After a well-documented and rather grueling court hearing, Apple has prevailed over its Korean-based rival Samsung in a number of patent disputes, and with a settlement of over a billion dollars having been dished out in the Cupertino’s favor, a few of the nine-person jury have given their accounts of why they came to the decision that Apple was indeed just with its lawsuits.
As we covered during the course of proceedings, internal Samsung e-mails were leaked, in which it was revealed the LCD specialist had scrutinized the iPhone’s design, circling and annotating key areas from which it could utilize with its own devices. Juror Manuel Ilagan saw this as the strongest indication that something was amiss with Samsung’s practices, stating “The e-mails that went back and forth from Samsung execs about the Apple features that they should incorporate into their devices was pretty damning to me.”
Speaking with CNet, he said he couldn’t see past the issue, adding “It was clear there was infringement,” and even looking from an outsider’s point of view, it’s hard to refute his conclusions. Ilagan also noted how jury foreman Velvin Hogan made the process of reaching a decision a lot more clear-cut fror the jury, since he is himself a patent owner and passed on his knowledge to the rest of the group. Ilagan also stated there was no bias or sway towards either company, but each jury member followed the instructions set by the judges.
Hogan also added a few words when talking to Reuters, stating that the jury did not want to give “carte blanche” to any company to flagrantly infringe another’s intellectual property. In interview, he also concluded that Apple’s initial damages claim of $2.5 billion was too high, since it was up for debate whether the fruit company, having had manufacturing issues of its own, truly lost major iPhone sales through Samsung.
It will be interesting to see how Samsung recovers from this court case. The company has always strenuously denied the cries of copyright theft, but with the judge and jury singing a different tune, there can be little argument the company took a lot of tips from its Californian competitor.
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