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back to article Google v Intellectual Ventures patent spat jury: Soz judge, we're stumped on this

A US judge has declared a mistrial in a patent lawsuit brought by Intellectual Ventures against Googorola after the jurors failed to reach a unanimous verdict in the case. The patent-holding firm set up by former Microsoftie Nathan Myhrvold is suing over three patents covering mobile phones and software, including one that …

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  1. Anonymous Coward
    Holmes

    Intellectual Ventures

    Three of the founders are Nathan Myhrvold and Edward Jung of Microsoft and Peter Detkin of Intel.

    I'll leave folks to draw their own conclusions.

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    1. dogged
      Reply Icon
      FAIL

      Re: Intellectual Ventures

      They were employed by MS and Intel but they were employed as lawyers.

      Lawyers is lawyers is lawyers. Anyone prepared to bet real money that no patent troll firm has been started anywhere by any lawyer previously employed by Google?

      Me neither.

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      1. Anonymous Coward
        Reply Icon
        WTF?

        Re: Intellectual Ventures @ dogged

        "They were employed by MS and Intel but they were employed as lawyers."

        Erm don't think so mate, two seconds on Google would have found for you :

        Nathan Myhrvold was Chief Technology Officer at Microsoft.

        Edward Jung was chief architect and advisor to executive staff.

        Peter Detkin however was a lawyer and worked as Vice President and assistant general counsel in charge of patents, litigation, licensing and antitrust/competition law for Intel. Which is a laugh considering how they screwed AMD by paying OEMs not to buy AMD chips and were successfully sued for several billion dollars. IMHO Intel didn't pay enough to AMD.

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  2. Chris 244

    Billion-dollar IP firm

    But they can't get stuff to scan squarely, guess someone else holds the patent on that. The court filing including patent numbers is here:

    http://www.intellectualventures.com/assets_docs/complaint_motorola.pdf

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  3. Old Handle

    Huh, I thought civil cases only required a majority. But it doesn't surprise me that there are exceptions to this.

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    1. Terry Cloth
      Reply Icon

      I suspect you're thinking of the standard of proof

      If the defendant's looking to lose her freedom (as in jail time) the jury must unanimously find the prosecution proved its case ``beyond a reasonable doubt''. But if it's only money at stake, the jury is instructed to come in for the side which proved its case by ``the preponderance of the evidence''---i.e. whoever's case is stronger, no matter by how thin a margin. In this case they're obviously required to be unanimous, too.

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  4. Asif Youcare

    Juries for technology trials?

    It is crazy to use juries for complex technology disputes, even with the help of a competent judge. The issues of supposed fact are too complex for moderately intelligent lay people to decide.

    Give this stuff to judges, with advice from expert witnesses.

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    1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: Juries for technology trials?

      The issues of supposed fact are too complex for moderately intelligent lay people to decide.

      They're too complex for most judges, too. I don't think handing them to a judge is going to solve anything.

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