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This whole case genuinely scares me for our legal system. It seems like once they found a jury foreman who had his own patent and played to his fears of "what

This whole case genuinely scares me for our legal system. It seems like once they found a jury foreman who had his own patent and played to his fears of "what if someone did this to my patent" put himself in Apples shoes and did all he could to make sure they won. Kind of feels like they shouldn't have even bothered with a trial once people are saying "yeah, we didnt even bother to consider samsungs arguments of prior use, we just didn't have time" when the jury came back with a verdict VERY quickly. If you listen to the interviews it sounds like almost every juror decided "well the foreman seems like he knows what hes doing, I'll go along with that." This is not the way our legal system should work.

EvanKelly 14y ago
After seeing interviews with the foreman, I'm surprised he wasn't struck from the jury by either side before the trial even started.
- tedunangst 14y ago
  Yes. I suspect Samsung felt he would "see through the bullshit" or whatever. Dangerous game to play.
  - lurker14 14y ago
    I keep thinking that he's some sort of (witting or unwitting) plant from Samsung, put there to taint the trial and have the whole thing discarded on appeal.
    - logn 14y ago
      Lawyers widely view trials as a crapshoot anyway. There's all sorts of risk taking and gambling involved. They probably rolled the dice that this guy is anti-patent. When a lot of engineers see the final patent (they "wrote"... with the help of lawyers) they don't even understand it themselves. I saw it done with my own patent. You send off a very nice, clear, concise technical explanation and it comes back in Greek. Plus, I have found that most software people are anti-patent because we're always failing stuff on the obviousness test.
ryanhuff 14y ago
Its not the legal system that worries me, but instead, its how the tech community seems to misunderstand how the patent system works. I am not a lawyer, but through this whole affair, I have listened to tech pundits and others opining about the case, and I have become more and more frustrated as these people provide lazy opinion based mostly on irrelevant information. Its not the patent abstract, or common belief of what a specific patent entails, that matter. Its the very specific patent claims. The same goes for "prior art". People really need to read the patent claims, and consider all the claims in the patent as a whole, before expressing frustration about how these cases are developing.
- rjsamson 14y ago
  I don't know why more folks on HN don't understand this (or maybe the ones that do are just remaining more silent on the issue). I don't think I've ever seen so much ignorance rise to the top in HN comments as I have the past few days.
  - mbreese 14y ago
    I think that the ones who do are silent on the issue because it's not a popular view point to defend these patents (or any patents). There are so many people that already had their minds made up that anything that ran counter to that viewpoint was obviously wrong, or biased, or ignorant. Or they would rather attack the jury for having to try to work through a really complicated case and coming to a different conclusion than they would have. Or maybe they'd rather just ridicule the foreman's patent... because that's helping a lot. But really, who has read the points of the patents, or the prior art? Who actually followed the case in it's entirely without cherry picking comments from media coverage? And more importantly, who actually understands patent law? I think a lot of people think that they do. This is one of the persistent issues that we'll have to deal with on HN for the next few months. Any time an Android vs. iOS article appears it polarizes this community like none other. Hopefully after a while it will all die down... Then just wait for the appeals court decision...
  - benologist 14y ago
    HNers are just regular people. They were regular people when they filled out the registration form that is the sole barrier to entry on HN, and when they did it in years past on Reddit and Digg too.

EvanKelly 14y ago

After seeing interviews with the foreman, I'm surprised he wasn't struck from the jury by either side before the trial even started.

tedunangst 14y ago
Yes. I suspect Samsung felt he would "see through the bullshit" or whatever. Dangerous game to play.
- lurker14 14y ago
  I keep thinking that he's some sort of (witting or unwitting) plant from Samsung, put there to taint the trial and have the whole thing discarded on appeal.
  - logn 14y ago
    Lawyers widely view trials as a crapshoot anyway. There's all sorts of risk taking and gambling involved. They probably rolled the dice that this guy is anti-patent. When a lot of engineers see the final patent (they "wrote"... with the help of lawyers) they don't even understand it themselves. I saw it done with my own patent. You send off a very nice, clear, concise technical explanation and it comes back in Greek. Plus, I have found that most software people are anti-patent because we're always failing stuff on the obviousness test.

ryanhuff 14y ago

Its not the legal system that worries me, but instead, its how the tech community seems to misunderstand how the patent system works. I am not a lawyer, but through this whole affair, I have listened to tech pundits and others opining about the case, and I have become more and more frustrated as these people provide lazy opinion based mostly on irrelevant information. Its not the patent abstract, or common belief of what a specific patent entails, that matter. Its the very specific patent claims. The same goes for "prior art". People really need to read the patent claims, and consider all the claims in the patent as a whole, before expressing frustration about how these cases are developing.

rjsamson 14y ago
I don't know why more folks on HN don't understand this (or maybe the ones that do are just remaining more silent on the issue). I don't think I've ever seen so much ignorance rise to the top in HN comments as I have the past few days.
- mbreese 14y ago
  I think that the ones who do are silent on the issue because it's not a popular view point to defend these patents (or any patents). There are so many people that already had their minds made up that anything that ran counter to that viewpoint was obviously wrong, or biased, or ignorant. Or they would rather attack the jury for having to try to work through a really complicated case and coming to a different conclusion than they would have. Or maybe they'd rather just ridicule the foreman's patent... because that's helping a lot. But really, who has read the points of the patents, or the prior art? Who actually followed the case in it's entirely without cherry picking comments from media coverage? And more importantly, who actually understands patent law? I think a lot of people think that they do. This is one of the persistent issues that we'll have to deal with on HN for the next few months. Any time an Android vs. iOS article appears it polarizes this community like none other. Hopefully after a while it will all die down... Then just wait for the appeals court decision...
- benologist 14y ago
  HNers are just regular people. They were regular people when they filled out the registration form that is the sole barrier to entry on HN, and when they did it in years past on Reddit and Digg too.