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Apple needed evidence from Samsung, the discovery process. Some of this evidence Samsung destroyed and some of which Samsung handed over late. Apple can make allegations but the actual proof of the process of how Samsung developed their ideas was not something Apple had prior to the case.
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No, but being shorted on time is.
My opinion is that Samsung's failure to make a "timely" objection is due entirely to the acceleration of burden that the judge's restrictive schedule placed on them, and not due to lack of diligence.
Hogan also made it difficult by deliberately hiding information during voir dire.
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What a laughably stupid statement. The purpose of patents is most certainly NOT to allow others to create products, it is to encourage invention and the release of information.
The purpose is to ensure that inventions and works of art are shared, to improve all of society.
The exact phrase is: To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries;
Seems to me 'exclusive rights' are exactly what the patent law is there to provide.
See how that starts? "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts." That's the purpose, promoting progress. The second half, the half that you're focusing on, is how patents accomplish that purpose. By offering a limited time exclusive right. The problem is the limited time is currently 14 years for utility patents and 20 years for design patents. That's several generations of obsolescence in mobile tech
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I am confused. How can 20 years be 'several generations of obsolescence' at the same time '[patents] promote a stagnated market'? How are these 'several generations' occurring when patents have so severely crippled innovation (if the standard slashdot line is to be believed)?
The fact is, progress is occurring at an incredibly fast rate, so clearly all these patents have not stopped progress.
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See how that starts? "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts." That's the purpose, promoting progress.
Ahh, so it should be allowing copying, because as we all know nothing says "progress" more clearly than everybody doing the exact same thing over and over again.
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Why the register? (Score:5, Insightful)
Couldn't you find a source that doesn't sound like it was written by a 14 year old British girl?
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No kidding.
WTF is a "sammy mobe?"
Does it come with fries?
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No kidding.
WTF is a "sammy mobe?"
Does it come with fries?
It get's evern better in TFA; "The Korean firm is no doubt quite chuffed that its mobes and fondleslabs can stay on sale in the US"
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I love the smell of ironic aliteracy in the morning!
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I love the smell of ironic aliteracy in the morning!
You forgot to highlight "evern" too. Not sure I would consider typos as quite the same form of "aliteracy[sic]" as an author who intentionally uses "the fruit firm", "Sammy", "mobe", etc.
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Aliteracy [wikipedia.org]
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I think that "fondleslab" (ipad) and jesusphone (iphone) are excellent sobriquets for those devices given the worship and adoration your average iSheep's (apple user) view of those devices.
And here I was thinking that "fondleslab" was the best new word I would learn today, and you go and throw "sobriquet" out there...
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Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
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Couldn't you find a source that doesn't sound like it was written by a 14 year old British girl?
Because we all know British people can't speak proper English like Americans?
Apple must be wondering... (Score:5, Interesting)
... whether all this was worth it.
I mean, Apple executives will be asking themselves whether the publicity given to Samsung, is worth the time/cash spent on the trial.
I personally doubt that it was worth it.
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I mean, Apple executives will be asking themselves whether the publicity given to Samsung, is worth the time/cash spent on the trial.
You assume that they work on something more than just gut feeling.
They are probably thinking that this was a bad luck and have already moved on.
Re:Apple must be wondering... (Score:4, Insightful)
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They are unlikely to ever see a penny of it. Samsung will endlessly appeal, and even if they somehow lose all of them Apple is facing patent infringement lawsuits itself and is likely to end up owing Samsung and several other companies money.
Re:Apple must be wondering... (Score:5, Interesting)
Apparently the publicity works both ways, so much that the judge in the UK requested Apple to put the disclaimer on their home page. (reasoning was that the publicity of Apple victories in other countries of the world was impacting negatively the judgement in favor of Samsung)
The real confirmed loser here is the rest of the Android makers. In small mobile shop, 3/4 of the shelves are filled with Samsung models, I don't remember having seen a brand so dominating the shelve space before. IMO that is not good for Android to have only Samsung and Amazon as steward, but I have been told that's ok because the Galaxy S3 is a great phone :-/
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The real confirmed loser here is the rest of the Android makers. In small mobile shop, 3/4 of the shelves are filled with Samsung models, I don't remember having seen a brand so dominating the shelve space before. IMO that is not good for Android to have only Samsung and Amazon as steward, but I have been told that's ok because the Galaxy S3 is a great phone :-/
That's not at all the case in Asia (namely, China, Thailand and India) - there the small and non-name brands are selling a ton of Android gear. What you describe is the situation in the USA and some European countries, but China, India and Thailand are gigantic markets.
Besides, the single most popular Android tablet, the Nexus 7, is made by Asus. And the Nexus 4 (LG) is selling like hotcakes laced with cannabis.
Re:Apple must be wondering... (Score:5, Informative)
On a more important note, the judge is smokin hot:
http://www.cultofmac.com/185127/u-s-district-judge-lucy-koh-apples-lawyers-are-smoking-crack-in-samsung-case/ [cultofmac.com]
You need to get out more.
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No. She is female and asian. For some that means smokin hot. But when you place her within the spectrum of asian woman? She scores rather low.
http://www.macworld.com.au/news/apple-vs-samsung-patent-trial-judge-wants-court-to-stay-awake-69231/ [macworld.com.au]
She is a 4 at best.
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Denied (Score:1)
Should have sued in East Texas. Both of them. Each other. That way both of them would have won: Apple their injunction and billion dollars, Samsung their injunction rejection and erasure of the billion dollars. Both happy :) Hang on...
English please (Score:1)
Sammy mobes? seriously?
Samsung drops Apple injunctions in Europe (Score:1)
Samsung drops Apple injunctions in Europe [theverge.com].
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fuck this (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:fuck this (Score:5, Funny)
the fruity submitter ate a turd and liked it (Score:1)
The fruity firm wanted a California court to stop sales of the Sammy mobes and tablets in the US,
fuck you, moron
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Laugh. Welcome to the British view of this shit.
El Reg does dumb down its headlines, but the content is more ironic than moronic. (Well, except one specific journalist).
If it helps any, look up their use of "Chocolate factory". Shit, just scroll up on Slashdot for their references to fondleslabs.
Just because you aren't used to these terms doesn't invalidate them.
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A pretty good job (Score:4, Interesting)
I think the judge here has handled this rather well. With the exception of the handling of the F700 evidence, I think the entire case was handled rather well. There were major breakthroughs on patent issues where MeeGo (now Sailfish), Windows 8, and BBOS (9 and 10). Many of the specific patent issues were ruled on.
Taking these bans off the table is a very good thing. While I think Samsung most certainly engaged in patent violations and deserve the penalty, they aren't a criminal enterprise, they are going to pay reasonable fines and comply with the law.
Re:A pretty good job (Score:4, Interesting)
I think you didn't understand the judge's rulings on the issue of design patents. They were all essentially ruled invalid. This, of course, will be appealed by Apple. But the judge's remarks on the matter make plain sense. The design elements essentially lack "design." Sure, the design of Apple's devices capitalize on simple, clean appearance and construction, but the other side of that approach is that it moves in the direction of "functional design" which is not patentable.
And because so much of Apple's case has been called into question (to put it mildly) the awards in the case will have to be reassessed. And given that the methods of calculation for the damage awards were so... well, "weird" and inconsistent, there will be no effective means to update the damages award to match the updated infringement rulings. This will then require a new trial.
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That brings forth a real interesting legal question. Design patents protect ornamental design, but how does that relate to design which is characterized by a lack of ornamentation? If you include an inlay in a bezel around a screen that is clearly an ornamental design, but is a design which specifically includes no inlay also ornamental in nature and deserving of protection? What if that piece provides a function, but the function is not dependent upon the lack of ornamentation (an inlaid bezel works jus
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That is what I was driving at. A design patent is essentially a copyright as far as I can tell. I know, they aren't the same, but still. We're talking about a design, in this case, which is essentially the most elementary implementation and application of the materials used to construct the thing. Glass is most often flat. How can that be part of a design patent? The shape is rectangular and necessarily has rounded corners of no specific design. However, rounded corners serves the function of durabil
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No I don't follow.
Take bounce back. Clearly Samsung implemented bounce back, clearly the jury found the Samsung mechanism was closely enough to Apple's to violate the patents. How does this not get upheld?
Look and feel issues like home button, rounded corners, tapered edges... that is making a product that appears to similar to another competing product. That sort of thing gets enforced all the time. Fake watches, fake coats, fake purses, There is nothing unusual there.
etc...
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No I don't follow.
Take bounce back. Clearly Samsung implemented bounce back, clearly the jury found the Samsung mechanism was closely enough to Apple's to violate the patents. How does this not get upheld?
Look and feel issues like home button, rounded corners, tapered edges... that is making a product that appears to similar to another competing product. That sort of thing gets enforced all the time. Fake watches, fake coats, fake purses, There is nothing unusual there.
etc...
No. You are free to copy the *exact* design for a coat except for a trademarked logo. If you want to compare fashion to this case, it would mean that Samsung would be allowed to copy everything about the i* design except the Apple Logo. Watch this video for details on how the fashion industry has no copyright protection at all: http://www.ted.com/talks/johanna_blakley_lessons_from_fashion_s_free_culture.html [ted.com]
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The software patent on bounce-back was ruled invalid in other courts. It will likely fail in any appeals.
The design patents were argued down by the judge in her commentary regarding the non-specific language describing the patent.
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I'm not sure I agree. Your argument is that the jury ruled wrongly. If the judge had felt that there Apple had failed to make their case she shouldn't have let it go to the jury. This strikes me as a rather subjective matter of fact, exactly what an appeals court is likely to defer to the jury. But I guess we shall see.
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That was Samsung's case. It was tried in multiple courts and found to be false.
Jury in a civil case? (Score:2)
Why do the US even have a jury in civil cases?
TED talk wowed audience before Apple patent? (Score:1)
Unbiased (Score:2)
I know a lot, if not most posters here are very biased in favor of one company or the other. However in today's ruling, both companies were swinging for the fences, hoping to get lucky, and were rightfully slapped down:
Samsung attacking a juror despite having had ample knowledge and ability to discover potential bias, in order to get the whole thing thrown out and to roll the dice again.
Apple claiming irreparable harm in allowing the infringing devices, in order to get an import/sales ban. This is equally
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Attacking the juror was just pathetic
Despite the juror's admission to the press that he failed to follow jury instructions, claiming that the damages award was meant as punishment when the instructions said no such thing?
Despite the juror's admission to the press that he acted as an expert witness during deliberations, falsely telling the other jurors that prior art which runs on a different processor does not invalidate a patent?
How exactly should one discover during Voir Dire that a juror will do things l
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The stock price has dipped according to Google's report when searching "AAPL" however I don't think it's an amount worthy of panic just yet. However the dip would seem to coincide with the news.
I hope every sane person will realize that both Apple and Samsung will appeal the rulings. And I agree with the concensus that the just was simply tired of dealing with both parties and the mess that this case had become.
The more interesting rulings over Apple's design patents, though, I hope remain. The matter of
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The stock price has dipped according to Google's report when searching "AAPL" however I don't think it's an amount worthy of panic just yet. However the dip would seem to coincide with the news.
Apple's stock has been in free fall for the last couple of months.
They're down to $532 from a September peak of $705.
That's a 25% drop in stock valuation and has nothing to do with the trial.
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Point taken. I didn't look back that far on the graph. I did also see links to stories talking about the value dropping below $500 for the first time in a long time or something like that. Perhaps a 25% drop *is* something to be concerned about. If I were a shareholder, I think I would be upset.
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The stock price has dipped according to Google's report when searching "AAPL" however I don't think it's an amount worthy of panic just yet. However the dip would seem to coincide with the news.
Apple's stock has been in free fall for the last couple of months.
They're down to $532 from a September peak of $705.
That's a 25% drop in stock valuation and has nothing to do with the trial.
Yeah, but it's also a 35% rise over a year.
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Yeah... I know... the style of writing is pretty identifiable even if it isn't littered with bold headings and a thousand links. The troll is Already Proven Krazy and is best left ignored.
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Yes, the judge can set the amount. For example see https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110822/12384515619/riaa-files-expected-appeal-over-judges-decision-to-decrease-jury-award-jammie-thomas-trial.shtml [techdirt.com]
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You're sure about that? The various holdings of the Rothschild clan seems pretty frigging evil to me. The Taliban can't start and end world wide recessions and depressions, after all. The Rothschild clan can, and has.
Re: (Score:2)
Oddly, yes.
Mainly because the $1Bn penalty is completely fucking irrelevant until the Appeal court has had its say. Whereas an all-encompassing injunction would've been pretty harsh.