back to article Jury selection delays start of Apple/Samsung patent showdown

The jury has been picked for the forthcoming patent trial between Apple and Samsung to determine who has the rights to produce a rectangular fondleslab with rounded corners, among other things. Tomorrow three women and seven men will hear opening statements in the case in San Jose's federal court. Jury selection took all day …

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  1. LarsG
    Trollface

    Can you think

    Can you think of anything more boring than being on this jury, it will go on for months and months.

    The only perk, a free iPhone at the end of the trial.

    1. Shagbag

      Re: Can you think

      Free iPhone? I'll take the cash thanks.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: The only perk

      I upvoted your post because I saw what you did there, not becuase I would want an iPhone.

    3. Mark .

      A social duty to listen to patent trolling...

      I agree (apart from the IPhone being a perk...)

      There's the whole debate about juries and payment, the usual arguments being about one's social duty. But hang on a moment - it's one thing if we're talking about criminal offences, but should it really be a social duty for ordinary people have to sit out large companies' patent squabbles?

      It's even more insidious when you consider the billions of dollars at stake, and the billions of dollars that Apple have stuffed in the bank. Meanwhile, ordinary people have to give up their time and livelihood, so that Apple can argue its way to stifle competition to make even more profit?

      I mean, obviously I'd *love* to be on this jury to have my say, and evidently the "We're an Apple family" members won't have a problem either, but for most people who don't care, this seems rather unreasonable.

  2. Mr_Bungle
    Facepalm

    Pass the bucket

    "We are an Apple kind of family," said another.

    Ughhh..I just threw up in my mouth a little. Imagine the smirk on the Apple exec's face when reading this.

    I find it horrifying people are buying into this rancid horseshit. Somehow using a brand of technology is a 'lifestyle' choice. If you need a PC or phone to describe to the world what kind of person you are, then you are already intellectually dead.

    Apple fans about to comment and defend this madness - Screw you in advance. You have already been brainwashed and cannot be trusted to have an opinion.

    1. petur
      Meh

      Re: Pass the bucket

      Because sadly once you start buying into a certain brand, you are pretty much stuck because your apps and data/content are in there. Apple is worse at it of course, since it saw the benifits from the start...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Pass the bucket

        Worse in exactly what way? I don't see that I am locked-in to MacOSX any more or less than Windows or for that matter Linux.

        1. kirovs
          Linux

          Re: Pass the bucket

          You can get locked in by Linux?

          What are you smoking my friend? It must be good!

      2. Fred Flintstone Gold badge

        Re: Pass the bucket

        I prefer to be locked in to a company whose core business is not the acquisition and reselling of my personal information but selling kit. I know this is an uncommon view, but I'm picky like that..

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Pass the bucket

          But how do you know that Apple is not selling your data? You don't know. End user license agreements are very open ended using legal terms that can mean whatever Apple or any company for that matter wants the words to mean. It's naive to simply believe it's not happening. Apple is a late comer to cloud storage. Eventually Apple will also find it hard to resist the $$$ for the data it holds about its subscribers. But knowing Apple, it'll probably conivnce it's users to freely give up that information :)

          I'd rather be with a service provider that I know is selling my data but have control over what it can and cannot use. People really do not to think carefully because it is about lock in. Microsoft, Google and Apple know that once people have their data in their clouds, the users are more likely to change their bank than move data from one cloud to another. And people don't change banks very often because that's too much of a chore, even though it's actually painless and easy to do these days.

          Microsoft, Google and Apple understand apathy toward services.

    2. Dazed and Confused
      Childcatcher

      Re: Pass the bucket

      > "We are an Apple kind of family," said another.

      Won't somebody think of the children?

      Should it be legal to indoctrinate young impressionable children?

      Is this some kinda abuse?

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Pass the bucket

        To paraphrase Richard Dawking: "It isn't an Apple child, it's the child of Apple parents"

    3. g e
      Facepalm

      " If you need a PC or phone to describe to the world what kind of person you are"

      Then it's a pretty poor description

    4. mrfill
      Trollface

      Re: Pass the bucket

      "We are an Apple kind of family," said another.

      So that's shiny, overvalued and insufferably smug then...

  3. DEAD4EVER
    Stop

    jury selection delay

    you know fine well whose gonna win it will be apple because Americans love apple devices there obsessed buy them. so clearly the judges will be but the fact is if Samsung did get the rectangular design first then apple have no right to use it. all I can say is good luck to Samsung because this is how apple solves things buy thrown patents just because they cant handle the competition and there loosing market share boo hoo.

    1. DAN*tastik

      Re: jury selection delay

      "Who is gonna win" because if you replace the "hoos" sound with "who is" it makes sense. In this case they are not talking about "who owns a gonna"

      "They're obsessed" because it means "they are". If you can replace the "there" sounds with "I am", then it's "they're"

      "By them". Use "by" when it's a passive form of a verb, "buy" when there is a purchase involved, "bye" when somebody is leaving

      "the judges will be, but the fact" it is common practice to put a comma before "but" so it's easier to understand that you are talking about something else, and the reader can pause a second to take a breath.

      "Apple solves things by" because in this case it can be replaced with "through" or "using". For all the uses of "by" you can read this: http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/by

      "throwing patents" the "ing form" is the correct one here. For example, you could say something along the lines of "ignoring patents". You were not talking about a a throwing action that happened in the past.

      "can't" is the contraction of cannot, and the apostrophe replaces the "no" which is dropped.

      "the competition and they're" again, if you replace the "there" sound with I am it makes sense. So, it is just the contraction of "they are", "they're"

      "losing market share" because when you "lose" something, it means you end up with a smaller amount than in the past. "Loose" is an adjective which means "less tight"

      "market share, boo hoo" Again, a comma helps the reader pause to take a deep breath, and it means the sentence is completed.

      As Holly Harper would say, "Hope that helps!"

      1. auburnman
        Go

        Re: jury selection delay

        Mmmm. Delicious, helpful pedantry. Wish I could upvote again for the Holly Harper reference.

      2. This post has been deleted by its author

      3. Fred Flintstone Gold badge

        Re: jury selection delay

        The only problem with your post is that you refrained from making your own spelling mistakes - it's the kind of irony I love.

        I've decided it's not worth my time to correct the zpelink mistaekes of others, but you choose your own entertainment :)

        1. This post has been deleted by its author

        2. DAN*tastik

          @ Fred Flinstone - Re: jury selection delay

          I have found "talking about a a throwing"

          Anything else it would be great if you, or somebody else, pointed that out. If it's not a typo, it would be something for me to learn! Withdrew my previous reply to your post because I re-read and it could have come across as a bit arsy, and it wasn't my intention at all :)

    2. Mark .

      Re: jury selection delay

      I agree - though note the problem is not so much Apple being popular in the US (even in the US, Windows vastly outsells OS X; Android outdoes Iphone - Apple are a niche platform there as anywhere else), but that the Apple users are a lot more fanatical. To someone who owns a Samsung phone, TV, PC or whatever, it's just a phone, TV or PC - even if it's one they really like. To the Apple user, it's an "Iphone" or a "Macbook".

      Also the problem that Apple fanatics seem devoted to the company, rather than the product. Never did the most fanatical Windows fan go "But look how much money MS make!" For Samsung or anyone else, people are fanatical about their products, but Apple fans will argue what's in the best interest of Apple as a company - which has implications for a trial.

      "the fact is if Samsung did get the rectangular design first then apple have no right to use it"

      And I wonder why Apple devices aren't being banned also in the meantime. If the argument is that whoever is first to design a rectangle should have a patent (which I think is ludicrous, but it's Apple's argument), then since there's just as much evidence that Samsung were first, why isn't that backfiring on Apple? If Samsung win, will they counter-sue Apple?

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Impartial?

    Not sure how any of those could be impartial.

    This shouldn't be a jury trial, unless you can ship over some Eskimos or something...

    1. Paul Shirley

      Re: Impartial?

      You could ship in a jury of Apple employees and get a fairer result than leaving it to judge Koh!

      Biased or not, once the jury ballot gets stripped down to a list of yes/no decisions juries seem to overcome bias. Separated from all the BS that 'rounded corners' patent is going to look very silly to most jurors.

  5. ukgnome

    Why haven't they asked the registers "favourite" commentard?

    Just where is BigDumbGuy when you need him?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      CELLPHONES ARE FOR PUSSYS ANYWAYS AND SO IS JURY SERVICE HANG EM ALL AND LET GOD SORT EM OUT I TRIED USING A PHONE ONCE BUT IT STOPPED WORKING WHEN I RAN OUT OF NICKELS

      There you go.

      1. asdf
        Coffee/keyboard

        brill

        you sir owe me a new keyboard.

  6. Tony Paulazzo
    Big Brother

    The judge has already shown herself to be biased in favour of Apple, and now, choosing an all American jury pretty much seals the deal. This isn't a trial, it's a clusterfuck.

    1. g e
      Meh

      There's an appeal after this though?

      Or not?

      If there is then the inevitable appeal will take place anyway. Maybe Samsung can get it in Seoul ;o)

      Failing that at least get that Oracle v Google judge on the job, at least he seemed to be able to demonstrate a modicum of common sense. Lucy Koh just doesn't seem to understand WTF is going on (which is politer than calling her biased, no?)

      1. Paul Shirley

        Re: Lucy Koh just doesn't seem to understand WTF is going on

        To be fair to her, much of Apples case is ludicrous, there's not much plot for her to lose ;)

  7. Richard Wharram

    So this jury...

    ...is from just down the road from Apple?

    Judge Melchett: Oh, uh hand me the black cap, I'll be needing that.

  8. vic 4
    FAIL

    Re: choosing an all American jury

    Can courts n the US drag in tourists of the street to do jury service?

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    S&P 500

    Is the USA really going to let Samsung screw up the darling of the S&P 500? Of course not. Dark forces will be at work to ensure Apple wins.

  10. druck Silver badge
    Happy

    Shame...

    ...it will be another couple of years before there are enough Windows Phone users to allow a completely unbiased jury to be selected.

  11. Rampant Spaniel

    So basically

    This all comes down to the overall design (both the phone and gui) looking similar?

    So are Aston Martin going to be sueing Ford over the 2013 Fusion? (although I believe Ford still has a circa 10% stake in Aston).

    It doesn't seem like there was blatant similarities, there were phones before the iphone that had similar outward appearances, there were also os's for phones that used icons in a grid.

    There are times when IP goes too far. This would seem to be a prime example.

    As for jury duty, when everyone else in the room is being paid 35 bucks a day I will consider it. I would be especially pissed to find my time being wasted on a case like this.

  12. vanbrewer

    Apple suing for a patent infringement over a rectangle thats a laugh

    How did apple even get a patent like a rectangle device inside a round cornered rectangle, that's hardly new and has been done well before the apple came out . correct me if i am wrong but does this not look like

    a tablet that has round corners with a rectangle screen and this device the dauphin dtr-1 came well before the ipad, in fact it was around in the early 80s but then apple cant really talk about stealing technology isnt their IOS based on linux sounds like copying to me.

    http://comp.disneyjazz.net/images/102_012.jpg

  13. C. P. Cosgrove
    WTF?

    Someday, someone must explain to me how you make a device - phone, tablet or whatever, that is meant to go in a pocket - that doesn't have rounded corners. If you don't round the corners it will just wear straight through the fabric.

    But then I am just a confused silver surfer and one-time electronics tech.

    Chris Cosgrove

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