This has to be considered an overall win for Samsung. The fine hurts a bit but an indefinite ban on those products would be a disaster.
Maybe Apple will take a hint and focus their energies on doing something interesting in iOS 7 instead of barking through the fence at every competitor that walks by.
This should have been tried before a different judge. The jury misconduct claims also reflect on judge Koh, she has a stake in letting her old verdict stand.
Her ruling apparently was that there was no misconduct. Normally when there is jury misconduct a mistrial is declared, no matter who picked the jury.
Jury misconduct has nothing to do with who picked them but everything with having a fair trial.
So for Judge Koh to declare that there was no jury misconduct here means that she's essentially saying that she did her job well by not declaring a mistrial. But with the statements made by some of the jurors it is not all that evident that there was no jury misconduct and it should (imo) have been another judge to confirm that, not judge Koh.
Unless I've misunderstood there's no suggestion she acted improperly during the trial - the information that suggests the foreman was essentially biased based on his previous experiences only came up after the trial.
At that point Koh is essentially in the same position as the rest of us - she has to judge the information now available to her which she's done and evidently decided it's not an issue.
But she has nothing to be defensive about and I see no reason why another judge would need to look at it. She could declare a mistrial without it looking bad on her in any way at all.
No she didn't. What she said is that the statements Samsung used in its motion were inadmissible. She did not express any opinion on whether those statements would have constituted jury misconduct if they were admissible.
"In sum, the integrity of the jury system and the Federal Rules of Evidence demand that the Court not consider Mr. Hogan’s post-verdict statements concerning the jury’s decision-making process. None of the cases Samsung cites suggests otherwise. Because the Court cannot consider these inadmissible statements in determining whether to hold an evidentiary hearing, there is no evidence properly before the Court to require such a hearing. Instead, the Court must apply the well established presumption that the jury followed the law."
Why would any judge even bother to dismiss on the grounds that the statements were not sufficient evidence, when the statements are not even admissible? It seems to me to be a bad idea to have judges going around saying "if this evidence were admissible then it would win you the motion/case/whatever".
A Judge will often do something like: It's wrong because of X, but even if X doesn't apply then it's still wrong because of Y.
It's telling that she didn't do that here. (Unless she did and the article just doesn't mention it.)
For example (from this same ruling):
> U.S District Judge Lucy Koh noted that Samsung claims to have "worked around" using different technology than the Apple patents found to have been infringed such as the iPhone's popular "pinch to zoom" feature.
> And even if that's a false claim, the judge ruled, Apple's demands to yank the Samsung products from U.S. shelves and bar future sales was too broad of a punishment in devices built with technology backed by hundreds of patents each.
I don't think that's analogous. In your quoted example, if the judge left it at just the "because of X", then someone could come along and say "here's why X doesn't apply", and she'd have to revisit it. But this way she's saying "even if you disprove X, my ruling stands because of Y".
However, in the case of inadmissible evidence, it seems there's no risk of someone coming along and saying "but it is admissible after all", because it's pretty clear that it's not.
Of course it is, but because of appeals Judges will typically make an extra ruling as if the evidence was admissible (just in case the appeal finds that the evidence was in fact admissible). This way that part is settled either way.
"Judge Koh noted that it would not be in the public's best interest if consumers to deprive them the right to buy Samsung products when only a limited number of features were found to be infringement."
I'm really curious just what evidence is required to consider jury misconduct. Statements from a juror themselves seem like about the best evidence possible. Maybe others with more experience can shed some light?
corporate theft is a real thing, but it can hardly be called corporate theft when things like round corners, big colorful icons, are the thing being "stolen". Apple is not protecting their brand, they are using the law as a weapon against their rivals.
Maybe Apple will take a hint and focus their energies on doing something interesting in iOS 7 instead of barking through the fence at every competitor that walks by.