Apple-Samsung foreman says that the consumers are the real losers

Apple and Samsung are undoubtedly looking for a way to spin Friday’s mixed verdict as a victory. But the trial’s jury foreman says it wasn’t a case of picking a winner. “It wasn’t a decision based on trying to send a message to one company or another,” Thomas Dunham, a retired IBM supervisor, told the San Jose Mercury News. “It was based on the evidence that was presented to us.” The jury found that Samsung had infringed some Apple patents but not others. 

With the trial now over in the second Apple-Samsung patent case, jurors have begun talking to the media about the case — particularly foreman Thomas Dunham, a retired IBM supervisor. Commenting on the verdict, he said that “ultimately, the consumer is the loser in all this” and that he’d like to see the two tech giants “find a way to settle.” After revising figures owing to what Dunham called a “clerical error” earlier in the day, the jury left the total awards to Samsung and Apple intact.  In the case, the jury awarded Apple $119.6 million based on Samsung’s copying of three software patents that were invented by Apple. The figure was not intended to include a punitive damages award, as that will be decided by the judge in the case, US District Court Judge Lucy Koh. The jurors rejected Apple’s argument that very high damages were needed in order to dissuade Samsung from copying Apple in the future, or at least did not consider it their role to award damages based on that. Apple had asked for $2.2 billion in damages (and got a mere six percent of what it asked for).