mistrial
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Judge denies mistrial in case against Silk Road's founder (again)
If you were hoping that Ross Ulbricht (Dread Pirate Roberts of Silk Road fame) was going to get a retrial, you might wanna walk those expectations back a bit. Okay; a lot. Despite the two former federal agents involved in the investigation purportedly stealing bitcoins and committing wire fraud during the investigation, the presiding judge Katherine Forrest has denied a motion for a new trial. Albrecht's defense protested, saying that the warrantless attempts to identify the Silk Road server violated his privacy rights and that the corruption charges demanded another look to see if the case had been tainted, as Wired tells it. None of that changed her mind though. She says that the evidence of Ulbricht's guilt was "overwhelming" and that there was little chance that conceding to any of those defenses would alter the outcome of the trial at all.
Judge denies re-retrial in never-ending Apple v. Samsung patent battle
It turns out we're not the only ones who are ready to see this patent battle royale come to an end. Last night, Judge Lucy Koh denied Samsung a retrial in the case that will not die, but took the opportunity to shame Apple's lawyers for bringing the Korean company's foreignness into the equation. The court-appointed shaming comes as a result of closing arguments made during a partial retrial that saw a portion of Apple's original award bumped from $450 million down to $290 million in damages. At the time, Apple's attorney argued that Samsung's infringement of Apple's patents could have an impact on the US economy. When I was young, I used to watch television on televisions that were manufactured in the United States. Magnavox, Motorola, RCA. These were real companies. They were well known and they were famous. They were creators. They were inventors. They were like the Apple and Google today. But they didn't protect their intellectual property. They couldn't protect their ideas. And you all know the result. There are no American television manufacturers today. Samsung originally moved for a mistrial in that case based on those comments, but was denied. Instead, Koh informed the jury to avoid letting prejudice inform its decision. While Koh didn't see the need for yet another trial, she repeatedly referred to the comments as "troubling," saying they "could have been perceived as invoking racial or ethnic prejudice."
