Judge throws out Samsung's juror misconduct argument
In the seemingly never-ending battle between Apple and Samsung, Apple just won another round. As you'll remember, Samsung had alleged that juror misconduct was behind Apple's decisive victory against the Korean manufacturer earlier in 2012. Yesterday, Judge Lucy Koh denied Samsung's request for an evidentiary hearing -- to determine if jury foreman Velvin Hogan was biased against Samsung and influenced the outcome of the trial -- and a whole new trial.
In what was considered a longshot for Samsung, the company had accused Hogan of deliberately hiding information about a lawsuit he was involved in. That lawsuit was against Seagate, the drive manufacturer in which Samsung recently became a major shareholder. Samsung alleged that Hogan was biased against Samsung as a result, and worked to sway the rest of the jury members against the company.
In her filing yesterday, Koh pointed out that Hogan had admitted that he worked for Seagate during jury selection. That gave Samsung's legal team the opportunity to discover Hogan's lawsuit had the team "acted with reasonable diligence."
It wasn't all roses for Apple yesterday, though -- Koh threw out Apple's request for a permanent sales ban on the Samsung products that had infringed on Apple's patents. The judge still has to make a ruling on Apple's request for additional damages and Samsung's request to reduce the damages already awarded to Apple.
