Here is an excert from the BBC's interview with the lead juror from the Apple/Samsung case. Just look how completely gets how prior art works wrong. The various interent law sites are slating him badly - and saying the verdict will be overturned. He used his "knowledge" to change the other jurors minds against Samsung.
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There were two issues, looking at Apple's case: Whether Samsung had infringed their patents and whether the patents were valid. Why weren't you convinced by Samsung's arguments that some of the patents that Apple had put forward shouldn't be allowed to stand? There has been a lot made in the media and elsewhere that Apple wasn't the first with some of the ideas that they had patented.[/b]
To try to make it as easy as possible - I have addressed this in other interviews that I have had - what it amounts to is there has been a big fuss since the deliberation that prior art was not considered. Prior art was considered.
When we had to determine the validity of Apple's patent against the charges of Samsung's with the prior art examples, what we had to do - to make it clear - is that not only did we have to validate, if you will, the Apple patent, but in looking at the prior art we had stipulations in the law that tested both sides and if the test wasn't passed then it was clear either the patent was valid or it wasn't.
Prior art didn't mean that the prior art wasn't valid. It was valid. But the stipulation under the law is for the prior art to be sufficient to negate or invalidate the Apple patents in this case, it had to be sufficiently similar or, more importantly, it had to be interchangeable.
And in example after example, when we put it to the test, the older prior art was just that. Not that there's anything [wrong] with older prior art - but the key was that the hardware was different, the software was an entirely different methodology, and the more modern software could not be loaded onto the older example and be run without error.
And vice versa of that was also true. So the point being, at the 40,000 foot-level, even though the outcome of the two seemed similar, the internal methodology of how you got there was entirely different.
One could not be exchanged for the other. And that is the thing that most people at large do not understand about the legal system. And as a result of that you have heard a lot of hype in the media about did we turn our back on prior art? No.
Did it mean prior art could not have been used to compete against anything any other company had done? No, I'm not saying that.
I'm saying both could have existed independently of each other and been used. The thing you have to remember is that the prior art that belonged to Samsung, or belonged to somebody else that they had the ability of using, they had not used for quite some time.
And the methodology that they had implemented was just right up against the line of infringement and went beyond it in most cases. And not all cases.
Not everything that Apple accused of Samsung was correct and we made those stipulations as we filled out the form, and well, you know how it played out.
My point is that there were substantially difference between the prior art and the new method, but the key was you could not replace one for the other.
There had been a lot of speculation that although Apple might get damages, Samsung might get damages as well. Why did Samsung's case fail?[/b]
Whenever we considered the prior art and we looked at those patents, and specifically the claims that were involved, and the claim limitations that were involved, we had the instruction from the judge who had given us the stipulation of the precedent in the law that for the prior art in this case to negate or invalidate the patent on Apple's side - that was being involved in the allegation from Samsung that the patent was invalid because of the prior art - we had to establish that number one, the two methods were substantially similar; that the outcome was the same, in other words the functionality was the same, that would be at the 40,000-foot level. But what was key to us, and it was a very important piece, is that the stipulation in the law, they had to be interchangeable.
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, and the converse of that was true.
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There were two issues, looking at Apple's case: Whether Samsung had infringed their patents and whether the patents were valid. Why weren't you convinced by Samsung's arguments that some of the patents that Apple had put forward shouldn't be allowed to stand? There has been a lot made in the media and elsewhere that Apple wasn't the first with some of the ideas that they had patented.[/b]
To try to make it as easy as possible - I have addressed this in other interviews that I have had - what it amounts to is there has been a big fuss since the deliberation that prior art was not considered. Prior art was considered.
When we had to determine the validity of Apple's patent against the charges of Samsung's with the prior art examples, what we had to do - to make it clear - is that not only did we have to validate, if you will, the Apple patent, but in looking at the prior art we had stipulations in the law that tested both sides and if the test wasn't passed then it was clear either the patent was valid or it wasn't.
Prior art didn't mean that the prior art wasn't valid. It was valid. But the stipulation under the law is for the prior art to be sufficient to negate or invalidate the Apple patents in this case, it had to be sufficiently similar or, more importantly, it had to be interchangeable.
And in example after example, when we put it to the test, the older prior art was just that. Not that there's anything [wrong] with older prior art - but the key was that the hardware was different, the software was an entirely different methodology, and the more modern software could not be loaded onto the older example and be run without error.
And vice versa of that was also true. So the point being, at the 40,000 foot-level, even though the outcome of the two seemed similar, the internal methodology of how you got there was entirely different.
One could not be exchanged for the other. And that is the thing that most people at large do not understand about the legal system. And as a result of that you have heard a lot of hype in the media about did we turn our back on prior art? No.
Did it mean prior art could not have been used to compete against anything any other company had done? No, I'm not saying that.
I'm saying both could have existed independently of each other and been used. The thing you have to remember is that the prior art that belonged to Samsung, or belonged to somebody else that they had the ability of using, they had not used for quite some time.
And the methodology that they had implemented was just right up against the line of infringement and went beyond it in most cases. And not all cases.
Not everything that Apple accused of Samsung was correct and we made those stipulations as we filled out the form, and well, you know how it played out.
My point is that there were substantially difference between the prior art and the new method, but the key was you could not replace one for the other.
There had been a lot of speculation that although Apple might get damages, Samsung might get damages as well. Why did Samsung's case fail?[/b]
Whenever we considered the prior art and we looked at those patents, and specifically the claims that were involved, and the claim limitations that were involved, we had the instruction from the judge who had given us the stipulation of the precedent in the law that for the prior art in this case to negate or invalidate the patent on Apple's side - that was being involved in the allegation from Samsung that the patent was invalid because of the prior art - we had to establish that number one, the two methods were substantially similar; that the outcome was the same, in other words the functionality was the same, that would be at the 40,000-foot level. But what was key to us, and it was a very important piece, is that the stipulation in the law, they had to be interchangeable.
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, and the converse of that was true.
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