Jury likely to decide Apple and Samsung case as parties fail to narrow dispute

Apple and Samsung on Saturday said no progress was made in narrowing claims against each other in the two companies' ongoing high-stakes California patent trial, making the possibility of a jury verdict all the more likely.

In a joint filing on Saturday, Apple and Samsung said "the parties have met and conferred about case narrowing, but have not been able to narrow their cases further." This means the case will go to jury deliberation barring any further development between the two tech heavyweights, reports Bloomberg.

Despite being "pathologically optimistic" that a settlement could be reached, presiding Judge Lucy Koh this week said she hoped the parties would at least narrow their claims if such an agreement didn't materialize. A winnowing of claims would make it easier for jurors to come to a decision.

In a subsequent Saturday filing, Judge Koh said the Court will be entering tentative jury instructions in installments as they are prepared, thus allowing the parties as much advance notice as possible. To that end, Apple and Samsung began maneuvering for favorable positioning as they filed some of the first "redlined" versions of the proposed documents.

Judge Koh and her staff will be responsible for filing a complete set of tentative final jury instructions on Sunday, which "will reflect the Court's rulings on all objections made by the parties" regarding the original disputed instructions. The judge ordered Apple and Samsung lead counsel to meet and resolve the litany of disputes earlier this week, saying she was "disappointed" by the situation.

One of the sticking points is a chart the jury will use as a reference to the Samsung products accused of infringing on Apple's patents. Apple argues its one-page chart is less confusing than Samsung's six-page counterpart, which includes allegedly extraneous information like Android version numbers. The Korean company disputes that Apple's chart "accurately represents the accused products."

It was noted in Judge Koh's order that the Court was revising the procedure for objecting to disputed jury instructions. Both parties are still required to file "no more than 16 pages of their 8 high priority objections by 8:00 a.m. on Monday," but are no longer allowed to file any further objections. Instead, Apple and Samsung counsel will need to wait for a Monday hearing, at which time the charts, as well as a number of other disputes, will be argued.

The parties also submitted proposed verdict forms (1, 2), offering a glimpse of what the jury may fill out when deciding the case if deliberations begin on Tuesday.

Source: http://forums.appleinsider.com/t/152005/jury-likely-to-decide-apple-and-samsung-case-as-parties-fail-to-narrow-dispute

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