Jurors knew Samsung was guilty after first day of deliberations, wanted to send message with verdict
A day after the Apple v. Samsung trial concluded with a resounding Apple win, jurors shared their story of how the decision was made to slap Samsung with over $1 billion in damages owed for copying the iPhone maker's patents.
In a pair of reports from Reuters and CNET, jury foreman Velvin Hogan and juror Manuel Ilagan described what went on behind closed doors as the nine-member group deliberated the landmark verdict.
Apple on Friday was awarded nearly $1.05 billion after Samsung was found to have infringed on six of seven asserted patents, while the Korean company won none of their counterclaims.
The one-sided victory for Apple came quickly, as the jury took only 21 hours, or less than three working days, to come to a consensus after counsel spent three weeks presenting arguments and testimony.
Ilagan told CNET the jury was convinced of Samsung's guilt after only one day of deliberations, noting that the seemingly fast verdict was carefully decided after weighing evidence presented by both parties. Altogether, the group had to decide on over 700 questions related to patents and patent rights.
"We weren't impatient," Ilagan said. "We wanted to do the right thing, and not skip any evidence. I think we were thorough.We found for Apple because of the evidence they presented. It was clear there was infringement."
Foreman Hogan echoed the juror's sentiment, telling Reuters that video testimony from Samsung officials made it "absolutely" clear that the company willfully infringed on Apple's trade dress. He went on to say Apple's arguments for the protection of intellectual property factored largely into the jury's decision.
"We didn't want to give carte blanche to a company, by any name, to infringe someone else's intellectual property," Hogan said.
Also factors were a number of internal emails Samsung executives sent to each other regarding features seen on the iPhone, as well as a demonstrative exhibits showing the evolution of the Korean company's phones before and after Apple's handset was released.
As for Samsung's claims of infringement, Ilagan said the company lost the jury when it tried to leverage two UMTS wireless patents against Apple, one of which involved the communications chip in the iPhone and iPad. Apple refuted this specific claim and pointed to a Samsung licensing deal with Intel, the maker of the iDevice chips. The agreement stated that Samsung was not allowed to sue any company to which Intel sold that particular component, a licensing safeguard known as patent exhaustion.
In going through deliberations, jurors had trouble with prior art Samsung counsel presented to counter Apple's patent claims, including the '381 "rubber-banding" and '915 "pinch-to-zoom" patents. Ilagan noted that Hogan, who had been part of a jury three times before, was familiar with patents as he owned a number himself, making the foreman an invaluable asset in navigating the murky waters of invention claims.
After it was decided that Samsung was guilty of infringement, Ilagan said it was easy to determine which handsets were in violation.
"Once you determine that Samsung violated the patents, it's easy to just go down those different [Samsung] products, because it was all the same," Ilagan said. "Like the trade dress -- once you determine Samsung violated the trade dress, the flat screen with the Bezel...then you go down the products to see if it had a bezel. But we took our time. We didn't rush. We had a debate before we made a decision. Sometimes it was getting heated."
Sample of the jury's completed 20-page verdict form. | Source: Apple v. Samsung court documents
After the infringing products were tallied, damages were assigned based on numbers the jury thought was fair but substantial. Apple claimed Samsung enjoyed 35.5 percent profit margins from selling the infringing products, but the jury disagreed and offered a calculation more in line with the Korean company's claim of 12 percent margins.
"We wanted to make sure the message we sent was not just a slap on the wrist," Hogan said. "We wanted to make sure it was sufficiently high to be painful, but not unreasonable."
When asked if the jury knew just how significant the Apple v. Samsung trial was, Ilagan said, "I realized that's a big deal if Samsung can't sell those phones, but I'm sure Samsung can recover and do their own designs." He went on to say, "There are other ways to design a phone. What was happening was that the appearance [of Samsung's phone] was their downfall. You copied the appearance?. Nokia is still selling phones. BlackBerry is selling phones. Those phones aren't infringing. There are alternatives out there."
In a pair of reports from Reuters and CNET, jury foreman Velvin Hogan and juror Manuel Ilagan described what went on behind closed doors as the nine-member group deliberated the landmark verdict.
Apple on Friday was awarded nearly $1.05 billion after Samsung was found to have infringed on six of seven asserted patents, while the Korean company won none of their counterclaims.
The one-sided victory for Apple came quickly, as the jury took only 21 hours, or less than three working days, to come to a consensus after counsel spent three weeks presenting arguments and testimony.
Ilagan told CNET the jury was convinced of Samsung's guilt after only one day of deliberations, noting that the seemingly fast verdict was carefully decided after weighing evidence presented by both parties. Altogether, the group had to decide on over 700 questions related to patents and patent rights.
"We weren't impatient," Ilagan said. "We wanted to do the right thing, and not skip any evidence. I think we were thorough.We found for Apple because of the evidence they presented. It was clear there was infringement."
Foreman Hogan echoed the juror's sentiment, telling Reuters that video testimony from Samsung officials made it "absolutely" clear that the company willfully infringed on Apple's trade dress. He went on to say Apple's arguments for the protection of intellectual property factored largely into the jury's decision.
"We didn't want to give carte blanche to a company, by any name, to infringe someone else's intellectual property," Hogan said.
Also factors were a number of internal emails Samsung executives sent to each other regarding features seen on the iPhone, as well as a demonstrative exhibits showing the evolution of the Korean company's phones before and after Apple's handset was released.
As for Samsung's claims of infringement, Ilagan said the company lost the jury when it tried to leverage two UMTS wireless patents against Apple, one of which involved the communications chip in the iPhone and iPad. Apple refuted this specific claim and pointed to a Samsung licensing deal with Intel, the maker of the iDevice chips. The agreement stated that Samsung was not allowed to sue any company to which Intel sold that particular component, a licensing safeguard known as patent exhaustion.
In going through deliberations, jurors had trouble with prior art Samsung counsel presented to counter Apple's patent claims, including the '381 "rubber-banding" and '915 "pinch-to-zoom" patents. Ilagan noted that Hogan, who had been part of a jury three times before, was familiar with patents as he owned a number himself, making the foreman an invaluable asset in navigating the murky waters of invention claims.
After it was decided that Samsung was guilty of infringement, Ilagan said it was easy to determine which handsets were in violation.
"Once you determine that Samsung violated the patents, it's easy to just go down those different [Samsung] products, because it was all the same," Ilagan said. "Like the trade dress -- once you determine Samsung violated the trade dress, the flat screen with the Bezel...then you go down the products to see if it had a bezel. But we took our time. We didn't rush. We had a debate before we made a decision. Sometimes it was getting heated."
Sample of the jury's completed 20-page verdict form. | Source: Apple v. Samsung court documents
After the infringing products were tallied, damages were assigned based on numbers the jury thought was fair but substantial. Apple claimed Samsung enjoyed 35.5 percent profit margins from selling the infringing products, but the jury disagreed and offered a calculation more in line with the Korean company's claim of 12 percent margins.
"We wanted to make sure the message we sent was not just a slap on the wrist," Hogan said. "We wanted to make sure it was sufficiently high to be painful, but not unreasonable."
When asked if the jury knew just how significant the Apple v. Samsung trial was, Ilagan said, "I realized that's a big deal if Samsung can't sell those phones, but I'm sure Samsung can recover and do their own designs." He went on to say, "There are other ways to design a phone. What was happening was that the appearance [of Samsung's phone] was their downfall. You copied the appearance?. Nokia is still selling phones. BlackBerry is selling phones. Those phones aren't infringing. There are alternatives out there."
Comments
Well, obviously. Everyone knew Samsung was guilty since day 1.
EDIT: Or they are on sided Fantards who are ignorant to the fact that everything Samsung does is to copy Apple. That is the reason why they are so...well...successful. They copy Apple.
EDIT: And you are
Originally Posted by AppleInsider
"We wanted to make sure the message we sent was not just a slap on the wrist," Hogan said.
Be on more tech juries, please.
…Ilagan said, "I realized that's a big deal if Samsung can't sell those phones, but I'm sure Samsung can recover and do their own designs."
"…he said, while stifling laughter and rolling his eyes."
We did too, jurors, we did too.
Well done, jurors. Well done. Common sense prevailed. If only the trolls on this site were equally inclined.
And now we see clearly how distorted the worldview is of the Apple-haters and the rectanglez trolls. They are nowhere near mainstream in their views: their tech/gadget/specs elitism does not represent the view of the average person.
Either she was clueless in reading the jury, or...... (hypothesis?)
Anyway, I am predicting that she does not treble damages nor go with the injunction. I hope I am wrong.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Suddenly Newton
Well done, jurors. Well done. Common sense prevailed. If only the trolls on this site were equally inclined.
Normally theyre on here every thread voicing their wisdom. Been a bit quiet since the verdict. I stumbled across an Android forums linked from a news article on the topic, they're all calling for patent reform now Androids ability to clone iOS has been tarnished
Quote:
Originally Posted by anantksundaram
Given the certitude in the jury, it's interesting that Judge Koh, on the other hand, was framing this as an equally risky proposition for both sides, in urging Apple to settle.
Either she was clueless in reading the jury, or...... (hypothesis?)
Anyway, I am predicting that she does not treble damages nor go with the injunction. I hope I am wrong.
She didn't want the matter going to appeal, because then she'd be under a microscope. So she pushed for a settlement. That *was* one of the theories anyway.
It's gratifying, though, that this went to a jury.
anyone with two eyes could tell you Same-sung was guilty after one second.
He went on to say, "There are other ways to design a phone. What was happening was that the appearance [of Samsung's phone] was their downfall. You copied the appearance?. Nokia is still selling phones. BlackBerry is selling phones. Those phones aren't infringing. There are alternatives out there."
I think this is an important point that the jury (rightly, IMHO) picked up on early- there are other ways to design a smart phone. Blackberry and Nokia phones didn't look like iPhones, so why did Samsung decide theirs -had- to not only look like them, but try to duplicate the iOS user experience? Granted, when a company as innovative as Apple comes up with something that becomes an obvious standard, that doesn't mean it's not protected by patents.
wow! a jury that really understood what the F was going on. who woulda thunk?
this is a shot hear around the world.
Another Extremely Obvious Observation,...from the outside ...not from this Jury's vantaged perception.
If Samsung never COPIED,
they would be in the EXACT SAME BOAT as RIM, HTC, NOKIA, LG, MOTOROLA, and now SAMSUNG, are today.
In other words, it's OBVIOUS that Samsung is having sales success
Unlike, RIM, HTC, NOKIA, LG, MOTOROLA, ...and others.
Their the only company with some level of success
BUT
that success was SOLELY dependent on their COPYING APPLE.
Didn't Samsung's lawyers have jury consultants? Most people can be willing to forgive a slight whiff of greed if the company is otherwise has a good reputation. But nobody likes companies where it's beyond doubt that they're being greedy bastards. So why did Samsung bring this up when it should have been obvious to them that Intel's contract is an obvious defense, and that would prove that Samsung is trying to double-dip against Apple? That's like giving any jury that isn't paid Samsung shills a reason to hate them.
Boy what a wonderful week it's been for Apple. I've bent too busy to read / post, but loved hearing about it in the news.
I'm in the UK & don't own any Apple shares :-( , but also glad I don't own any Samsung or Google :-)
Great to hear the jurors knew, almost from the start, what most of us all believed too.
Might upgrade from my 13" MBP to a 15" MBP to celebrate shortly.
Was anyone troubled/concerned that Apple was only awarded a little over $1b for the whole slew of infringements (which also created a technological revolution), while NTP was awarded over half that ($612.5m) for just their email patent(s) from Research in Motion?
Or is this just apples and samsungs...
What’s amazing to remember is that those awful pre-Apple phone designs were exactly the kind of thing we all drooled over up until 2007!
Quote:
Originally Posted by geoadm
Normally theyre on here every thread voicing their wisdom. Been a bit quiet since the verdict. I stumbled across an Android forums linked from a news article on the topic, they're all calling for patent reform now Androids ability to clone iOS has been tarnished
Yeah, I was wondering about that. Thanks for looking into it. Basically, the Fandroids' position is that patents are evil and that companies should be able to copy with impunity so there is more "choice". But that's not how patent laws work: patent laws protect inventors and innovation, and I'm glad the jury stood up for that.
The "Apple didn't invent anything" and "Everyone copies everyone" trolling was done to throw up a smokescreen to obscure their real agenda: to justify patent infringement necessary to copy the iPhone and iPad experience. How petty.
It's also clear that Google is totally a supporter of the stealing-from-Apple-is-our-moral-right ideology when they tried to argue that whole "de facto essential standards" bullshit to Congress with circular logic.
Yup, the jury system worked. And they protected patents. A victory for those who innovate. A defeat for those who copy. And now they're going to try to undermine the patent system to make it easier to copy.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nagromme
What’s amazing to remember is that those awful pre-Apple phone designs were exactly the kind of thing we all drooled over up until 2007!
I hated every cell phone I had until the iPhone.
1. They found Samsung guilty on a bunch of the phones, but not the Tab - even though the Tab looks closer to the iPad than any of their phones do to the iPhone. Clearly, they accepted some of the prior art arguments even though a concept should not be accepted as prior art.
2. They accepted Samsung's arguments on damages. Apple asked for Samsung to be penalized for the gross margin generated by their products. Samsung said that they should only be penalized by the net. But since the overhead costs are largely fixed, Apple's argument is much stronger. By penalizing Samsung on only the net income, the jury let Samsung keep almost 2/3 of their ill-gotten gains. It's as if you robbed a bank and were allowed to keep 2/3 of what you took.
I love this qoute from the Cnet story:
" During the trial, Apple turned around and pointed to a licensing deal Samsung had with Intel, which made the chips Apple used. Under that deal, Apple said, Samsung was not able to sue any companies Intel sold to. Apple then presented the receipts from when it purchased the accused chips from Intel."
I wish i could have seen Apple demolishing Samsung claim of infringement with a paper receipt.
This is the company that Samsung fans would say was the good guy?
Knowingly accusing infringement which could be easily disproven by their own contract with Intel. Genius!