Judge pares down Apple v. Samsung case exhibits, limits argument time

Posted:
in General Discussion edited January 2014
Apple and Samsung are now limited to 125 exhibits and 25 hours of argument time each to present their respective cases in the California suit that is part of the two companies' ongoing worldwide patent struggle.

U.S. District Court for the Northern California District Judge Lucy Koh set the ground rules on Thursday after counsels for both parties requested specific guidance regarding the scope of the upcoming jury trial, reports Electronista. Along with the new limitations, both Apple and Samsung agreed to drop a number of claims to further streamline the bloated patent suit.

Referral Judge Paul Grewal told the two companies in an earlier hearing on Thursday that Judge Koh would not "accept thousands of documents," prompting both sides to rethink their strategies and pare down claims to only the most relevant.

This is the third time Apple and Samsung have been ordered to drop claims for sake of a shorter trial, with the most recent coming in early May when Judge Koh refused to put jurors through what she called "cruel and unusual punishment." At the time a total of 16 patents, six trademarks, five "trade dress" claims and an antitrust case were part of the trial.

Judge Lucy Koh
Judge Lucy Koh. | Source: U.S. District Court


Judge Koh is a veteran in the dispute and rejected a 2011 Apple request to ban U.S. sales of the South Korean firm's Galaxy Tab in December. She then delayed judgment on a refiling of that same injunction after the iPad maker won a federal appeal that overturned the California court's previous ruling.

Most recently, Samsung tried to have the entire Galaxy Tab case reheard but the attempt was shot down and Apple is now preparing for a hearing that will take place later this month.

Apple also tried to block U.S. sales of Samsung's new Galaxy S III smartphone, though that request was also denied by Judge Koh who said there wasn't enough time to fit a hearing in before the handset launched.

The patent war, which now spans over 10 countries, began in April 2011 when Apple claimed that Samsung copied the look and feel of the iPad and iPhone. As one of the largest disputes of its kind in the world, the heads of both companies were mandated to appear at court-ordered talks in attempts to alleviate mounting pressure but the meeting bore no fruit.

Comments

  • Reply 1 of 15


    Why does the South Korean American Judge take in charge all cases? She is definitely being biased. 

  • Reply 2 of 15
    cnocbuicnocbui Posts: 3,613member


    What is your proof that she is biased?  You do have proof for your slander, I hope.

     

  • Reply 3 of 15
    lightknightlightknight Posts: 2,312member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by MiddleGuy View Post


    Why does the South Korean American Judge take in charge all cases? She is definitely being biased. 





    To whom?

  • Reply 4 of 15
    garamondgaramond Posts: 109member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by lightknight View Post




    To whom?



     


    Does it matter?

  • Reply 5 of 15
    MacProMacPro Posts: 19,712member
    Through all of this I still wonder why the real villain isn't in court ... Why hasn't Apple gone after Google? Making a device look and feel like the iPad wouldn't even be possible without the OS.
  • Reply 6 of 15
    cnocbuicnocbui Posts: 3,613member


    Probably because last time Apple tried the 'Look and Feel' one on Microsoft, it didn't turn out too well.

     

  • Reply 7 of 15
    hill60hill60 Posts: 6,992member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by digitalclips View Post



    Through all of this I still wonder why the real villain isn't in court ... Why hasn't Apple gone after Google? Making a device look and feel like the iPad wouldn't even be possible without the OS.


     


    So which specific model manufactured by Google?


     


    I'm afraid they are rather thin on the ground, unless you count the one's their subsidiary will be making in future.

  • Reply 8 of 15
    tallest skiltallest skil Posts: 43,388member
    middleguy wrote: »
    Why does the South Korean American Judge take in charge all cases? She is definitely being biased. 

    I'd say, "Didn't want your actual account sullied by this nonsensical belief," but you're actually a unique user, so I'm just shaking my head.

    She's an American, by the way.
  • Reply 9 of 15
    bwikbwik Posts: 565member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by MiddleGuy View Post


    Why does the South Korean American Judge take in charge all cases? She is definitely being biased. 



     


    OK I will admit the same thing occurred to me.  But then again, Apple is a California company, and Judge Koh was a California judge for years, has lived in Silicon Valley, and still lives in California.  It is likely Apple has materially increased value of property she may hold, etc.  I think she may care more about California than she does about South Korea.  Also, she is a US government official.  She's probably biased toward Apple overall.


     


    Troublingly, she may be sensitive to the appearance that she favored South Korean interests if she rules for Samsung, just because of her heritage.  This is almost an unfair advantage in Apple's favor.  Hopefully she will just do what is fair.

  • Reply 10 of 15
    jragostajragosta Posts: 10,473member
    Through all of this I still wonder why the real villain isn't in court ... Why hasn't Apple gone after Google? Making a device look and feel like the iPad wouldn't even be possible without the OS.

    As explained countless times before:

    Google is not a manufacturer of infringing devices. Therefore, Apple would have to go after Google for 'contributory infringement' which is somewhat harder to prove than actual infringement. It becomes much easier if they prove actual infringement against someone else first. So they need to win a case against a hardware manufacturer and then can consider going after Google.
  • Reply 11 of 15
    anonymouseanonymouse Posts: 6,855member


    I think the judiciary in this country have lost their edge. Maybe it's because they are all so overworked because a certain far right political party won't confirm anyone nominated by a certain other party, but there's an awful lot of whining going on about cases being too complicated, involving too many claims/patents, and so on.


     


    It's a sad commentary that the courts are apparently unable to deal with complex, large cases.

  • Reply 12 of 15
    al_bundyal_bundy Posts: 1,525member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by digitalclips View Post



    Through all of this I still wonder why the real villain isn't in court ... Why hasn't Apple gone after Google? Making a device look and feel like the iPad wouldn't even be possible without the OS.


    apple just owns the OS and the algorithms to translate the touch input into commands and events. everything else in the ipad is built and patented by someone else. 

  • Reply 13 of 15
    charlitunacharlituna Posts: 7,217member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by digitalclips View Post



    Through all of this I still wonder why the real villain isn't in court ... Why hasn't Apple gone after Google? Making a device look and feel like the iPad wouldn't even be possible without the OS.


     


    Because Google allows their OEMs to make major changes to the OS. And those changes are what in the OS are the violations. And no OEM is disputing that by trying to get a case dropped on the grounds that Google wrote 'that stuff' into the OS. 


     


    As for the whole bias etc stuff, my issue is that a lot of these orders come off as the Judges being lazy not that there's no merit. Posner is doing the same thing and worse he's trying to issue orders that the parties can't ever file on the issues he rejected and that's just wrong. Saying you aren't going to listen to a certain argument at this time because it's being addressed in another similar case, okay fine. Saying that X, Y and Z are basically the same argument so there's no reason to listen to them make it 3 times, okay. But to just blanket say "you can only have 10 things you care about and you have to ignore the other 90 possible violations, and you can't argue them later in another case" is just wrong and no judge should have that power. In fact I suspect they really don't and there will be appeals filed over those games. 


     


    The only thing that makes any sense in all of this is Koh basically telling them to make their best case and make it short and sweet. That's logical. Why shove out 1000 pieces of evidence when the point can be made with 10. So they must do it in 10 and not drag things out unnecessarily. 

  • Reply 14 of 15
    charlitunacharlituna Posts: 7,217member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by bwik View Post


    Troublingly, she may be sensitive to the appearance that she favored South Korean interests if she rules for Samsung, just because of her heritage.  



     


    Actually I suspect that she's very aware of how folks might perceive her either way and she'll make sure that she's got the laws to back up whatever she decides. Then again this is a jury trial so she's not really making the real decisions. So where she or her parents are from is moot


     


    The only way we will ever have judges that can't possibly have any potential bias is if we cook them in a lab and stuff their brains with all the laws they need Matrix style and then send them out to the courts when they are needed for a particular case. And to make sure there's no bias of course we'll have to bake them for that case and then destroy them afterwards. Can't have them out in the world before the case or between cases. 


     


    We'll have to put the in generic clothes, feed them generic food and they don't get to read, watch tv etc. Because all of that might bias them towards something. 

  • Reply 15 of 15
    jragostajragosta Posts: 10,473member
    charlituna wrote: »
    Actually I suspect that she's very aware of how folks might perceive her either way and she'll make sure that she's got the laws to back up whatever she decides. Then again this is a jury trial so she's not really making the real decisions. So where she or her parents are from is moot

    Actually, she's already been overturned once on this case, so she's apparently not all that careful to make sure she has the law to back up what she decides.

    As to the rest, it's naive to think that the judge doesn't matter in a jury trial. A judge can significantly affect the outcome of the case.

    That's not to say that Koh is biased in any way (I'm inclined to believe incompetence is the cause for her blatant errors), but your position isn't very supportable, either.
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