Apple accuses Qualcomm of tampering with star witness in patent trial
A key witness in Apple's patent trial against Qualcomm is no longer helping the iPhone maker, Apple confirmed on Thursday, with engineer Arjuna Siva no longer scheduled to testify at the trial putting a dent into the company's case against the chip producer.
Arjuna Siva a former engineer for Apple, was supposed to be testifying on behalf of the company in its current Qualcomm trial, under the argument Siva should be named as co-inventor on one of the patents under dispute. In a dramatic turn of events, Siva is no longer going to be taking to the stand.
Apple counsel Juanita Brooks advised to CNet on Thursday of the sudden change, with Siva said to be retaining new counsel that has advised him not to answer questions from Apple itself. While Siva is not intending to take part in the trial, Brooks notes he will still testify if subpoenaed, but the chances of that happening are quite low.
It is unclear exactly why Siva is no longer helping Apple, but it is noted by Brooks that Siva's new counsel is a former partner of Quinn Emanuel, the law firm working to represent Qualcomm. Brooks has accused Qualcomm of witness tampering and advised Apple has no intention of calling Siva to speak, declaring "He's a tainted witness."
Quinn Emanuel's David Nelson, acting as Qualcomm's counsel, denied the tampering claim to Judge Sabraw. "I don't get angry very often," Nelson asserted. "I lead this team. I consider this a personal attack."
Judge Sabraw responded advising the court would continue to look into the sudden events, but told Nelson "There's no indication that you or anyone at Qualcomm has anything to do with this."
Siva was originally meant to be testifying over his involvement in the creation of U.S. Patent No. 8,838,949, titled "Direct scatter loading of executable software image from a primary processor to one or more secondary processor in a multi-processor system." It was claimed on Monday that the Qualcomm-owned patent should have given some credit to Siva, as he apparently spawned the idea and discussed it with his counterparts at Qualcomm over email.
Qualcomm disputes the allegation, with one of the named inventors claiming Siva did "nothing at all" to contribute to the patent.
Arjuna Siva a former engineer for Apple, was supposed to be testifying on behalf of the company in its current Qualcomm trial, under the argument Siva should be named as co-inventor on one of the patents under dispute. In a dramatic turn of events, Siva is no longer going to be taking to the stand.
Apple counsel Juanita Brooks advised to CNet on Thursday of the sudden change, with Siva said to be retaining new counsel that has advised him not to answer questions from Apple itself. While Siva is not intending to take part in the trial, Brooks notes he will still testify if subpoenaed, but the chances of that happening are quite low.
It is unclear exactly why Siva is no longer helping Apple, but it is noted by Brooks that Siva's new counsel is a former partner of Quinn Emanuel, the law firm working to represent Qualcomm. Brooks has accused Qualcomm of witness tampering and advised Apple has no intention of calling Siva to speak, declaring "He's a tainted witness."
Quinn Emanuel's David Nelson, acting as Qualcomm's counsel, denied the tampering claim to Judge Sabraw. "I don't get angry very often," Nelson asserted. "I lead this team. I consider this a personal attack."
Judge Sabraw responded advising the court would continue to look into the sudden events, but told Nelson "There's no indication that you or anyone at Qualcomm has anything to do with this."
Siva was originally meant to be testifying over his involvement in the creation of U.S. Patent No. 8,838,949, titled "Direct scatter loading of executable software image from a primary processor to one or more secondary processor in a multi-processor system." It was claimed on Monday that the Qualcomm-owned patent should have given some credit to Siva, as he apparently spawned the idea and discussed it with his counterparts at Qualcomm over email.
Qualcomm disputes the allegation, with one of the named inventors claiming Siva did "nothing at all" to contribute to the patent.
Comments
Brooks said Siva's new counsel is a former partner at Quinn Emanuel, the law firm representing Qualcomm. She accused Qualcomm's defense of witness tampering, and indicated Apple would not be subpoenaing Siva. "He's a tainted witness," she said.
Source: CNET
https://www.cnet.com/news/apple-dealt-a-blow-loses-star-witness-in-qualcomm-trial/
They are scum.
No wonder Qualcomm retained them.
Sounds like a Quinn Emanuel move.
There's various circumstances where he might want to avoid testifying, and even Apple now doesn't want him to. To me that seems to imply the latter scenario rather than him being "paid off" to lie by Qualcomm.
Apple to my knowledge, has never been accused of perjury in their cases, although you might have other info.
I didn’t say he was paid off to lie, just paid off NOT to testify.
Apple’s legal team has been planning this case for awhile. Siva was a witness for Apple and was planning to appear until suddenly a change of heart.
The odd thing is Qualcomm argues that even though he was one of the engineers who was involved in the disputed patent, they painted him as someone who didn’t contribute anything to be named as a co-inventor.
Apple knew what kind of contribution he made, and was planning to make him a key witness.
To me that is very odd, especially since 5G is the topic at the moment and guess who’s driving that hype bus?
??
He told Apple a story that Apple decided to include in this court case and now for whatever reasons thinks he needs to lawyer up and not testify unless legally required to. If it was simply a matter of not wanting to/having the time to testify any longer he wouldn't lawyer-up IMHO.
Perhaps he wasn't aware of the depth and detail of QC's notes on this until after he had already spoken with Apple attorneys, and maybe his memory has been refreshed since.
Everyone involved knows exactly what happened, and each party know the others know. The jury won’t though, and that’s what matters to QC. Gotta love the righteous indignation of the QC lead counsel, though lol.
Say what?
How can simply telling the truth about your interactions with Qualcomm while working at Apple be considered perjury? Obviously Apple wants him to talk about the emails and to clarify what communication transpired between the two companies. Some of that could be an opinion of what was going on, particularly if Siva's counterpart at Qualcomm saw things a bit differently. This is why we have trials to sort out what really happened through testimony of multiple people. Just because two people disagree doesn't mean one of them is lying. To suggest he could commit perjury is to suggest Apple wanted him to lie, since Siva would normally be in full control of what he says. He would have to be "ordered" to commit perjury.
And are you seriously claiming it's not suspicious that his counsel is formerly from Quinn Emmanuel?
Bull, you implied it.
It doesn't matter what notes Qualcomm has on their interactions. All Siva has to do is tell the truth about what happened and his understanding of their communications.
It's HIGHLY suspicious that he needs to lawyer up. There's no way he could get into any trouble at all by simply showing up and answering questions asked of him.
Edited: If his memory has been "refreshed" he could simply tell Apple that and they could decide if they still wanted him to testify. He doesn't need a lawyer just because his recollection of events has changed.
My suspicious mind has me thinking Arjuna Siva be added to a watch list for financial transactions that are not consistent with past transactions, expedited green card activity, a job change from Google, the start of his own business that could have influenced his sudden decision to lawyer up and to not answer questions from Apple.