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Samsung claims Apple patent verdict tainted by jury foreman

147 points by njx 14y ago

debacle 14y ago
This Hogan fellow just keeps getting better and better.
- ohashi 14y ago
  For Samsung.
ChuckMcM 14y ago
So folks who have been wondering since day one after the trial what Samsung was going to do, this seems to be the answer. Hard to prove that a jury tampered with itself, but if they can construct a plausible grudge motive, perhaps the judge will see it there way.
- debacle 14y ago
  It's not hard to prove the jury tampered with itself if you have multiple accounts of jurors saying that the foreman tampered with the jury. I can't imagine any judge not being furious at the conduct of the foreman in this case.
  - ChuckMcM 14y ago
    On the contrary, it is quite difficult, the jury is expected to deliberate. If you look at how Samsung's lawyers have made their argument, they focus on how things "outside" the trial made it into the the jury deliberation room. This is a common theme in successful tampering arguments, that it is an external influence that is extra-judicial which has tainted the jury deliberation. So the argument Samsung makes is that the Jury foreman manipulated the process with intent and premeditation and that tainted the process. They are trying to show that by showing that the foreman had a grudge (motive), and made an opportunity (perjured themselves during the voir dire) so he brought this extra-judicial plan into the courtroom and sprang it on an unsuspecting defendant (Samsung). Just being incompetent in following the judges instructions does not rise to the level of tampering or jury misconduct. I find it amazing this guy (the foreman) talks to the press, clearly he loves the limelight, but man he isn't doing himself any favors.
- blrgeek 14y ago
  Actually it's not that hard in this case since it's not 'jury tampering' in this case - merely 'juror misconduct'. They don't need to show motive even, just that it happened. The jury is not supposed to deliberate on matters of law - they are supposed to weigh the evidence and deliberate on the specific questions they have and the instructions they have. [added] What Juror's should/not do -- “was applying his experience to question the law, not using his experience to determine the facts” For instance, they had specific instructions on what was patentable as a design patent, and what constituted 'prior art'. The jury cannot use a different definition of 'prior art' or deliberate on the definition of 'prior art', or use their previous legal experience to expand or explain 'prior art'. That would be considered jury misconduct. This is why the jury is asked whether they can set aside their previous experience and deliberate using only the evidence and instructions for this case. Why is this necessary? Because matters of law could and do change, and are not for the jury to take a call on. [Not talking about jury nullification here].
  - politician 14y ago
    “was applying his experience to question the law, not using his experience to determine the facts” If successful, this line of reasoning will have consequences for the doctrine of jury nullification.
    - jlgreco 14y ago
      Unless I am mistaken, the laws that make jury nullification possible are something that really only works one way. A jury can refuse to find someone guilty, despite all evidence for whatever reason they wish, but I don't think the opposite is true. An inbalance between 'guilty' and 'innocent' is built into the system, for example you can appeal a guilty verdict, but cannot appeal an innocent verdict. At least I hope my understanding is correct...
      - makomk 14y ago
        I'm pretty sure your understanding is correct. A jury finding of "not guilty" in a criminal case cannot be overturned by a judge, but that's not true of any other finding a jury might make.
- nollidge 14y ago
  More than a grudge motive, wouldn't that be straight-up perjury? If I remember my own experience correctly, we were under oath during jury selection.
  - redsparrow 14y ago
    He claims that he was only asked about lawsuits from the previous 10 years but the Seagate lawsuit occurred in 1993 so he didn't feel obligated to mention it.
    - codeka 14y ago
      The actual transcript (which you can find on Groklaw) shows that there was no "10 year" limit, he completely made that up.
      - vidarh 14y ago
        The interesting thing, which to me at least speaks to intent, is that there would be an understandable reason for him to omit it: The judge didn't follow through. She asked him about the first case he mentioned, and then moved on without asking if there were any more. If this was a totally innocent slip, the most believable excuse to me would be that he wrongly assumed that since the judge moved on, she had satisfied herself of what mattered with respect to his experience with trials and did not see a need to concern herself with any other ones, and that he did not know of Samsungs ownership interest in Seagate, and so did not see a specific reason to mention that case and he also found it embarrassing. Instead he's inventing an excuse that is directly contradicted by the transcript, that is just serving to make the whole thing look more dubious. At the same time, though, it seems quite inept of the judge to not dot the i's by being precise enough to ask even "any more?" or similar before moving on. Surely a trial judge ought to know that people make stupid assumptions about what a question means all the time.
DanBC 14y ago
Another article with some details of his case with Seagate (http://newsandinsight.thomsonreuters.com/Legal/News/ViewNews.aspx?id=57594 http://newsandinsight.thomsonreuters.com/Legal/News/ViewNews...)
- mih 14y ago
  Groklaw's take on this http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20121002201632770 http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20121002201632770
  - vvhn 14y ago
    Looking at Groklaw's overall coverage of this, you have to wonder if she and not Quinn Emanuel are Samsung's legal team :-)
  - macchina 14y ago
    The lawyer who sued Mr. Hogan on behalf of Seagate back in 1993 is now married to a partner at Quinn Emanuel, the lawyers for Samsung. Wow. Pretty bizarre coincidence, but I can't imagine Hogan was aware of this at trial.
  - Terretta 14y ago
    Groklaw coverage is a convenient place for the latest links, but their commentary is beyond biased. They attempt to color what you're about to read. Here's a particularly obvious example: Commentary: Hogan did not mention the case brought against him by Seagate in voir dire, significantly enough, even though he was specifically asked by the judge, as were all the prospective jurors, to list all cases any of them was ever involved in as a witness or a party. Hogan told Reuters (see 2012 [PDF]) that he wasn't asked about all cases. But he was, as you can see for yourself in the transcript [PDF] of the voir dire. No, Hogan was not "specifically asked ... to list all cases" according either Samsung's filing or the linked transcript. At least Samsung's filing gets it right: Asked by the Court whether “you or a family member or someone very close to you [has] ever been involved in a lawsuit, either as a plaintiff, a defendant, or as a witness?” he disclosed one such lawsuit but failed to disclose two others... Sorry, Groklaw, Hogan was not "specifically" asked to "list all" cases. The actual question, including sentences before and after for context (all caps in transcript): LET'S CONTINUE WITH THE QUESTIONS. THE NEXT QUESTION IS, HAVE YOU OR A FAMILY MEMBER OR SOMEONE VERY CLOSE TO YOU EVER BEEN INVOLVED IN A LAWSUIT, EITHER AS A PLAINTIFF, A DEFENDANT, OR AS A WITNESS? LET'S SEE. ON THE FIRST ROW, WHO WOULD RAISE THEIR HAND TO THAT QUESTION? ALL RIGHT. LET'S GO TO MR. HOGAN. The question "specifically" asks about the singular, "a lawsuit". Note the phrase "who would raise their hand to that?" It's a binary question. At the time of the question, it wasn't about patents, it was to determine if jurors have encountered the court system as a participant, yes or no. The followup questions did drill into the nature of the case Hogan mentioned, but the judge didn't follow up further because that wasn't the purpose of the original question. Skipping down in the transcript a bit, the judge tells us the purpose of the "have you been involved in a lawsuit" question: WE'LL TALK FURTHER ABOUT WHO'S BEEN ON JURY DUTY, BUT THERE ARE DEFINITELY DIFFERENT, YOU KNOW, STANDARDS OF PROOF IN DIFFERENT CASES, AND I JUST WANTED TO MAKE SURE -- YOU ALL HAD CIVIL CASES, SO I WOULD ASSUME THAT YOU ALSO HAD, YOU KNOW, PREPONDERANCE OF THE EVIDENCE. DOES THAT SOUND FAMILIAR? This makes it clear the question wasn't how many cases the juror was involved in, but whether the juror had been exposed to concepts around rule of law in different types of cases. The judge continues: AND WE'LL TALK ABOUT THIS A LITTLE BIT LATER ON, BUT IN DIFFERENT TYPES OF CASES, THERE MAY BE DIFFERENT STANDARDS OF PROOF, AND ALSO THE LAW MAY HAVE CHANGED SINCE WHENEVER YOU WERE A LITIGANT. SO I WANT TO MAKE SURE THAT BOTH MR. HOGAN, AND MS. ROUGIERI, THAT YOU WOULD APPLY THE LAW AS I INSTRUCT YOU AND NOT BASED ON YOUR UNDERSTANDING OF THE LAW BASED ON YOUR OWN CASES. So no, Hogan was responsive and accurate and the question was not asking for an itemized list of cases. It was to set up the point about standards of proof and judicial instructions.
JimmaDaRustla 14y ago
"I laid it out for them."
- Terretta 14y ago
  Anyone who thinks that isn't how most juries go probably hasn't done much jury duty. There's always someone who thinks they know what's going on, or who the others think knows what's going on. That's why they get elected foreman.
  - ryanmolden 14y ago
    As a counter point, on my grand jury only one or two people even wanted to be foreman, and neither were viewed as "knowing what they were talking about", since election happens on day one and no one really knows anyone else at that point. Civil cases may be different but I don't get the general impression lots of people are vying for the job. It may be a case of adverse selection: anyone angling to be foreman probably shouldn't be made foreman :)
  - praptak 14y ago
    It is a bit scary. Maybe it was good back in the day of bar brawls and cattle raiding cases but in tech it just cannot work.
  - dnr 14y ago
    "Foreman" has nothing to do with being an thought leader, they're just the person selected to interact directly with the judge. In the jury I was on, he also moderated the discussion when it got too heated. But he deliberately avoided giving his opinion until after everyone else had spoken and tried not to have any more influence than any other juror. (That didn't keep the jury from making a decision I disagree with, but I certainly don't blame the foreman.)
  - pnathan 14y ago
    Um, that didn't happen in my US jury experience. It was more of a "short straw" kind of thing. I suppose a loudmouth could have gotten the foremanship though.
w1ntermute 14y ago
This is a great first step, but it's going to be a long, hard battle from here on out. Any American jury is going to be biased against a foreign company when it comes to charges like this, one of the reasons why I feel that it should have been tried by judges, particularly considering the complex and technical nature of the subject matter.
- wtvanhest 14y ago
  Any American jury is going to be biased against a foreign company I'm not sure if this is true. I don't think most American's see Apple as an Apple Pie type of American company. I could be wrong, but I have never heard anyone say, I bought an iPad because it is an American product. I say this as someone who is probably more supportive of American companies and not really supportive of Apple at all, so maybe I have my own bias, but I don't think so.
  - randallu 14y ago
    Mostly on the radio I hear about Apple and Chinese labor, so they seem like a multinational company more than an American company even though they do "command and control" from the US. Also they don't employ a huge number of Americans compared to other large companies (and excluding retail they remain pretty small, esp. compared to Microsoft). Maybe the valley is different too, because a large proportion of the population are immigrants.
    - jjtheblunt 14y ago
      More data: they employ many Americans, and the campus is filled with them (of all sorts of ancestries, not exclusively imigrants from India or China). According to http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=aapl http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=aapl they employ a number of people adequate to sustain a revenue/employee of $2.351 million/year. The factories are not Apple's, but are contracted manufacturers, the same used by many others (Dell, etc).
    - sounders 14y ago
      I agree with you about linking Apple and Chinese. When I think of the Apple labor force I automatically think Foxconn, which leads to thoughts of labour camps and worker suicide, not that that's the whole picture of course.
Freestyler_3 14y ago
So the jury got some instructions on how it works and then they got a test which they couldn't fail. They should have been examined on prior art cases. OR of course no jury but judges instead.
sabret00the 14y ago
No shit Sherlock!
bitcartel 14y ago
So the question now is, when and how did the lawyer find out about Hogan's failure to disclose... From Groklaw: "Were you wondering how Samsung found out about the lawsuit that Hogan failed to mention in voir dire, the litigation between Seagate and Hogan that Samsung dug up? Apple was, as I'll show you. You wouldn't believe it if it was in a movie script. The lawyer who sued Mr. Hogan on behalf of Seagate back in 1993 is now married to a partner at Quinn Emanuel, the lawyers for Samsung."
- jfoutz 14y ago
  I couldn't give you a comprehensive list of my wife's acquaintances from 20 years ago. I could name a few. But sometimes coincidences are just coincidental.
thechut 14y ago
I wonder how many members of the jury, including Hogan, owned iPhones?
- hayksaakian 14y ago
  If I remember correctly, he actually owned an android device Based on a bbc interview shortly after the trial
theycallmemorty 14y ago
Given the amount of money that goes into Juror Analysis in huge cases like this, is it possible Samsung knew about this all along and was keeping as an ace up their sleeve in case they lost?
- thrill 14y ago
  I believe that is entirely possible, legal, and wise.
  - vidarh 14y ago
    It might be legal, but if found out it would almost certainly get their motion denied, which is why Apple aggressively pursued a statement from Samsung about whether or not they knew. As a result, Samsung has made a declaration they did not know, and so at this point if it later turns out they did now, they're in trouble.
  - eco 14y ago
    More wise would have been just to remove him from the jury during jury selection. Overturning a jury's decision is pretty rare.
- caf 14y ago
  In filing #2012 Samsung says this: 3. In response to Samsung’s motion detailing Velvin Hogan’s failure to reveal his litigation with Seagate during voir dire and its impact on the integrity of the trial and the verdict, Apple demanded that Samsung disclose the timing of its knowledge regarding those facts. A true and correct copy of Apple’s email, along with further correspondence between counsel for the parties that resulted in Apple’s agreement that any such disclosures would not constitute a waiver of any privilege, is attached hereto as Exhibit A. By way of separate declaration, Samsung is confirming to Apple that it did not know of Mr. Hogan’s undisclosed litigation against Seagate until after the verdict. To date, Apple has not revealed whether it was aware of Mr. Hogan’s litigation against Seagate prior to the verdict or prior to Samsung’s Motion.
- NegativeK 14y ago
DigitalSea 14y ago
This changes everything. Even if it wasn't intentional, the very fact the foreman didn't reveal he was sued by Seagate is a dramatic blow to this case (not that it was much of a case to begin with). I'm neither a fan-boy of either companies, but fair is fair and I believe the case has been heavily one-sided from the start in favor of Apple so it's good to see the corrupt wrongdoings in this case are coming to light. If this case isn't thrown out, I will be very surprised and disappointed in the US legal system. Can any law experts here weigh in on whether or not Apple can sue Samsung again if the case gets thrown out? Considering it's so high profile it would seem like that any jury would have the previous case on their mind and perhaps make a biased decision.

147 points by njx 14y ago

debacle 14y ago

This Hogan fellow just keeps getting better and better.

ohashi 14y ago
For Samsung.

ChuckMcM 14y ago

So folks who have been wondering since day one after the trial what Samsung was going to do, this seems to be the answer. Hard to prove that a jury tampered with itself, but if they can construct a plausible grudge motive, perhaps the judge will see it there way.

debacle 14y ago
It's not hard to prove the jury tampered with itself if you have multiple accounts of jurors saying that the foreman tampered with the jury. I can't imagine any judge not being furious at the conduct of the foreman in this case.
- ChuckMcM 14y ago
  On the contrary, it is quite difficult, the jury is expected to deliberate. If you look at how Samsung's lawyers have made their argument, they focus on how things "outside" the trial made it into the the jury deliberation room. This is a common theme in successful tampering arguments, that it is an external influence that is extra-judicial which has tainted the jury deliberation. So the argument Samsung makes is that the Jury foreman manipulated the process with intent and premeditation and that tainted the process. They are trying to show that by showing that the foreman had a grudge (motive), and made an opportunity (perjured themselves during the voir dire) so he brought this extra-judicial plan into the courtroom and sprang it on an unsuspecting defendant (Samsung). Just being incompetent in following the judges instructions does not rise to the level of tampering or jury misconduct. I find it amazing this guy (the foreman) talks to the press, clearly he loves the limelight, but man he isn't doing himself any favors.
blrgeek 14y ago
Actually it's not that hard in this case since it's not 'jury tampering' in this case - merely 'juror misconduct'. They don't need to show motive even, just that it happened. The jury is not supposed to deliberate on matters of law - they are supposed to weigh the evidence and deliberate on the specific questions they have and the instructions they have. [added] What Juror's should/not do -- “was applying his experience to question the law, not using his experience to determine the facts” For instance, they had specific instructions on what was patentable as a design patent, and what constituted 'prior art'. The jury cannot use a different definition of 'prior art' or deliberate on the definition of 'prior art', or use their previous legal experience to expand or explain 'prior art'. That would be considered jury misconduct. This is why the jury is asked whether they can set aside their previous experience and deliberate using only the evidence and instructions for this case. Why is this necessary? Because matters of law could and do change, and are not for the jury to take a call on. [Not talking about jury nullification here].
- politician 14y ago
  “was applying his experience to question the law, not using his experience to determine the facts” If successful, this line of reasoning will have consequences for the doctrine of jury nullification.
  - jlgreco 14y ago
    Unless I am mistaken, the laws that make jury nullification possible are something that really only works one way. A jury can refuse to find someone guilty, despite all evidence for whatever reason they wish, but I don't think the opposite is true. An inbalance between 'guilty' and 'innocent' is built into the system, for example you can appeal a guilty verdict, but cannot appeal an innocent verdict. At least I hope my understanding is correct...
    - makomk 14y ago
      I'm pretty sure your understanding is correct. A jury finding of "not guilty" in a criminal case cannot be overturned by a judge, but that's not true of any other finding a jury might make.
nollidge 14y ago
More than a grudge motive, wouldn't that be straight-up perjury? If I remember my own experience correctly, we were under oath during jury selection.
- redsparrow 14y ago
  He claims that he was only asked about lawsuits from the previous 10 years but the Seagate lawsuit occurred in 1993 so he didn't feel obligated to mention it.
  - codeka 14y ago
    The actual transcript (which you can find on Groklaw) shows that there was no "10 year" limit, he completely made that up.
    - vidarh 14y ago
      The interesting thing, which to me at least speaks to intent, is that there would be an understandable reason for him to omit it: The judge didn't follow through. She asked him about the first case he mentioned, and then moved on without asking if there were any more. If this was a totally innocent slip, the most believable excuse to me would be that he wrongly assumed that since the judge moved on, she had satisfied herself of what mattered with respect to his experience with trials and did not see a need to concern herself with any other ones, and that he did not know of Samsungs ownership interest in Seagate, and so did not see a specific reason to mention that case and he also found it embarrassing. Instead he's inventing an excuse that is directly contradicted by the transcript, that is just serving to make the whole thing look more dubious. At the same time, though, it seems quite inept of the judge to not dot the i's by being precise enough to ask even "any more?" or similar before moving on. Surely a trial judge ought to know that people make stupid assumptions about what a question means all the time.

DanBC 14y ago

Another article with some details of his case with Seagate (http://newsandinsight.thomsonreuters.com/Legal/News/ViewNews.aspx?id=57594 http://newsandinsight.thomsonreuters.com/Legal/News/ViewNews...)

mih 14y ago
Groklaw's take on this http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20121002201632770 http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20121002201632770
- vvhn 14y ago
  Looking at Groklaw's overall coverage of this, you have to wonder if she and not Quinn Emanuel are Samsung's legal team :-)
- macchina 14y ago
  The lawyer who sued Mr. Hogan on behalf of Seagate back in 1993 is now married to a partner at Quinn Emanuel, the lawyers for Samsung. Wow. Pretty bizarre coincidence, but I can't imagine Hogan was aware of this at trial.
- Terretta 14y ago
  Groklaw coverage is a convenient place for the latest links, but their commentary is beyond biased. They attempt to color what you're about to read. Here's a particularly obvious example: Commentary: Hogan did not mention the case brought against him by Seagate in voir dire, significantly enough, even though he was specifically asked by the judge, as were all the prospective jurors, to list all cases any of them was ever involved in as a witness or a party. Hogan told Reuters (see 2012 [PDF]) that he wasn't asked about all cases. But he was, as you can see for yourself in the transcript [PDF] of the voir dire. No, Hogan was not "specifically asked ... to list all cases" according either Samsung's filing or the linked transcript. At least Samsung's filing gets it right: Asked by the Court whether “you or a family member or someone very close to you [has] ever been involved in a lawsuit, either as a plaintiff, a defendant, or as a witness?” he disclosed one such lawsuit but failed to disclose two others... Sorry, Groklaw, Hogan was not "specifically" asked to "list all" cases. The actual question, including sentences before and after for context (all caps in transcript): LET'S CONTINUE WITH THE QUESTIONS. THE NEXT QUESTION IS, HAVE YOU OR A FAMILY MEMBER OR SOMEONE VERY CLOSE TO YOU EVER BEEN INVOLVED IN A LAWSUIT, EITHER AS A PLAINTIFF, A DEFENDANT, OR AS A WITNESS? LET'S SEE. ON THE FIRST ROW, WHO WOULD RAISE THEIR HAND TO THAT QUESTION? ALL RIGHT. LET'S GO TO MR. HOGAN. The question "specifically" asks about the singular, "a lawsuit". Note the phrase "who would raise their hand to that?" It's a binary question. At the time of the question, it wasn't about patents, it was to determine if jurors have encountered the court system as a participant, yes or no. The followup questions did drill into the nature of the case Hogan mentioned, but the judge didn't follow up further because that wasn't the purpose of the original question. Skipping down in the transcript a bit, the judge tells us the purpose of the "have you been involved in a lawsuit" question: WE'LL TALK FURTHER ABOUT WHO'S BEEN ON JURY DUTY, BUT THERE ARE DEFINITELY DIFFERENT, YOU KNOW, STANDARDS OF PROOF IN DIFFERENT CASES, AND I JUST WANTED TO MAKE SURE -- YOU ALL HAD CIVIL CASES, SO I WOULD ASSUME THAT YOU ALSO HAD, YOU KNOW, PREPONDERANCE OF THE EVIDENCE. DOES THAT SOUND FAMILIAR? This makes it clear the question wasn't how many cases the juror was involved in, but whether the juror had been exposed to concepts around rule of law in different types of cases. The judge continues: AND WE'LL TALK ABOUT THIS A LITTLE BIT LATER ON, BUT IN DIFFERENT TYPES OF CASES, THERE MAY BE DIFFERENT STANDARDS OF PROOF, AND ALSO THE LAW MAY HAVE CHANGED SINCE WHENEVER YOU WERE A LITIGANT. SO I WANT TO MAKE SURE THAT BOTH MR. HOGAN, AND MS. ROUGIERI, THAT YOU WOULD APPLY THE LAW AS I INSTRUCT YOU AND NOT BASED ON YOUR UNDERSTANDING OF THE LAW BASED ON YOUR OWN CASES. So no, Hogan was responsive and accurate and the question was not asking for an itemized list of cases. It was to set up the point about standards of proof and judicial instructions.

JimmaDaRustla 14y ago

"I laid it out for them."

Terretta 14y ago
Anyone who thinks that isn't how most juries go probably hasn't done much jury duty. There's always someone who thinks they know what's going on, or who the others think knows what's going on. That's why they get elected foreman.
- ryanmolden 14y ago
  As a counter point, on my grand jury only one or two people even wanted to be foreman, and neither were viewed as "knowing what they were talking about", since election happens on day one and no one really knows anyone else at that point. Civil cases may be different but I don't get the general impression lots of people are vying for the job. It may be a case of adverse selection: anyone angling to be foreman probably shouldn't be made foreman :)
- praptak 14y ago
  It is a bit scary. Maybe it was good back in the day of bar brawls and cattle raiding cases but in tech it just cannot work.
- dnr 14y ago
  "Foreman" has nothing to do with being an thought leader, they're just the person selected to interact directly with the judge. In the jury I was on, he also moderated the discussion when it got too heated. But he deliberately avoided giving his opinion until after everyone else had spoken and tried not to have any more influence than any other juror. (That didn't keep the jury from making a decision I disagree with, but I certainly don't blame the foreman.)
- pnathan 14y ago
  Um, that didn't happen in my US jury experience. It was more of a "short straw" kind of thing. I suppose a loudmouth could have gotten the foremanship though.

w1ntermute 14y ago

This is a great first step, but it's going to be a long, hard battle from here on out. Any American jury is going to be biased against a foreign company when it comes to charges like this, one of the reasons why I feel that it should have been tried by judges, particularly considering the complex and technical nature of the subject matter.

wtvanhest 14y ago
Any American jury is going to be biased against a foreign company I'm not sure if this is true. I don't think most American's see Apple as an Apple Pie type of American company. I could be wrong, but I have never heard anyone say, I bought an iPad because it is an American product. I say this as someone who is probably more supportive of American companies and not really supportive of Apple at all, so maybe I have my own bias, but I don't think so.
- randallu 14y ago
  Mostly on the radio I hear about Apple and Chinese labor, so they seem like a multinational company more than an American company even though they do "command and control" from the US. Also they don't employ a huge number of Americans compared to other large companies (and excluding retail they remain pretty small, esp. compared to Microsoft). Maybe the valley is different too, because a large proportion of the population are immigrants.
  - jjtheblunt 14y ago
    More data: they employ many Americans, and the campus is filled with them (of all sorts of ancestries, not exclusively imigrants from India or China). According to http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=aapl http://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=aapl they employ a number of people adequate to sustain a revenue/employee of $2.351 million/year. The factories are not Apple's, but are contracted manufacturers, the same used by many others (Dell, etc).
  - sounders 14y ago
    I agree with you about linking Apple and Chinese. When I think of the Apple labor force I automatically think Foxconn, which leads to thoughts of labour camps and worker suicide, not that that's the whole picture of course.

Freestyler_3 14y ago

So the jury got some instructions on how it works and then they got a test which they couldn't fail. They should have been examined on prior art cases. OR of course no jury but judges instead.

sabret00the 14y ago

No shit Sherlock!

bitcartel 14y ago

So the question now is, when and how did the lawyer find out about Hogan's failure to disclose... From Groklaw: "Were you wondering how Samsung found out about the lawsuit that Hogan failed to mention in voir dire, the litigation between Seagate and Hogan that Samsung dug up? Apple was, as I'll show you. You wouldn't believe it if it was in a movie script. The lawyer who sued Mr. Hogan on behalf of Seagate back in 1993 is now married to a partner at Quinn Emanuel, the lawyers for Samsung."

jfoutz 14y ago
I couldn't give you a comprehensive list of my wife's acquaintances from 20 years ago. I could name a few. But sometimes coincidences are just coincidental.

thechut 14y ago

I wonder how many members of the jury, including Hogan, owned iPhones?

hayksaakian 14y ago
If I remember correctly, he actually owned an android device Based on a bbc interview shortly after the trial

theycallmemorty 14y ago

Given the amount of money that goes into Juror Analysis in huge cases like this, is it possible Samsung knew about this all along and was keeping as an ace up their sleeve in case they lost?

thrill 14y ago
I believe that is entirely possible, legal, and wise.
- vidarh 14y ago
  It might be legal, but if found out it would almost certainly get their motion denied, which is why Apple aggressively pursued a statement from Samsung about whether or not they knew. As a result, Samsung has made a declaration they did not know, and so at this point if it later turns out they did now, they're in trouble.
- eco 14y ago
  More wise would have been just to remove him from the jury during jury selection. Overturning a jury's decision is pretty rare.
caf 14y ago
In filing #2012 Samsung says this: 3. In response to Samsung’s motion detailing Velvin Hogan’s failure to reveal his litigation with Seagate during voir dire and its impact on the integrity of the trial and the verdict, Apple demanded that Samsung disclose the timing of its knowledge regarding those facts. A true and correct copy of Apple’s email, along with further correspondence between counsel for the parties that resulted in Apple’s agreement that any such disclosures would not constitute a waiver of any privilege, is attached hereto as Exhibit A. By way of separate declaration, Samsung is confirming to Apple that it did not know of Mr. Hogan’s undisclosed litigation against Seagate until after the verdict. To date, Apple has not revealed whether it was aware of Mr. Hogan’s litigation against Seagate prior to the verdict or prior to Samsung’s Motion.
NegativeK 14y ago

DigitalSea 14y ago

This changes everything. Even if it wasn't intentional, the very fact the foreman didn't reveal he was sued by Seagate is a dramatic blow to this case (not that it was much of a case to begin with). I'm neither a fan-boy of either companies, but fair is fair and I believe the case has been heavily one-sided from the start in favor of Apple so it's good to see the corrupt wrongdoings in this case are coming to light. If this case isn't thrown out, I will be very surprised and disappointed in the US legal system. Can any law experts here weigh in on whether or not Apple can sue Samsung again if the case gets thrown out? Considering it's so high profile it would seem like that any jury would have the previous case on their mind and perhaps make a biased decision.