To put things rather bluntly Lucy Koh is not the right person for this trial. All you need to do is look at her decisions and actions that have led up to this point to see that. Her complaint that Samsung has filed too many motions is one that borders on the insane. In court motions are filed continuously and to the best of our knowledge there is no actual limitation of presenting evidence in a court case. This is even more true when the evidence is of consequence to the main charges in the case. To disallow evidence because someone has filed “too many motions” is not a sound legal finding and make her appear biased in the extreme, but we have already covered that part adnausem.
What concerns us is that in a trial where Judge Koh is refusing to seal patent agreements between third parties and even between Samsung and Apple why is she so mad that Samsung is finally doing something about the press that Apple has been slinging around the globe? For a couple of years Apple has made public statements that Samsung slavishly copies Apple. We have seen these in press releases, statements from lawyers and executives even when Apple has lost a case they have replied with their claims that Samsung copies Apple.
Samsung is fed up with this and is starting to react. They thought that their proof of designs that predate the launch of the iPhone would do that in court, but Judge Koh wants no part in that. She denied the use of this information. As Judge Koh had already refused to seal the proceedings Samsung should have been free to release that information to anyone they wanted in the same way that Apple releases their boiler plate “Samsung copied us” statements. Even the original briefs that have these as exhibits are public domain. Yet Judge Koh commented that she is considering sanctions against the Samsung Attorneys and Apple is actively asking for sanctions now.
Asking the court to simply rule in its favor and find that Samsung did infirnge, if the court will not issue a summary finding they want the court to state that they (the court) believes that Samsung did copy in their instructions to the jury and then bar Samsung from entering their evidence of prior art again...
"The proper remedy for Samsung’s misconduct is judgement that Apple’s asserted phone design patents are valid and infringed. Through its extraordinary actions yesterday, Samsung sought to sway the jury on the design patent issues, and the proper remedy is to enter judgment against Samsung on those same patents. It would be, to be sure, a significant sanction. But serious misconduct can only be cured through a serious sanction—and here, Samsung’s continuing and escalating misconduct merits a severe penalty that will establish that Samsung is not above the law"
We have a feeling that someone as smart as John Quinn did not do any of this on accident. It is our guess that he knew after a few minutes of dealing with Koh and her refusal to admit crucial evidence and her threat of sanctions that he needed to demonstrate her bias and Apple’s willingness to abuse the situation (as well as a chance to see Apple push out their Slavish copy statement again). It honestly reminds me of something called a rolling ambush. In this nice military tactic you allow your target to come to you with something too good to resist then when you are in apparent retreat you spring the trap.
We can see the beginnings of this as Apple’s PR will want to make their counter claims to squash Samsung’s press release and Lucy Koh will want to punish Samsung for disobeying her and getting around here attempt to prevent all of the evidence from being heard (Apple is using a design built in 2006 as proof of copying, but Samsung is not allowed to tell the jury that the design predates the release of the iPhone).
Judge Koh and Apple are rolling down the road chortling about the easy target that Samsung now presents. Meanwhile we can bet that motions are already typed and ready to go out waiting on their reaction. Like we said Quinn is very smart and is already building on the bias factor by even reminding Judge Koh that the case is actually Samsung V Apple, not Apple V Samsung like she has it listed (Judge Koh refused to change it though). This court battle has become a very tactical thing which is something that we are wondering if Judge Koh and Apple are really up to.
Discuss this in our Forum
