Did you really, honestly, imagined Samsung and Apple will turn to technology and innovation and leave the patent war where the judge left it? Whereas Samsung is now building its own patent case against iPhone 5 it is also claiming that a jury foreman tainted the Apple case verdict.
In August, a federal court ruled in favor of Apple, in a sentence that had Samsung liable to pay $1.05 billion in damages. But here we are, less than two months later, and Samsung is preparing its very own patent case against Apple. Moreover, Samsung says it has proof that a jury foreman lied to get on the jury in the Apple vs. Samsung case and tainted the entire verdict.
In a nutshell, Samsung wants to get the first verdict in the Apple vs. Samsung case to be thrown out because the jury foreman lied about a previous litigation with one of the company’s major investments. Bloomberg writes that jury foreman Velvin Hogan was asked if he had any involvement in the lawsuit, but he lied about being sued by Seagate, a company in which Samsung is a major investor.
“Samsung has a substantial strategic relationship with Seagate which culminated last year in the publicized sale of a division to Seagate in a deal worth $1.375 billion” reads the motion filed by Samsung. The deal made “Samsung the single largest direct shareholder of Seagate”. “Mr. Hogan’s failure to disclose the Seagate suit raises issues of bias that Samsung should have been allowed to explore in questioning” the company added.
From what a juror told CNET shortly after the verdict in Apple vs. Samsung was released, it looks like Velvin Hogan really had an influence among the jury. “Hogan was jury foreman. He had experience. He owned patents himself…so he took through his experience. After that it was easier” juror Manuel Ilagan told CNET.
In an interview for Bloomberg TV, Velvin Hogan, the jury foreman Samsung is accusing of tainting the verdict, explained that some of his fellow jurors were having a hard time understanding some of the issues in the case. “…some were not sure of how prior art could either render a patent acceptable or whether it could invalidate it” said Velvin Hogan. “What we did is we started talking about one… (I) laid it out for them” the jury foreman added.
