Last Friday, after three days of deliberation, the court finally ruled in favor of Apple in the patent infringement case against Samsung. Although many speculated a stalemate, the verdict was resoundingly in Apple’s favor, the spoils being $1 billion and change. Of course, Apple was aiming for $2.5 billion, but I’m sure they’re not complaining.
In a case involving over 30 devices and 4 corporate entities (Apple, Samsung Electronics, Samsung Electronics America, and Samsung Telecommunications America), one couldn’t help but be fascinated by its sheer scope. What’s even more interesting? Not one of the jurors owned an iPhone.
Begrudgingly, I’d imagine, the jurors chipped away at the verdict form containing 33 questions and over 700 blank fields, including this one.
Not intimidating at all.
“We were inundated with evidence,” said Val Hogan, jury foreman. He recalls, during an interview on Bloomberg, that he was uncertain as to how this trial was going to end, until he decided to treat the trial as if it were his patents in question. Hogan, an engineer and holder of a few patents, helped his fellow jurors through the tedious process.
Although the verdict is out, this legal tango is not expected to end anytime soon. Apple is poised to request a ban on the Samsung phones in question, and Samsung has vowed to appeal all the way up the court system, which ought to be interesting.
What else is interesting is this very special article that Gizmodo put out Tuesday. It’s a look inside an Apple Genius’s training manual.
Through this book, Geniuses are instructed to be competent in all things Mac while being reminded to be human as well. Tech writer Sam Biddle says, “The manual could easily serve as the Humanity 101 textbook for a robot university, but at Apple, it’s an exhaustive manual to understanding customers and making them happy.”
This would be such a fun book to read. From what I gather, these Geniuses are trained to channel Jobs’s (in)famous reality distortion field, the iron will that moves mountains.
Love it or hate it, Apple is onto something revolutionary. Whether it’s their patented rounded rectangle interface or patented “bounce back” scrolling feature, they have the human touch found in no other major company.
Let me stop there before I get sick from saying too many nice things. Here’s a video of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates rapping.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=njos57IJf-0]