Apple lawyer: 'I promise I am not smoking crack'
Judge Koh not so sure
Agentless Backup is Not a Myth
Judge Lucy Koh has grown increasingly irritated with lawyers on both sides of the ongoing lawsuit between Apple and Samsung, but she hit a new boiling point on Thursday when Apple presented her a 75-page list of potential rebuttal witnesses for the four hours it has remaining in the trial.
"This is ridiculous," the San Jose Mercury News reports Koh as saying. "Unless you're smoking crack, you know these witnesses aren't going to be called."
At the start of the trial, Judge Koh gave each side a total of 25 hours to make its case, not including opening and closing arguments. Taking into account testimony given so far, on Thursday morning Apple had four hours remaining, while Samsung had only two.
"I'm not smoking crack, I promise you that," Apple attorney Bill Lee replied, insisting that the fruity firm had timed its witnesses so that it would be able to make it through all 22 in the time allotted.
Koh seemed incredulous, saying that the 75-page list imposed an undue burden on the court.
On Wednesday, Judge Koh, clearly fed up with how lawyers on both sides have conducted the case, strongly suggested that the two tech companies talk at least once more to try to achieve a settlement before the case goes to jury deliberation. "I see risks here for both sides," she said.
This came after days of contentious proceedings in which Koh repeatedly scolded attorneys. She's been irritated from the start of the case, when Samsung released evidence that had been rejected from the case to the press, a move that reportedly had her "livid."
But when Apple tried to take advantage of her ire by demanding that Samsung's lawyers be censured, she snapped at its lawyers, too, saying, "I will not let any theatrics or sideshow distract us from what we are here to do."
Given Thursday morning's exchange, however, it seems that may be beyond her power. ®
COMMENTS
What she is irritated about is
She is using her Harvard Law Degree to babysit a bunch of squabbling children. The whole case should have been thrown out as a complete waste of the courts time.
The Point, surely...
Is that there is no way 22 witnesses at less than four minutes each will be called. The point is that Samsung have to prepare for all of them, when one or two will be called. So, like a student come exam time, Samsung can either try prepping for all of them poorly, or a couple of them well in the hope those are the chosen ones. Apple knows this, so it's just trying to improve its position.
I've been involved in a few cases in Blighty, and the golden rule is to never, ever, piss off the person at the front wearing the wig (in US terms, in the black robe with the hammer). I am surprised either side would be willing to risk doing just that, but both of them have. Bizarre.
Well, maybe he should...
really what they need to do is take both CEOs, drop them off in Las Vegas with a bunch of cash and a list of the seediest bars and 'entertainment'. By the the next day, they'll either be close fiends, or dead; Either way works.
We did this to two executives at our company that had a very vicious rivalry going on between them, they came back and immediately started to cooperate. Its probably due to mutual fear that the other will spill the beans on what happened in Vegas...
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