As you know, Samsung and Apple have been in a very heated battle regarding who copied whose patents, and assuming no settlement is reached, a final verdict will be made in the next few days. Yesterday, in a turn of events, Samsung was able to score a victory as Judge Koh made a surprising reversal to the prior ruling by Magistrate Judge Paul S. Grewal. Judge Grewal had originally decreed that the jury would be told Samsung had failed to retain evidence as part of the jury instructions.
This ruling upset Samsung for two reasons: First, the date they were accused of deleting their emails was well before the lawsuit was filed, and secondly, during that time Apple had not yet ordered its employees to start saving their emails either. Since Apple was the one who brought on the lawsuit, Samsung reasoned that they were equally as responsible for saving messages from the same start date since they knew the lawsuit was on the horizon.
Surprisingly, Judge Koh agreed with Samsung and changed the wording of Judge Grewal’s previous ruling. The jury will now be able to see that both sides failed to preserve internal emails as soon as they should have. This will prevent the jury from being unjustifiably prejudiced about Samsung’s honesty, and this is something that could have weighed heavily on a jury of “regular people”, who are trying to make a decision about messy technical issues surrounding software and design patents.
Now, I know this is an Android blog and believe me when I say I want Samsung to destroy Apple. However, I would like to say that the ruling by Judge Koh doesn’t mean Samsung will win the case (or lose for that matter). It does mean that when the jury begins their deliberations, Samsung will start on an even footing with Apple. No doubt Apple is fighting the Judge’s ruling (most likely as I am writing this), but given the nature of the ruling, I have high beliefs that it will stand.
Apple Vs Samsung: Latest Developments
Views:
0 comments:
Post a Comment