Apple verdict 'technically wrong'

Kal Raustiala

This is the second in a series of articles ahead of the Dec. 6 hearing on the Samsung-Apple patent legal battle to be presided over by U.S. Federal Judge Lucy Koh. ― ED.

By Kim Yoo-chul

A noted U.S. expert says nine U.S. jurors were technically wrong in their decision to order Samsung Electronics to pay Apple $1.05 billion for patent violations.

“Juries are ill-equipped to deal with the complexities of patent law, they have brand loyalties that may color their judgment and they tend to easily fall for the simple accusation that someone is a copycat,” said Kal Raustiala, a professor at UCLA School of Law and director of the Burkle Center for International Relations at UCLA, in an email interview with The Korea Times, Tuesday.

Raustiala is also the co-author of the book titled as ``The Knockoff Economy: How Imitation Sparks Innovation'' with Christopher Jon Sprigman from the University of Virginia School of Law in the United States.

“The conduct of the jury in the Samsung-Apple trial is a good example of why we shouldn’t have juries in complex patent cases,” Raustiala said. He is a recognized patent scholar in the United States who claims that copying can actually benefit certain industries rather than harming them.

“The U.S. patent system isn’t just a trap for the unwary. It can snare the wary as well. To fix this, we need to fix the U.S. patent system. There are many reforms that have been proposed including cutting back the scope of patentable subject matter, changing the way the U.S. Patent Office reviews applications, increasing that office’s funding, limiting the damages from patent infringement, raising the plaintiff’s standard of proof in court, and adding an independent invention defense. All of these are worth considering,” he said.

The jurors’ decision resulted Apple in winning damages based on two Samsung items they said it didn’t commit patent infringements on, the professor said.

“The jury took less than three days to decide hundreds of complex patent validity and infringement claims and their haste shows.”

The United States is the only country that uses juries in patent cases. According to Raustiala, other nations don’t because jurors aren’t usually able to sort out technical and complicated claims.

He also questioned the validity of Apple’s design-related patents as a lot of devices for reading text and viewing pictures such as TVs, laptops and Amazon’s Kindle use them.

“Apple accused Samsung of copying its very broad design patents for rectangular ‘electronic devices.’ But these patents are questionable. Apple created its version of a rectangular reading platform. Yet, now Apple has succeeded in punishing Samsung for much the same thing — employing a rectangular design. And this highlights a central issue in today’s innovation-based economy. What is the proper balance between competition and copying?” said Raustiala.

He then stressed this trend only reinforces concerns people have with a firm locking up specific shapes via design patents.

“Now, one might quibble and say copying is the reason there is so much sameness; it is all me too designs. But we think that is only part of the story. Slim rectangles with rounded corners have major advantages, both for ease of carry and for use as a media consumption devices,” responded Raustiala, also a former research fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies Program at The Brookings Institution.

On the possibility of U.S. Federal Judge Lucy Koh throwing out the August decision, the professor said it’s still rare in the U.S. legal system to overturn a jury verdict.

“Adjustment is possible. Although we think the jury foreman has made statements that call the fairness of his judgment into question, an overturn is very unlikely in the U.S. legal system,” he said.

Samsung is seeking a new trial citing jury foreman Velvin Hogan’s alleged misconduct. He didn’t disclose his past during the trial including that he had been sued by Seagate Technology, partly owned by Samsung.

And Apple officially filed with the San Jose court that it knew nothing about Hogan’s past. In its legal papers, Apple said its lawyers “became aware” that Hogan had filed for bankruptcy through a public records search but they never pulled the bankruptcy court file.

The UCLA professor praised Samsung over the Korean firm’s successful lead over Apple in the smartphone race.

“Samsung is an example of a firm that has been extremely successful at improving and refining existing technologies in ways that consumers love. This kind of improvement is a very important part of innovation. Unfortunately, the American patent system poses many pitfalls for firms that pursue such a strategy,” said the Harvard-educated professor.

“Competition is the key value here. It makes products cheaper and better. It benefits consumers. In the end, Samsung and Apple will settle their dispute. The question is whether the settlement will be at consumers’ expense.”