
Jury foreman says Apple patents valid due to different processor architecture - bitcartel
If you listen carefully to his interview, from 1:30 for about 2 minutes, the foreman talks about the jury discussing the 460 patent and how it brought him back to his 'Aha' moment.<p>"The software on the Apple side could not be placed into the processor on the prior art and vice versa. That means they are not interchangeable. That changed everything right there."<p>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9cnQcTC2JY<p>That's the reason why prior art was ignored!
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ryguytilidie
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.

~~~
ryanhuff
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
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
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...

------
fleitz
I don't think you can really jump to that conclusion. Prior art may have been
'ignored' but I have a feeling that the question in the minds of the jurors
was 'Did Samsung copy apple?'

I think that what's probably more at issue is that the vast majority of the
populace regards copying as plagiarism / and/or something that ought to be
punished. eg. copying = theft = bad = you should pay a fine.

The jurors are just trying to stitch legal words and technical words together
to create the impression that it was judged based on the law rather than the
emotional feeling that copying is bad. The jury was probably looking for
evidence to find for Apple, not examining the evidence to reach a conclusion.
It's a hallmark of trials by jury, it's why when the facts and emotions are on
your side you pick a jury trial and when the law is on your side you pick a
trial by judge.

I've heard that at one point in the trial the samsung lawyer said that the
design of their tablet was so different that it couldn't be copied while
pointing to an iPad. A gaffe like that in connection with the idea that
copying = bad is game over for Samsung in court.

Errol Morris interviewed a mob lawyer about how he got a mobster off a murder
charge, it's a very telling insight into how the average person's mind works.

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xLEe496IS1o>

~~~
bitcartel
Another juror sheds more light on what happened. The foreman's view on prior
art had a big impact.

"We were debating heavily, especially about the patents on bounce-back and
pinch-to-zoom. Apple said they owned patents, but we were debating about the
prior art. Hogan was jury foreman. He had experience. He owned patents
himself...so he took us through his experience. After that it was easier.
After we debated that first patent -- what was prior art --because we had a
hard time believing there was no prior art." "In fact we skipped that one,"
Ilagan continued, "so we could go on faster. It was bogging us down."

[http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57500358-37/exclusive-
appl...](http://news.cnet.com/8301-13579_3-57500358-37/exclusive-apple-
samsung-juror-speaks-out/)

------
harryh
For the record, this is the patent held by the foreman. Imho, it is not the
kind of thing I'd like to see the patent office approving.

<http://www.google.com/patents/US7352953>

~~~
jhaglund
2008, why didn't the patent office say this is basically Tivo? Is there really
anything new here? It was filed in 2002, but Tivo (and diy copycats) were
already out in 2000, iirc.

~~~
papercrane
Claim 1 is for a system with tv tuner, internal hardrive and a removable
media. So it is slightly different then a Tivo.

Although I don't think taking a Tivo and slapping a CD writer on it should be
eligible for a patent. Especially if TV tuners where available at retail at
the time (pretty sure they were, but I have no evidence of that.) Basically
anybody that put a TV tuner into a computer with a CD writer is prior art for
claim 1.

~~~
jhaglund
Pretty sure I wanted an analog tuner/video VLB-card in the 90s. Couldn't
afford one, but I imagine the people who bought them, did this stuff with
them.

------
DanBC
He clearly says that he wasn't assessing actual damages, but wanted to teach
the offending company a lesson.

The whole thing is incredibly frustrating.

~~~
MichaelApproved
I think the foreman actually had a patent of his own. If that's true, he must
have had very personal feeling towards infringers.

~~~
tedunangst
Samsung could have asked for him to be excused. The fact they didn't means
they thought his feelings/experience/whatever would be to their advantage. You
roll the dice, sometimes you lose.

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noonespecial
So, if this is the new precedent, and a new processor means that we can
disregard all prior art, am I correct in assuming that all I need to do to
keep from infringing is to run this "ip" on a different processor in the
future?

(I am well aware that "legal reasoning" and real-world rationality umm... walk
different paths, I'm just sayin'.)

~~~
ryanhuff
I believe that this link is the 460 patent that the guy mentioned:

<http://www.google.com/patents/US7577460>

The content presented in the patent drawings at the bottom are hardware-heavy,
and the patent claims and diagrams discuss voltage control, etc.

I am not a patent expert, and not subject to the trial content. But I find it
plausible that "processor", or phone architecture in general, might have been
an important factor that differentiated Apple from the claims of Samsung's
patent.

~~~
noonespecial
Adding "with a voltage regulator" shouldn't be any more legit than "...but on
the interwebs!".

It looks to me like a snow job. Putting a camera in a smartphone and then
(steady yourself) emailing the pictures you take! Seems pretty thin. So throw
in a bunch of the technical details _that all electronic devices have in
common_ like voltage regulators, chip enable lines, data busses etc, and a
bunch of the mundaneness of networking, like the sizes of email headers etc
and now we're looking like we've got something that will sneak past an
examiner or impress a layman.

~~~
ryanhuff
I think the point is that Samsung didn't patent "emailing pictures from a
phone", but they did patent a very specific, integrated method of doing so. If
somebody (Apple) offered the same function, but implemented it differently
than as claimed by Samsung's very specific patent, they would be in the clear.

~~~
allwein
That's an important distinction that a lot of people are overlooking in this
discussion. It's not the end result that is patented, but rather the process
or method to achieve that result.

------
doktrin
This is a disturbing farce. I realize that it is extremely difficult to appeal
jury decisions, but this is getting ridiculous.

Not only did he take it upon himself to ignore the court's instructions by
dishing out punitive damages, but the entire _reasoning_ behind these so-
called deliberations now appear to have been completely devoid of rationality.

The poster who compared the logic employed here to Vicini's "battle of wits"
in the Princess Bride had it spot on.

------
dasht
I hope people vote this up (the topic comment, not mine here). It's a really
remarkable bit of incoherence (that matters because of its role in law).

~~~
noonespecial
It literally would have been more coherent if he had claimed that his aha
moment came when he realized that both products had black bezels and that did
it for him. For all of the informed thought that went on, it seems that we
would have been better off giving vote clickers to monkeys. This reminded me
of Vicini reasoning during the 'battle of wits' in The Princess Bride.

~~~
Terretta
HackerNew's lack of empathy for "normals" is staggering.

Web development, app development, device development -- it's _all_ clickers
for monkeys.

[http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-
nature/speakingbonobo....](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-
nature/speakingbonobo.html)

------
salem
By that logic, Android can copy iOS at will by shipping with MIPS or x86
hardware.

~~~
rbanffy
But if they ship on MIPS, they'll have to deal with all the SGI IP...

Better be safe and design a new processor architecture.

~~~
darkestkhan
They can also ship on SPARC ;)

~~~
rbanffy
And deal with Oracle?!

~~~
greyfade
Not if they use OpenSPARC. That's GPL'd.

------
tux1968
Samsungs new design after court ruling,

<http://i.imgur.com/O585V.png>

------
rynes
It seems to me that the foreman misrepresented his memory of what happened
with his own patent as fact to the other jurors to be applied to the current
case; and he got some stuff wrong. It should be made possible in highly
complicated cases like this that the jury could bring in experts (with the
judge present maybe) to explain the real facts. Or for the jury to ask
questions to the witnesses/judge during the trial to obtain clarifications
they need to make their decision.

~~~
EvanKelly
Juries are allowed and often requested to ask questions of the judge during
deliberations, but it's up to them to decide that they need that
clarification.

I've never been on a jury in a trial such as this, but just as you'll find in
regular conversations, members of a jury will present themselves as experts
and spout "facts" to back themselves up. A confident "expert" can convince a
lot of people.

~~~
bitcartel
As the saying goes, a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

------
jarek
In a way, part of me wants the patent circus to lead to an actual ban on U.S.
sales of a popular, high profile device for a considerable period of time. I
don't even care which device. Maybe the system will somehow wake up when
confronted with grey-market sales of devices bought outside the U.S.

------
eplanit
I agree with the comments here on this being an obvious travesty. I sincerely
look forward to the appeal, and am confident in an all-out rejection of the
verdict. The proud foreman's interview will certainly be useful fodder for the
defense in its appeal.

------
sayebrant12
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which is successful because of your site.

------
sayebrant12
I admire the valuable information you offer in your articles. I will bookmark
your blog and have my children check up here often. I am quite sure they will
learn lots of new stuff here than anybody else! I face an interview with a
lighting company [http://modern-decorative-
lighting.blogspot.com/2012/08/illum...](http://modern-decorative-
lighting.blogspot.com/2012/08/illuminate-your-life-with-foscarini-tua.html)
which is successful because of you.

------
leschwartz
The foreman's 'insight' is a complete logical fallacy, and I would also bet he
has no concept of what a cross-compiler does, just as an ancillary point.

------
reneemjones
The software used on the Android phones would not run on Apple's OK either, so
by the foreman's "logic" there can be no patent infringement.

------
jonathanyc
0:21 - "It was exciting - for some it was boring, for me it was very
interesting, because of my tech background..."

~~~
ryanhuff
Sorry, what's your point? Four of the jury members worked for tech companies.

~~~
pySSK
Probably that the guy has a very high opinion of himself. Dunning-Krueger.

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mantrik00
That is a Foreman's understanding of prior art? US desperately needs a large
number of able hands to handle patent related cases that have resulted from
easy doling out of patents by the USPTO. The present Intellectual Property
Regime is becoming a threat for innovation itself.

------
pySSK
So, iOS can't be run on Samsung's tablets. Does this then invalidate Apple's
claims?

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drewinglis
The bit about code/processor interchangeability is actually between 3:00 and
3:30.

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mikemartin9
This whole mess reminds me of the Polaroid VS Kodak case where Kodak was found
to infringe because the result, IE an instant photograph, with no regard
towards the process which was totally different.

------
cc16177
Watching this guy talk makes me fear for the future of the human species.

------
cin_
great artists steal, good artists get prosecuted

------
genecook
I would like to bounce back with a comment... but I am afraid I would be
infringing on an Apple patent.

------
outside1234
please, keep talking jury foreman. this thing is going down in flames on
appeal at this rate.

------
ktizo
I think he may have a valid point. Perhaps apple have invented some new
numbers, like eleventy-four, that don't fit into the old computers properly
due to magic and stuff.

~~~
cgs1019
You remind me of <http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/2009/02/18/>

~~~
ktizo
Bill Watterson should have been put in charge of everything years ago. I
suspect he would grumble though if anyone tried to.

------
rprasad
The sad thing about all this is that this does not necessarily mean that the
verdict can be thrown out. Post-verdict juror interviews can only be used to
throw out verdicts if they reveal gross juror misconduct. Juror incompetence
is generally not sufficient grounds to throw out a verdict (assuming unlike in
this case, that the verdict is otherwise coherent).

~~~
ChuckMcM
Yes, this is the sad thing. You have to prove that the jury tampered with
itself or was too stupid to or too biased to do its job. Very hard to do.
Alsup, in the Google trial, showed some great strategy here where he told the
jury "assume you can copyright apis" while reserving to make a judgement as a
matter of law on the issue later. So the Jury could say "guilty of copyright
infringement" and he could say, "Thank you, oh by the way you can't copyright
APIs, but if you could you would have infringed."

If anything Judge Koh seemed more inclined to put as much into the juries
hands as possible.

~~~
fusiongyro
It's sad in this case, but being unable to throw out the decision of an
incompetent jury is the price of jury nullification. If judges could throw out
jury decisions just because they disagree, there wouldn't be much point to
having juries at all.

~~~
makomk
Not really. Jury nullification in criminal trials is actually a special case -
other kinds of findings by juries can be thrown out, including a jury finding
the defendant guilty, but not guilty verdicts are sacrosant.

------
saket123
Wow! throughout the interview the guy looked extremely confident. It was as if
questions were pre decided and he was given time to prepare answer. Like the
comment about punishment and not compensation for infringement. The quickness
with which they made the decision and haste with which they decided to
overlook 'debates' or point of contention is sad. Debate in this case is
anyone arguing that patents are not valid. This guy with his immaturity and
pre notions have set back tech industry and slowed its growth something on
which all tech knowledge workers depend.

~~~
pySSK
> Wow! throughout the interview the guy looked extremely confident.

I'd attribute this to Dunning-Krueger. The guy thinks he was the smartest shit
in the room - "I had an aha moment, I explained it to them, I laid it out, I
this, I that."

