Samsung has requested the trial verdict which saw Apple being awarded $1 billion in damages be dismissed due to jury foreman Velvin Hogan's personal history.
Hogan failed to disclose to chief Judge Lucy Koh of a lawsuit from his former employer Seagate Technology as well as a personal bankruptcy filing from 1993. Based on the revelation, the Korean firm asked the trial be thrown out.
“Mr. Hogan’s failure to disclose the Seagate suit raises issues of bias that Samsung should have been allowed to explore,” Samsung stated. They also referred to Hogan's statements that were made to media outlets after the verdict; Samsung argues that it represents a sign that he didn't answer the court’s questions “truthfully” in order to “secure a seat on the jury.”
Samsung said its link with Seagate has been a "substantial strategic partnership," as well as referring to the fact that the lawyer who filed the complaint against Hogan nearly two decades ago is reportedly married to an attorney who works for Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, which is the law firm representing Samsung in their court battle against Apple.
Hogan, however, denied any misconduct to Bloomberg. He stressed that, due to the court's rule of potential jurors required to disclose prior involvement in litigation over the past decade, he didn't have to reveal his lawsuit with Seagate as it occurred more than 10 years ago.
“Had I been asked an open-ended question with no time constraint, of course I would’ve disclosed that,” Hogan added . “I’m willing to go in front of the judge to tell her that I had no intention of being on this jury, let alone withholding anything that would’ve allowed me to be excused.”
The jury elected Hogan particularly due to his experience as an electrical engineer. "I answered every question the judge asked me” and Samsung “had every opportunity to question me," Hogan stated.
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Hogan expressed how he was surprised to find out that Samsung was not aware of the history found in Tuesday's filing. He questions if the company “let [him] in the jury just to have an excuse for a new trial if it didn’t go in their favor.”
If the $1 billion case does ultimately get dismissed, it'd certainly be a further blow to Apple's legal woes. Not only are they facing lawsuits such as the one pertaining to its Passbook app introduced in iOS 6, but they also recently lost their injunction against Samsung's Galaxy Tablet 10.1, with the device's U.S. sales ban subsequently lifted.
Zak Islam is a freelance writer focusing on security, networking, and general computing. His work also appears at Digital Trends and Tom's Guide.
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Ragnar-Kon Not that I want to defend Apple... but now Samsung is just trying to find bogus reasons to avoid paying the $1 billion.Reply -
robochump lol. Samsung is hilarious!!! It did all it could for a miss trial by playing games and making public critical facts of the case. Then of course now wants it to be known that the jurors are biased or have an agenda. It doesnt take a genius to see that Samsung borrowed heavily from Apple's designs and STILL does! Look at Chromebox as a recent MAC Mini clone. Apple vs Samsung verdict's in Asia all fell through and cant say there is no bias there? lol Not sure why Samsung cant just admit that it wanted to boost sales by copying a superior product?!? Lastly doesn't the defense get to choose the Jury?!?Reply -
Ragnar-Kon Ragnar-ConRagnar-Kon : The verdict itself was bogus, why shouldn't Samsung try to get out of paying it?I disagree. I think the verdict was correct based on current patent laws.Reply
Now whether the patent laws actually make sense is a totally different conversation. -
RADIO_ACTIVE Ragnar-KonNot that I want to defend Apple... but now Samsung is just trying to find bogus reasons to avoid paying the $1 billion.Would you want to hand over $1 Billion dollars to Apple, let alone $1 hundred....Reply -
silentbobdc Actually if you've read some of the comments the foreman made about prior art, which go to the validity of the patents used to gain said judgement against Samsung, you'd see that his interpretation appears biased or at least flawed. His argument that the because the older hardware couldn't run the newer software without error meant that the new designs must infringe is retarded. Try running iOS6 on an old device and it won't work or will be severely crippled (on anything less than an iPhone4 many many features are disabled). Try running a new build of android on a first gen handset and that won't work either. Hardware and software develop very quickly, especially in the mobile space and arguing that because things weren't backward compatible it must infringe is moronic. Add that to the fact that they issued a judgement/award on a product the jury deemed to be non-infringing and his comments on how it had to be punitive to Samsung (which he later "clarified") and it shows a distinct bias on his part.Reply
My favorite quote from him was this:And so consequently, when we looked at the source code - I was able to read source code - I showed the jurors that the two methods in software were not the same, nor could they be interchangeable because the hardware that was involved between the old processor and the new processor - you couldn't load the new software methodology in the old system and expect that it was going to work.
I didn't think advancements in processor architecture was the issue being debated. Also, nice of the guy with the bias to explain things to the rest of the jury by interpreting the source code for them. IF they needed that explained an impartial expert should have been requested with their testimony on the record for transparency. I'm pretty sure he wasn't qualified or called as an expert witness, although, at this point, it appears he could have been a full fledged member of the Apple legal team. -
ddpruitt This is our justice system at work. If Samsung won originally it would have been the same article, the only difference being that the all the references to Samsung would have been replaced with AppleReply -
cbfelterbush The problem is that Apple should be sued, as they didn't create the tablet, nor design the first smartphone that looked like the iPhone. Apple has exploited the Patent system and wants to be paid for it, these lawsuits have nothing to do with ingenuity. Apple copied many sources to create their iPhone, they put it in a nice wrapper and it sold well, there is nothing especially unique about the iPhone.Reply
The fact is that Apple is not the source for the inspiration that made the iPhone a success. Not as they would have you believe anyhow.
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teh_chem It was entertaining to see this guy's Q&A on tech sites explode into people bashing him for his obvious lack of grasp on technology, and his obvious bias because of his own experiences in patents and patent litigation.Reply
This is a legit concern to address, but I'd be shocked if this results in a verdict dismissal.