The mega-trial between Apple and Samsung continues in Federal Court with United States District Judge Lucy Koh presiding. Much has been written regarding Samsung struggling with this case, and that this trial, unlike the Apple v. Motorola case that Judge Posner tossed out, seemed to be leaning heavily toward Apple before the first gavel fell. Just a few days into the actual trial now, and Samsung’s problems are only getting worse.
Join us for another week of Law & Apple as we bring you up to speed on the happenings at the "iCourt".
Samsung has struggled to follow the rules in this trial from the beginning, and has been sanctioned four times now by Judge Koh for various violations, including destroying evidence. Last week, Judge Koh could have sanctioned Samsung yet again, this time for sending the press evidence that Koh barred from the courtroom, but choose to lay down some fiercely worded reprimands instead.
Sending the evidence directly to the press was "a willful attempt to propagate that evidence they knew had been excluded," according to Judge Koh, and “both Samsung and Quinn Emanuel were on notice that the possibility of a jury taint was real."
Then, over the weekend, a lawyer for Samsung, attorney Christopher Stretch, admitted in a sworn statement that he brought multiple witnesses into the courtroom when no one was there, for reasons that are unclear. Both parties agreed not to bring witnesses into the court until their day of testimony, so Stretch brought them in on a day when no trial was in session. Stretch declared that he was not aware of any restriction regarding bringing witnesses into the courtroom on off days, and that none of the people he brought in "touched any equipment or materials in the courtroom" or, to the best of his knowledge, took any photographs. Apparently, since none of the witnesses had ever seen a district courtroom before, Stretch thought that giving the a tour would put them more at ease with their day to testify came. This logic seems a stretch, at best, (yeah, we went there). Though, to be fair, it is difficult to imagine what harm could come by bringing witnesses into an empty courtroom, this is just one more example of Samsung’s legal team flouting the instructions of the court.
Aside from these procedural shenanigans, we also finally got our first really juicy courtroom document, and like most other events in this case, it did not shine a positive light on Samsung. Yesterday, John Paczkowski and Ina Fried of AllThingsD reported on a 132-page document that Cupertino lawyers submitted as evidence of Samsung slavishly copying Apple products. The document is a detailed analysis of the Galaxy S compared to the iPhone, and the resounding conclusion throughout the report is that Samsung’s product would be better if it were only more like the iPhone in every way.
What? That's not OK?
Inside the document, Samsung's own analysis teams states that, when comparing the devices, there exists the "strong impression that iPhone's icon concept was copied." Apple followed up the document release on Tuesday with a number of experts, each testifying that the recent similarities between Apple and Samsung designs were not by accident.
"It seemed to me that all of these similarities … from phone to phone … was beyond coincidental," stated Susan Kare, a graphic designer who created the original icons for Apple’s first Macintosh and Microsoft’s Solitaire game cards. "It seemed likely to me that Samsung used iPhone screen graphics as a guide."
But will it seem that way to the jury? Stay tuned.
