Displaying items by tag: Trade Dress

Last night the verdict was handed down from the jury in the Samsung V Apple and in a staggering leap of logic the 9 person jury found for that Samsung was guilty of willful infringement on the majority of patents that Apple presented, but that Apple had not infringed at all on the Samsung patents. Then they found that Samsung was not-guilty of Anti-Trust behavior for those attempting to enforce those same patents.  Although our initial reaction was shock, after reading the details of the verdict and taking into account how the trial was handled by Judge Lucy Koh we were actually not surprised.

It seems that there is the potential for peace after all between Samsung and Apple. As we have told you over the past few weeks, the patent trial between Samsung and Apple has been a much more tactical event than the show we expected. Both sides have presented many witnesses to support their claims, but were hampered by a time limit imposed by Judge Lucy Koh. The time limit is not unheard of in cases like this as it prevents either side from trying to monopolize time and can help keep things to the facts. We would have to say that Judge Koh’s decision was at least partially successful.

Judge Lucy Koh has asked that Samsung and Apple executive meet for a third time. Her request for a peace talk is coming with only about a day and half of Samsung’s presentation in the bag. This move seems a little odd to us considering her defiance in allowing for key pieces of Samsung evidence to be shown to the jury and her refusal to throw out some Apple patents based on Prior Art.

From the beginning of the Samsung V Apple case we have likened the situation to a battle field.  We have seen ambushes, feints, counters and now landmines. Landmines are one of the worst things that you can find in a battle field. It seems that Samsung laid one down for Apple to step on and the Apple team obligingly did just that. This was in the form of their expert financial testimony about the damages that were due to Apple. Simply put the claims that Apple made were flawed in their core premise that if someone had not opted to by a Samsung phone they would automatically have bought one from Apple.

Apple rested their case today in the Samsung V Apple trial currently underway. Apple’s last big hurrah was parade their licensing chief in front of the jury. From looking at the testimony it was an attempt to show how much Apple tries to cooperate with the competitors. We are not sure that their effort was successful though. The primary focus was to put in a value on the “infringement” that Apple claims Samsung is guilty of.

When we got into the lab this morning and started checking things out we stumbled across something that was simply shocking.  At appears that Judge Lucy Koh has decided to bar testimony of the Samsung designer that started their move to more simple designs. Her claim is that because she did not design any of the phones that Apple claims are infringing her testimony will not be of value: “The risk of undue prejudice to Apple outweighs the probative value of Ms. Park’s testimony”.