Friday 24 August 2012

Apple v. Samsung

Jurors began deliberating on Wednesday, but barring a surprise, may take some time to reach a decision.Legal experts caution that unless you're actually in the room watching the process unfold, this is the messiest part of any trial -- almost comparable to trying to get a group of friends to decide on pizza toppings -- and thus and hardest to handicap.
"There are invariably compromises and sales pitches to one another," said one trial expert who asked to remain unidentified.
Complicating the matter is that three of Samsung's corporate arms are accused, but not for all products, meaning jurors could come down on some, but perhaps not all the parts of the company on any given device.
"Typically juries in infringement cases take anywhere from a few hours to half a day, but this one clearly has a lot more products at issue," says Pierre Yanney, a patent litigation partner with Stroock & Stroock & Lavan. "The more complicated you make things, the less understandable it is."
According to Dr. Kevin Boully of Persuasion Strategies, who has experience interviewing jurors post-trial as well as conducting hundreds of mock jury deliberations, one of the main things people try to do is simplify the task at hand.
"What they're looking for is a few things, including a system for answering the verdict questions, a way to resolve the gut decisions with the questions they have to answer, and ways to shortcut the technical details to come up with a decision that feels right," Boully said.
"When it comes to some of the more technical aspects -- the patent language, the patent claims -- there's going to be a sea of complexity," he said. "What we commonly see is that [jurors] grab onto something they can understand, probably something simple as comparison of products."Bouly said.

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