That's one of those things that really came out when
comparing the
instructions to Hogan's post-trial statements.
The jury didn't do its duty, or
at least gravely
misinterpreted it. And the verdict form didn't really
reflect
that adequately (see below).
Regardless of whether they decided the
patent was valid
or not, they still needed to rule on infringement. This is
even made clear in the Court's official Model Patent Jury
Instructions. See Appendix C.3 (Sample
Verdict Form)on
page 56 ("Findings on Infringement Claims"). In my mind,
filling out this form for each product and each patent would
have taken at
least a week of deliberation, but would have
forced the jury to consider all
the possibilities.
Koh's final verdict
form basically was set up to
fail, and to be inadequate in regards to
dividing up the
damages by patent and device. She knew there would be
appeals,
and should have considered that a monolithic
damages amount would make things
harder for appeals.
Now that several patents are invalid, she's got a
major
mess on her hands. Well, maybe she doesn't, but the appeals
court does.
If I were them, I would probably consider
remanding it. Or declaring a
mistrial. Either way, trying to
get into the mind of the jury is going to be
problematic.
Also consider that there iss psychology involved in forms
like this, too. Even simply comparing the presentation of
the Samsung claims
vs. the Apple claims seems to me like it
would make it less likely that the
jury would rule in favor
of Samsung on anything (you've go to rotate the page
to view
the form, the fields are bigger, etc.). From my lay
perspective, that
would seem to me to make marking an
infringement more weighty. Did I mention
the annoyance
factor of rotating the page? --- IANAL
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