Apple - Samsung 'peace talks' go nowhere; jury starts deliberating tomorrow
Yesterday TUAW reported that Apple CEO Tim Cook and Samsung chief Kwon Oh Hyun were going to have a phone conversation to fulfill a request from Judge Lucy Koh and hopefully make some headway in their patent dispute. Well, they gave peace a chance, and AllThingsD reports that unfortunately the talks failed. That means that the jury will begin sifting through the mounds of evidence in the case starting tomorrow.
The case brings evidence in two separate lawsuits -- Apple's patent infringement suit against Samsung and a countersuit by Samsung against Apple. The jurors will have to look at the merits of more than twenty Samsung mobile phones and tablets and determine if each violates one of several patents in question. The jury also gets to deliberate on damages awarded to either company if they "win" an infringement claim against the other.
The companies submitted their proposed juror verdict forms to the court yesterday. Each of these documents, which can be viewed in their entirety on AllThingsD if you're fascinated by the case, is full of exhaustive lists of points that each juror must decide on. For each point, the jurors have to rule unanimously in order to find a party in violation of a patent. This explains why Judge Koh was so determined to have the CEOs meet and come to resolution, as both sides may find themselves no closer to a resolution of the patent dispute than when the long, expensive lawsuits began.
The Next Web reported that Samsung "scored a minor victory" yesterday. In July, another judge ruled that the jury should be told that Samsung improperly handled evidence in the case. Judge Koh agreed, but also felt that Apple had been lax in preserving evidence as well.
Apple lawyer Michael Jacobs asked Judge Koh yesterday afternoon about her final decision on the evidence handling, and she responded that she was ready to tell the jury that both sides were neglectful. Attorneys for Apple and Samsung then agreed that if something negative was going to be said to the jury about both parties, they'd be happier to just have the jury left in the dark about the issue.
