Can we please stop picking on the foreman? It's not like this person forced their way into the trial--they were picked by the state at random, and oh by the way, jury duty is not optional. Attorneys for both sides had their chance to dismiss the guy and they did not. He's talking about his thought processes which is a hell of a lot more "closure" than you typically get in a trial. So the plan is to make him the villain?<p>I get that people do not like the verdict, but save the vitriol for the lawyers and the law. Let's not hate on an American citizen who did his best when duty called.
This article is wrong in several places. E.g.<p>"Demon-Xanth:
Did you have the opportunity to ask 'Is this something that should be patentable?' during the trial?<p>Velvin Hogan:
No, however it was not the function of this jury to ask that. We were bound to use the law as it is today. The patents were issued the judge instructed us not to second guess the current patent system.<p>Groklaw Commentary: The law is that the jurors are supposed to decide whether or not a patent is infringed, which <i>includes</i> whether or not the patent is valid, because if it is not valid, it can't be infringed."<p>Whoever wrote the commentary doesn't understand the patent law. The question of "is the patent valid" actually encompasses several different questions, some of which are for the judge to decide and some of which are for the jury to decide. The jury foreman's characterization of "is this something that should be patentable?" is correct. This is the "subject matter" question. It asks: "in general, is this kind of thing the kind of thing that should be patentable?" This is a legal question that is in the judge's province, not the jury's.<p>The jury decides patent validity, which encompasses a separate set of questions. If a particular "kind of thing" is patentable, then the jury looks at whether a particular thing that is of that "kind of thing" has been validly patented.
The below,from the groklaw.net comment section, might be of interest re: prior art.<p>_____________________________<p><i>Authored by: nsomos on Tuesday, September 04 2012 @ 09:57 PM EDT
I am guessing the foreman was confused by the last paragraph
of page 40 of the instructions.<p>---------------------<p>In deciding whether any difference between a claim requirement and the
product or method is not substantial, you may consider whether,
at the time of the alleged infringement, persons of ordinary skill
in the field would have known of the interchangeability of the part
or software instructions with the claimed requirement.
The known interchangeability between the claim requirement and
the part or software instructions of the product or method is
not necessary to find infringement under the doctrine of equivalents.
However, known interchangeability may support a conclusion that
the difference between the part or software instructions and
the claim requirement is not substantial. The fact that a part
or software instructions of the product or method performs the same
function as the claim requirement is not, by itself, sufficient
to show known interchangeability.<p>-----------------------<p>It seems that the foreman at least has the ideas
given here backwards. I suspect that he quickly
skimmed and basically cherry-picked those sentences
and paragraphs that allowed him to come to the
conclusion he already had decided he wanted to come to.<p>The interchangeability that is mentioned here
only applies to infringement, and not to prior art
which is invalidating.</i>
It strikes me that if people have an issue with much of this, they have an issue with the concept of jury trials.<p>This guy isn't an expert on tech or on patent law, but the system isn't designed assuming that he is, actually the opposite. Jury trials are meant to put cases in front of 12 ordinary people and have them decide the facts with the judge guiding them through the law. Serving on a jury I (or rather we) were told that he was the judge of the law, it was not for us to interpret that, we were the judge of the facts.<p>If the jury does or seems likely to do something which contradicts the law then it is for the judge to direct them otherwise. If you believe that that should have happened and hasn't, then your issue is with the judge, not the jury (and here I would suggest saying <i>he</i> doesn't understand the law is probably a long shot, and if Samsung believe this then they will have grounds for an appeal.<p>But cases are meant to be judged by ordinary people, complete with their flaws and weaknesses, their biases and prejudices and their imperfect understanding because that is the standard the law is held to - the standard that "normal" people (rather than technicians or experts) see as appropriate.<p>Yes it's an imperfect system, but as with democracy, I'd suggest that it's the least bad system we've tried.
"little patent fascists"<p>Wow someone's angry.<p>I just read through the actual responses at <a href="http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120904190933195" rel="nofollow">http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20120904190933195</a><p>The smoking gun PJ decided to write 500 words on? The fact that he didn't answer a particular question. In fact there are hundreds of questions he didn't answer.<p>In fact he answered about 25-30 questions probably the number Gizmodo paid him to come and answer.
"And the more he talks, the worse it gets for that verdict."<p>Is that the case in the US? Can this gentleman's comments become evidence at the appeal?<p>In the UK, members of the jury are <i>not permitted</i> to discuss the case, their deliberations or aspects of the evidence during or after the trial. For ever. It is contempt of court if they do.
What mess is that comments section?<p>The design (chronologically threaded rather than rated, large repeating personal signatures, offtopic designated threads) puts its worst foot forward. Maybe I'm pampered by Reddit and ArsTechnica, which let relevancy move upward or be promoted, but Groklaw's comments section is ugly.