Slideshow: The jury's job in Apple vs. Samsung

8/21/2012 10:15 PM EDT

Methinks deliberations may take awhile, and if they don't, that would be pretty telling.

8/22/2012 2:57 AM EDT

Apple will get some verdicts and Samsung will appeal. Then they will settle. Lawyers smile.

8/22/2012 3:52 AM EDT

I guess they have to hire more assistants. Good they can give employment :-)

8/22/2012 4:12 AM EDT

As far as I know, the all "patents" in question are "design" patents for the "trade dress" (that is the non-functional aspects of the designs) of Apple produts and not for "utility" patents. In which case, does the "non obvious' rule apply? Don't "trade dress" issues, like trademarks hinge on "confusion" rather than copying what most people would consider a real "invention"? So would Apple have us believe that from more than a couple of feet away any reasonable person with normal eyesight can tell any of the smartphones apart? Or even distinguish them from a giant Chiclet?

8/22/2012 4:13 AM EDT

Or is some totally clueless person going to wander into Best Buy intent on buying an iPad and wander out with a Galaxy Tab (or whatever it's called) instead? There was a case where Harvey Comics sued the Ghostbusters people because one of their ghosts looked sort of like one the ghost in the Ghostbusters logo.The judge threw the case out saying, "There are only so many ways to draw a ghost." There are only so many ways to fit an LCD panel from one of the two firms that make them in a case no wider and thicker than most hands can hold yet will contain all the parts, battery, and antenna necessary for...um...utility. And, let's face it, phones are really fungible items. They all make calls, text, surf the web, etc. and meet the same international specs.

8/22/2012 4:15 AM EDT

The only way to peddle such a fungible item is to artificially "uniquify" it with marketing dodges and "style cues," IMHO. Further, you engineers could do your fellow citizens a favour by doing the simple math to convert texts, minutes of voice, and bytes of data to bytes of data and thereby show the public how badly cell phone companies and their "packages" are rooking everyone. And how the cell phone companies (most of whom do not own a single site) could simply, like gas, electricity, and water vendors simply send you a bill at the end of the month for total bytes used. And have a gauge on your phone that would show, in dollars, your bill to date, right? Would be easy to do technically, right? If one cell phone company went to a flat rate, the rest would have to follow or shrivel up and die of embarrassment, right?

8/22/2012 3:18 PM EDT

Be warned. This result could create an incredible expansion of similar types of lawsuits. Once lawyers $mell the blood in the water...

8/22/2012 3:34 PM EDT

I just hope that the Jury has been selected very carefuly avoiding opiniated people like you Charles.

8/22/2012 3:36 PM EDT

Rick, Obviousness is a "term of art" in this field. You cannot interpret it using the simple dictionary definition. Some of the most elegant inventions are the simplest to understand, and there is a strong temptation among the unschooled to point at those and say "Oh, that's obvious."

The description in this field which you included on the first page of the article is straightforward. Let me illustrate by example.

Suppose you submitted a patent application for a squeeze-bulb horn which clamps onto the tubular handle of a coaster wagon. The patent examiner is not allowed to dismiss your application by stating "Oh, that's obvious." But he can show you two pieces of prior art: a horn which clamps to the handlebar of a bicycle and a coaster wagon with a tubular handle, both of which predate your invention. The examiner can state that given the problem of needing a horn on a coaster wagon, and having both pieces of prior art before him, it would be obvious to a person with ordinary skill to combine them to achieve the desired result.

8/22/2012 3:45 PM EDT

It seems as though these instructions are extraordinarily detailed and essentially pigeon holes the jurors to award cash. I wonder how much help the judge had in generating these instructions?

8/22/2012 6:20 PM EDT

I'm not sure I even know what "preponderance" means. It's one of those legal terms that I've never heard except in TV and movie courts. "Honey, I find a preponderance of the shoes sold at Macy's to be in our closet."

I'm a normal intelligent human and have never heard the term "trade dress" unless two little girls were playing dress-up. The jury instructions also act like the common citizen has great knowledge of antitrust laws and contractual obligations. I have an opinion, but wouldn't claim to understand the laws regarding either, legally. Maybe that's summarized in the other 90 pages. Will the jurors be given a Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas break?

8/22/2012 6:23 PM EDT

Gotta love the requirement of "level of education".

The most innovative ideas I have seen have come from people who were not taught what you cannot do via the education system and were free to learn what could be done using their imagination and ingenuity. In other words these were the strikers out there who educated themselves by success or failure rather than presuming that all of their educators did not limit their curriculum to the content and included what is probable as well.

8/23/2012 11:59 AM EDT

This case makes my head hurt. I wish there was a way to punish both companies equally, and the lawyers as well, for wasting everyone's time on this. It's dumb. Apple has forever been stealing ideas, inventions, and design from other people. Now they are mad that someone thought their re-mixed ideas were good enough to steal. Samsung never would have bothered trying to enforce their patents if that had just been left alone. Embrace the remix.

http://www.ted.com/talks/kirby_ferguson_embrace_the_remix.html

8/23/2012 3:28 PM EDT

Does anyone else find it odd that Apple seem to think that $450 million is a ridiculous amount to pay Samsung for infringement, yet does not bat an eyelid asking for $2500 million from Samsung for infringement?