Stupid jury kills innovation/competition and hands Apple a monopoly

[Scoobes]

Jon-Erich said:

kain_kusanagi said:

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/samsung-found-infringe-most-apple-231101124.html

"Apple, based in Cupertino, California, sued Samsung in April 2011, and Samsung countersued as part of a battle being waged on four continents over a smartphone market valued at $219.1 billion according to Bloomberg Industries. The companies have also sued each other in the U.K., Australia and South Korea.

Questions over damages awards were among the more than 600 questions the jury was asked to address. Apple sought $2.5 billion to $2.75 billion for its claims that Suwon, South Korea- based Samsung infringed four design patents and three software patents in copying the iPhone and iPad. Samsung's demand for as much as $421.8 million in royalties was based on claims that Apple infringed five patents.

Apple also wants to make permanent a preliminary ban it won on U.S. sales of a Samsung tablet computer and extend the ban to Samsung smartphones. U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh, who presided over the San Jose trial, would decide that question herself without the jury".

This is bad news and sets a very bad president. The last time Apple tried this they lost and ended up having to pay MS. Today's jury was probably padded with iPhone users who probably think Apple invented touch screens. I can't tell you how disappointed I am. Android is better than iOS and together they push technology forward. Hopefully Samsung will be able to appeal to a higher court and get this overturned.

According to what I read, the jury was actually made up of people with a background in enginerring, a background in law, and the foreman was himself a patent holder. So, they really picked the right people, or at least the people with the right kind of background and credentials. One of them came out after the virdict was handed down and explained the decision. It came down to several things. The incriminating emails from Samsung was a dead givaway that they willingly coppied Apple's designs and did so in a wrongful way that no company would openly admit to doing. Second, the people from Samsung were dodging questions, were not open about a lot of things, and basically did not act like anyone who really was innocent. What finally sealed the deal were the comparison charts; the one with the pictures of the pre-iPhone Samsung smartphones to the left, the first iPhone in the middle, and the Samsung smartphones that came after iPhone to the right.

A lot of people may not have liked what had happened, but it really was a fair trial. Apple made a good case with damnding evidence while Samsung presented themselves very poorly. The key to their entire defense consisted of using footage from movies like 2001: A Space Oddesy and Star Trek as a way of trying convince the jury the Apple's creative ideas were universal. It didn't work. They didn't outright say "yeah, we coppied", but they weren't denying it either and if they were really innocent, why not be more open? Why not give straight, honest answers? 

There are numerous issues with the Jury and the way they managed to get to a verdict so fast. This article does a good job of highlighting some of the inconsistencies:

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=2012082510525390