Apple vs Samsung trial nearing an end

The speed at which the jury came to a decision surprised many people.

A cynic might say collusion could be one possible answer...
 
Samsung's $1 billion fine is nothing compared to the drop in share price of 7.5% today, which wiped $12 billion off the company value.
 
I reckon half the jury had an iphone in their pocket and the other half had a Galaxy tab, otherwise how did the tab dodge the sledgehammer as it says in that article....
 
original article here: http://allthingsd.com/20120826/what-me-worry-google-finally-reacts-to-appsung-verdict/

Google — which went curiously silent on Friday after a blockbuster court win by rival Apple against its Android partner Samsung — finally found its voice today, by releasing a statement about the patent infringement verdict:


“The court of appeals will review both infringement and the validity of the patent claims. Most of these don’t relate to the core Android operating system, and several are being re-examined by the U.S. Patent Office. The mobile industry is moving fast and all players — including newcomers — are building upon ideas that have been around for decades. We work with our partners to give consumers innovative and affordable products, and we don’t want anything to limit that.”

Here’s the translation, for those who don’t speak passive-aggressive:

Good lord, let’s hope Samsung wins on appeal, because if Apple prevails, it might be coming for us next. We hope our massive patent-buying splurge in mobile will protect us, but the there-is-nothing-new-under-the-sun defense is our fallback position.​
But, let us reiterate: Good lord.​
 
How can ordinary everyday men and women possibly know what they are talking about when it comes to this sort of case? Surely it needed experts in the field to decide the ins and outs not shopkeepers and housewives who know jack about technology and patent laws...
 
I have always maintained trial by jury is severely flawed.

The average person is not schooled in the nuances of law, nor able to put aside petty prejudices and preconceptions.
Most people form an opinion within seconds of seeing someone and it is extremely difficult to reverse that opinion.
 
Interesting interview, and I am not sure about the US system, but if that was here in the UK he gave them enough for a mistrial in a few of those answers.

The main area of concern for me is that one person walked the rest of the jury through that persons belief of the patent system and how prior art works. This may have contradicted what they were told in the court (more than certainly did) and actually doesn't match up to my knowledge of software patents (the part about the art being able to run on the differnt platforms is a must for the art to be valid???!!!).
 
Indeed, the verdict looks to be on shaky ground after the foreman's confession that he led/instructed/schooled the rest of the jury.

Not only that, it's his own personal interpretation of the patent system which, as you say, doesn't seem to marry with the actual facts.
 
Oh, and another thought, the argument for why the prior art doesn't apply also could remove one of Apples sources of income (payments from other software developers for windows based systems that supposedly infringe on prior art produced by Apple for the Mac) :D
 
Ding ding seconds out round two....

And Motorola come out fighting and ohhhh a nasty piece of skulduggery by Apple there I'm sure the ref will give them a warning,,,, but no, no he isn't he's warning Motorola instead! Surely this can't be right?
 
And just to bring this one back to life, the US patent office has ruled that some of Apples technology that it holds patents for is no longer covered as the technology that Apple has patented is not far enough dissimilar to prior art (including some of the patents that Apple won the case against Samsung over). This has been forwarded to the court of appeal in order to allow Samsung greater grounds of appeal over the original ruling.

Also means that what was said about the jury foremans understanding of prior art which was used to instruct the rest of the jury being incorrect was actually fairly close to the mark. The definitive authority in the US has now said so. Think this one may come back to bite Apple in the rear harder than they thought, they could loose a large part of their patent portfolio and also quite a large stream of income from other manufacturers...
 
I said all along that trial wasn't right.
The jury foreman essentially rode roughshod over everyone and they deferred to him due to his supposed knowledge.

Here's hoping it backfires badly on Apple and perhaps then this whole ridiculous phase of using patents to stifle technological advancement will come to an end.
 
This whole thing disgusts me. Companies patenting "gestures" such as the "pinch" is totally bonkers. It should be enough for them that they were the first. As a user-experience architect it is my job to design user-interfaces for websites and other web-enabled applications. We don't patent interfaces but instead we all borrow and assemble different interfaces from many different on-line sources. Occasionally we come up with something truly new and innovative and, similarly, that gets copied and reused. I see that as flattery and also as collective progression. Everybody working together to improve the way people interact with applications and make the web a better environment. The best of interfaces become common conventions.

My favourite interface of the week is the scroll wheel on the BBC iPlayer Radio app. I saw that yesterday and thought WOW! I hope to see similar interfaces being used on other applications in the future because it's truly brilliant. For the BBC to go and patent the interface or the concept for the interface would be completely against the principles of the progressive web. By all means, protect content and visual design and branding but leave this sort of thing alone.
 
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