apple v. samsung

I don't know about the trial of the century.

But in the absence of women who are accused of doing unspeakable things to their children or famous people accused of murder, Apple and Samsung have provided a spectacle that really should have attracted the intellect of Nancy Grace.

Now that the jury is going away to see if it can keep its sanity, perhaps it's worth boiling down the essences, while these fine people struggle with a verdict form that is really a multiple choice test far more taxing than the SATs.

When the respective lawyers stood up yesterday to make their final pleas, … Read more

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- While Apple has painted Samsung as a copycat, Samsung fired back today, saying that if Apple wins its case, consumers would lose.

"Your decision, if you go Apple's way, could change the way competition works in this country," Samsung attorney Charles Verhoeven told jurors after pointing to the large collection of press in the back of the courtroom who were there to see closing arguments from both sides in the Apple v. Samsung patent trial.

"Rather than competing in the marketplace, Apple is seeking a competitive edge in the courtroom," he … Read more

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Apple highlighted its broad collection of Samsung internal documents, and not the millions of dollars spent on witnesses, as reasons the jury should take its side in the patent case it filed against Samsung.

Apple attorney Harold McElhinny delivered the company's closing arguments in the form of a greatest hits from the evidence and testimony delivered during the company's trial with Samsung. However, he put the focus on the paperwork Apple obtained ahead of the trial.

"Witnesses can be mistaken. They can be mistaken in good faith," McElhinny said. "Exhibits that … Read more

Lucy Koh is chewing someone out again.

Anyone following the Apple v. Samsung patent trial has noticed the frequency with which Koh, the U.S. district judge presiding over the case, has scolded lawyers from both sides.

The most vivid example came last week, when Apple lawyers notified Koh that they wished to cram a large number of witnesses into the remaining few hours they had to make their arguments. This would have added to the mountain of paperwork and generated more work for Koh and her staff.

"Come on," Koh told Bill Lee, one of Apple's … Read more

The attempt to goad Apple and Samsung into settling at least part of their ongoing patent dispute has apparently been fruitless.

Apple CEO Tim Cook and Samsung CEO Kwon Oh Hyun were asked by U.S. District Court Judge Lucy Koh to discuss possible resolutions of their patent litigation, which is nearly in jurors' hands. However, that conversation failed to break the deadlock between the two companies.

"The CEOs did speak... [but] there was no resolution," Samsung counsel Kevin Johnson told Koh late this afternoon.

The court-mandated conversation was an 11th-hour attempt to settle the companies' high-stakes charges … Read more

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Facing disclosure to a jury that both Apple and Samsung failed to uphold document retention laws, the two companies struck a deal to keep the matter private.

The offer came during a public hearing before U.S. District Court Judge Lucy Koh earlier today as both sides hashed out last-minute jury instructions and the particulars of a verdict form.

After Koh told Apple that she would be siding with Samsung over a retaliatory filing that would require her to tell jurors that both companies failed to retain e-mails (and other documents that might be critical to … Read more

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- Apple and Samsung brought out high-paid experts to figure out what each company owed the other in damages, but how will a jury of average Americans do when they get to make that decision?

That's on the mind of U.S. District Court Judge Lucy Koh, who expressed concern about the outcome while both companies hash out some last-minute arguments today.

"I am worried we might have a seriously confused jury here," Koh told legal counsel from both companies. "I have trouble understanding this, and I have spent a little more time … Read more

Apple argued today that Samsung Electronics's Galaxy Nexus copies many of the key features of the iPhone, including voice-control Siri, and should be banned from the U.S.

The argument is a rehash of points made during an initial clash between Apple and Samsung in a Northern California district court, a case in which Apple successfully won. Samsung appealed the ruling, and the two companies are at it again in a U.S. appeals court in D.C.

The case is separate from the ongoing trial between the two technology behemoths going on in San Jose, Calif. While that … Read more

SAN JOSE, Calif. -- While the majority of the exhibits in the case between Apple and Samsung are commercially-available products and electronic documents, there's one peculiarity that stands out.

That would be a re-creation of the Fidler tablet, a skunkworks project out of publishing conglomerate Knight Ridder that very well could have changed both the technology and media industries had it seen the light of day. Roger Fidler worked with a team on a media tablet prototype when he ran the Knight Ridder Information Design Lab in the early 1990s.

The product never made it to market, of course. … Read more