Apple trial: Samsung deleted emails it shouldn't have
Summary: As Samsung and Apple set out their arguments ahead of next week's patent showdown, a US magistrate has told the jury that Samsung destroyed relevant evidence, albeit not necessarily deliberately
Samsung destroyed evidence that could have been used in its US courtroom battle against Apple, a judge has informed the jury ahead of next week's trial.
Magistrate Paul Grewal issued the notice of what is legally called 'spoliation' on Wednesday, telling the jury that they could take it into account if they want, when deciding whether Samsung really did copy the iPhone and iPad's design and other patents in its subsequent Android products.
Samsung's employees use a proprietary, web-based email system called mySingle, which has a default policy that ensures the deletion of all emails after two weeks, largely for security reasons.
Samsung was supposed to put that policy on hold for relevant emails when Apple told it in August 2010 that it was allegedly infringing on Apple's design patents, but it only definitively ordered its employees to retain relevant emails when Apple sued in April 2011. As a result, swathes of likely evidence from key Samsung executives were not retained as they should have been.
However, Grewal did not find that Samsung had destroyed the evidence deliberately — if he done so, he could have ordered the jury to take the incident into account when reaching their verdict.
"Relevant evidence was destroyed after the duty to preserve arose," Grewal told the jury. "And second, the lost evidence was favourable to Apple. Whether this finding is important to you in reaching a verdict in this case is for you to decide."
Pre-trial briefs
Grewal's order came a day after Apple and Samsung filed their pre-trial briefs — the Wall Street Journal has uploaded both Apple's and Samsung's submissions.
Both briefs contain strong allegations, largely based on the kind of emails that Samsung's systems swallowed up.
Apple showed a picture that depicted Samsung's smartphone portfolio before and after the iPhone's 2007 release, highlighting how its preceding designs were very different to those after that release:
However, Samsung also included a picture in its submission, showing "internal Samsung design presentations from the summer of 2006" that have many of the same, simplified features as the iPhone:
Samsung also noted that, in February 2006, Apple executives were sent an interview with a Sony designer, describing "Sony portable electronic device designs that lacked 'excessive ornamentation' such as buttons, fit in the hand, were 'square with a screen' and had 'corners [which] have been rounded out.'" Shortly afterwards, they started designing the iPhone.
The versions of the briefs that are public are redacted. However, All Things D appears to have seen an unredacted version of Apple's brief, showing several fresh allegations.
According to that story, Google warned Samsung in February 2010 that its tablet designs were too close to that of the iPad; Samsung's own product design team acknowledged 'regrettable' similarities between the Galaxy S smartphone and early iPhone models; and "famous designers" also warned Samsung over the same device.
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Talkback
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Looks like there's some weakening without Jobs!
Maybe they shouldn't be so aggressive, after all, their internal design example did have Sony written on it right?
So,
http://investor.google.com/financial/tables.html
http://markets.ft.com/Research/Markets/Tearsheets/Forecasts?s=MSFT:NSQ
@Peter Perry
When you posted under your old name you weren't usually so obviously trolling.
Nah
Crud, the New York Times reported the article we are commenting on yesterday and there was a lot pf damning evidence against both sides... Funny how this article Stripped out the bit about the iPhone Cad Drawings have other companies logos before it was ever released.
Poor reporting should upset all of you but, if it is about Apple you get upset.
So let me get this straight...
It should upset people
@NonZealot
Nice find and yes, I really liked seeing that Sony example
2006' Sony interview is obviously irrelevant
2. Minimalism, no arnament design is Apple's/Jobs thing for decades already.
3. All screen design comes from no later than 2004, when Jobs started to force the idea of on-screen keyboard and found FingerWorks, which had capacitive multi-touch technology.
So Jury will have no issue with this Sony interview from 2006; irrelevant.
And since it is not the first time when Samsung "accidently" destroys evidence, the dating of some of their "internal designs" -- supposedly from 2006 -- are not reliable. Court will have to investigate this. Finally, Apple's designs are patented, announced and released to market earlier, so this will not help Samsung much anyway.
You'll have to do better
Is "insisted" legalese for "owns all rights to"? Of course not. Rounded corners have been around forever. Claiming that a Jobs calculator had rounded corners means that Apple owns rounded corners is a stretch, even for you.
"Minimalism, no arnament design is Apple's/Jobs thing"
Same as above.
"All screen design comes from no later than 2004"
Clearly not or Apple wouldn't have been caught red handed with Sony designs in their possession.
"Apple's designs are patented"
Yes, as patented as the slide to unlock feature. Wait, Apple lost that patent because a judge ruled that it was obvious and that this patent should never have been granted in the first place.
Kudos Samsung, Apple just got caught with their hand in the cookie jar. And thanks again to Sony for proving who the real slavish copiers are: Apple.
All wrong
2. Apple was not "caught" in anything, and did not "possess" any Sony's designs. Samsung just says there was 2006 interview with Sony guy that mentions words all screen and rounded corners;
3. Slide to unlock patent is legislated all around the world, and only in one case judge denied this patent for now. This is because there was never way to unlock phone by moving an object by finger. There was way to unlock phone my moving finger across the bottom of the blank black screen -- no object to move -- which was done in Neonode N1 phone. But this is distinctly different from what Apple designed and Google copied (Apple's patent describes unlocking by moving an object, which fits to Apple's and Google's way, but not Neonode's).
So again all we have with your argument is trolling.
Nope
My judge that invalidated Apple's patent for being obvious trumps your Internet eThugery. So I'll turn this around considering I have a real judge in a real court having issued a real verdict and you have nothing. I say to you DRESSS: all we have with your argument is trolling.
As for the rest of your post, these are all your opinions. The FACTs speak louder than your trolling posts.
Wrong again Toddbottom3
So one judge vs patents held up globally.
Wrong athynz
a) it hasn't been tried globally (remember, any idiot can get a patent and any idiot's father can get a patent)
b) it lost in a huge country in this globe (thus making it not globally held up, you can't say something is unanimous with the exception of everyone who voted against it)
If any idiot can get a patent...
Your right toddbottom3
You mean like this?
Oh Toddy!
Why doesn't Samsung just make a different design so this all goes away?
maybe octagon shape
Besides, short of industrial espionage which I do not think Apple is claiming here, the 2006 Samsung designs that Samsung put forth were clearly before the public or even private release of the Apple Iphone so this will clear itself up very quickly.
But you are right, Samsung could easily create a unique look that Apple could do nothing about and it would not hurt Samsung one bit meaning it could continue putting out better phones than the slave boxes that Apple puts out. Just make one corner flat (as if someone took a pair of scissors and cut off a sharp corner) and make that a trademark of Samsung's flagship phones. Apple would have no power to stop that design because even the idiots that buy Iphones would be able to tell it is not an Iphone.
So you are saying