As someone who has never owned a Samsung Android device, I was astonished by these slides. My biggest questions are:
- how the hell did Apple get that report. They were the ones submitting it to court, right? Looks almost like industrial espionage to me.
- Was this really the release software of the S1? Was it that bad? I remember people praising that phone almost like the S2 later on. Really? Some of those slides show truly hideously designed UI, like the 'next' button on the keyboard?
It's a court case - there's a process called "discovery" that lets you get a hold of information that looks relevant from your counterparty. It's entirely legal.
I presume it's the judge who gets to decide whether it's admitted as evidence, but until then I presume that the only people who can look at it outside of the cleared people at Samsung are Apple lawyer.
As a non American this is quite amazing to me. Couldn't that easily be used against someone in order to get to their valuable IP? Who decides what is relevant for the suing party to see and what not?
Ianal, but my understanding is that each side hires lawyers to go through the opposing side's documents. My understanding at this level is that while these lawyers may be working for you, they still owe a duty of care to only produce stuff that's of value to the court case.
Unless your IP somehow involves the other side in some fashion, then that should be safe. But "confidential" documents showing how you modified your own product after a comparison with another product on the market is probably fair game.
What stops discovery escalating like you suppose is that there needs to be a basis for the court case, and that the lawyers looking at your documents have their own reputations to protect.
- how the hell did Apple get that report. They were the ones submitting it to court, right? Looks almost like industrial espionage to me.
- Was this really the release software of the S1? Was it that bad? I remember people praising that phone almost like the S2 later on. Really? Some of those slides show truly hideously designed UI, like the 'next' button on the keyboard?