Judge orders Apple, Samsung to finish jury instructions
updated 10:30 am EDT, Mon August 13, 2012
Submissions due today may foreshadow official ruling
On Sunday, US District Judge Lucy Koh ordered Apple and Samsung to meet and attempt to sort out final jury instructions, according to FOSS Patents. The order is thought to be unusual but possibly necessary, since jury instructions have remained a matter of debate since the start of the trial two weeks ago. On Friday Apple argued that it was trying to "advance the process," but blamed Samsung for creating problems; Samsung countered by saying that it had agreed to "more than twenty revised instructions proposed by Apple," but that Apple had only gone along with two Samsung proposals.
Whatever the state of jury instructions, they must be submitted to Koh by 8AM Pacific time today, even though finished instructions aren't due until at least a week from now. The judge may be preparing to issue her own ruling in the event that Apple and Samsung didn't come to an agreement yesterday.
Another Sunday order blocked an Apple "Offer of Proof Regarding Evidence of its iPhone and iPad Advertisements," which Koh says the court considers a motion for leave to file a motion for reconsideration. Samsung has opposed having the ads admitted into evidence; this was initially overruled with the argument that they were relevant to "fame" and Apple's trade dress claims, but a second Samsung objection won out, noting that the clips were "cumulative" and "allowed only the indices into evidence."
The third week of the trial may be the deciding one, as Samsung will start bringing its first witnesses to the stand, defending the company against Apple's patent allegations.
Fresh-Faced Recruit
Joined: 11-09-11
Sorry to be tight-sphinctered, but I believe the word you were looking for in the last sentence of the first paragraph was "gone," as in, "but that Apple had only gone along with two Samsung proposals."
Tremendously confusing language, English, with all those irregular verbs. Then again, the verb for "go" is irregular in a lot of languages.