Judge agrees to hear questions of jury foreman integrity in Samsung v. Apple trial

By Andrew Martonik  | Nov 09 2012 | 6:28 pm  | 30 Comments

Samsung and Apple

It seems at this point that the patent wars will continue. After quite the trial concerning patents and trade dress between Apple and Samsung, appeals thereafter and plenty of arguing outside of court it seems Samsung may have another way to get the previous ruling overturned. Since the judgment came requiring Samsung to pay $1.05 billion in damages to Apple, a whole lot of information concerning the integrity of the trial's jury foreman has come into light.

Judge Lucy Koh has decided to hear statements from Samsung that will call into question whether or not the jury foreman withheld information that would have kept him from being a suitable juror in the case. Also in question is the amount of information Apple had on the foreman's past and whether or not they should have reasonably been expected to disclose that information. Samsung will have to prove not only that the juror lied about his knowledge but also that it affected the outcome of the trial.

Sit tight folks, this isn't going to be over any time soon.

Source: The Verge

Andrew Martonik

"Forever tinkering with gadgets."

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There are 30 comments. Add yours.

Fuzzypaws says:

The fact that the jury foreman had past legal wranglings with Samsung or a subsidiary would in and of itself be sufficient cause to cast everything into question, let alone everything else that went on.

mwara244 says:

I read he had at least Two different law suits with them/ subsidiaries. But he never thought in anyway he would be compromised in a case against samsung. And why is this case Going back to Koh, since she has a history of ruling in favor of Crapple. Must be all the stock options she receives from apple. America, the best judicial system money can buy!

joshua.worth says:

Indeed

SoreAintya says:

I'd also request banking info on everyone from the bailiff to the Amish guy who made the gavel.

Malkozaine says:

I guess we will see how this all goes. At lest she is willing to listen.

gperezarguello says:

Thank you Lucy Koh for doing your job and not being biased... (for now).. I, and all other law abiding citizens, thank you for hearing Samsung out... This should lead to an overturn of that horribly wrong verdict....

Lakers says:

Yeah - I think its a good start that she is willing to listen. Hope this isn't all long and drawn out though and comes to a conclusion within a reasonable period of time.

zorak950 says:

HA! ...Ahem.

icebike says:

She had no choice but to listen.

Samsung had an guaranteed appeal issue issue, and Koh would have had to start all over on remand when a higher court overturned the decision.

Further, she is fighting for her career here. Remember she handed down the initial ban on the Galaxy Tablet stating publicly that it was clear that it violated Apple's patents, only to have this same jury declare that it did not infringe.

She has egg on her face and is hoping to wipe it off by finding cause for a mistrial.

frettfreak says:

Judge koh: "yes I will hear what you have to say"
Sammy lawyers: "ok well, here we have proof that"
Judge koh: "ok in have heard enough. Apple is the greatest company in the world. Now it's 2billion"

The judge is biased for the whole case I doubt it will stop now.

Jason Stafford says:

How can u call one company great u most be an apple fan boy

SoreAintya says:

/facepalm

Lakers says:

hahahahahah - really man? Just, really?

adin99 says:

...smh...smh

Amator Androidicus says:

Well-said!!!!!!!

Icipher says:

Judge Koh is already proven to be uninformed and biased. Sure it's great that she's willing to listen but it won't amount to anything.

vinny jr says:

Samsung needs to make sure their lawyers are not only well schooled in patent law but also in the mobile phone business. Much that was overlooked by Samsung lawyers makes me question their knowledge in the Mobile Phone business. Hope Samsung can get this ridiculous verdict turned around and get some light thrown on this ridiculous patent law system we have. The ridiculous patents that Apple is getting OK'd is just crazy and should be illegal. Something has to be done.

tdizzel says:

We all know how this will go...

Apple lawyer: "Your honor, Apple"
Judge Koh: "I find in favor of Apple"

Amator Androidicus says:

I really do NOT understand why they would let the judge responsible for this very trial be the one who decides whether things were handled right or not. It should be ANOTHER judge reviewing whether or not there was misconduct of any kind. Hopefully, if she finds no misconduct, an appellate court WILL.

someguy01234 says:

opps posted in wrong article

adin99 says:

This literally made me lol

Zammo says:

I thought the case has already been proved unsound by the fact that the foreman said that they never looked at whether Samsung breached Apples patents and just immediately jumped to how many patents they breached and never questioned any of the evidence into how Samsung supposedly copied Apple.

Kmcferrin says:

It was the discussion about prior art that they skipped, because the foreman thought that it was taking too long. They stopped trying to determine validity of the patents based on prior art and just jumped to the "lets see how many infringements we can find" phase.

Kmcferrin says:

So if you'll recall, after this decision the jury (and I think the foreman) came out and said that they were getting bogged down in debates about prior art, that was making deliberations take too long, so they completely dropped that line of discussion and just went to determine whether there were infringements on each claim. Of course, had there been prior art that would have invalidated the patents, the matter of infringement would be irrelevant. But apparently because the foreman "had experience with patents" the rest of the jury went along with it, and we got a final judgement from the jury days or (possibly) weeks earlier than expected. Now we find out that the foreman had an axe to grind against Samsung? I can't imagine this judgement being upheld. I can't imagine anything less that getting it thrown out over jury misconduct.

Mikey47 says:

We will never know or will they be able to prove "he had an Axe to grind". It will simply be enough to show that he "may" have had a bias against Samsung and if divulged in voir dire that Samsung would have used a premptory challenge to have him removed from the jury. His incomplete answer to the question "have you ever been involved in a lawsuit" is the basis for this motion.

af250xxl says:

the jury foreman's integrity?

what about integrity of the judge and attorneys?(of both Apple and Samsung)

overfloater says:

Wow. Layers upon layers of court shenanigans. No doubt Apple will somehow file a counterclaim or countercase or counter-whateveritisthatcomesnext to stifle this invesigation. It's like the frickin' legal version of Inception.

Also begging for an Xzibit meme.

"Hey Apple, I heard you like trials, so I put a trial in your trial so you can litigate while you litigate."

ISS2 says:

Lol @ inception and the Xzibit reference...

tigeryee says:

even though it sucks for Samsung, and they have been unjustly fined, I'm not really sad. We all know that the OTA update was invented by Apple, don't cha know? I saw it in a commercial once. Copy and paste was invented by Apple too. Rounded corners even though the fillets are different size but Samsung just has to play the same way Apple does by bribing the judge/jury if they want to win. Apple and Samsung are giant corporations who have been here for a long time and I have my own baggage that is not worth a billion dollars to take care of -shrug-

Raptor007 says:

I found it comical how the jury foreman steered the jury away from the prior art issue and focused solely on infringement. As mentioned if there is prior art that invalidates any of the claims then their is no infringement. So the lightning fast turn around should have been reason for alarm by the judge in the first place.

As for any bias for the foreman, he has clearly been willing to spout his mouth off every chance he had, his prior legal issues with a subsidiary of Samsung should have been sufficient grounds to bounce him regardless of whether or not Samsung had any slots left to remove him from sitting on the jury. The judge did not do her part in actually insuring the jury followed the detailed instructions, they are in fact written for a reason, to insure they are done and that they have material to go back to why deliberating.

Apple also continued to pile on every possible device, patent claim and excuse they could to stack this case against them. Given the fact that the jury does not have sufficient technical background how would or could they be expected to determine that Apple had in fact violated Samsung's patents pertaining to 3G implementation.

Apple has shown time and again that they are NOT WILLING to negotiate on any SEP and FRAND based patents and feels any such patent is worse $1 or less when in fact without the SEP based technology Apple wouldn't have been able to design anything let along a chunky phone.