Apple v. Samsung lawyers wage final battles over complex, 22-page jury form
It was mostly a civil day, by the standards of this trial—but that might just be because both sides are so tired, and because the jury isn't around to watch. Apple and Samsung attorneys fired off their final concerns about the jury instructions and the jury verdict form to US District Judge Lucy Koh today, less than 24 hours before the case heads to a jury.
Koh made one significant change that will the even the playing field in Samsung's favor. The jury was originally going to get an instruction that Samsung engaged in despoliation of evidence by pursuing an aggressive e-mail deletion policy even after a key discovery deadline had passed. Today, however, Koh said she found there was reason to issue a similar instruction against Apple, which hadn't done a good job of retaining its own e-mails—including key ones involving Steve Jobs.
"You must have known this was going to be a two way street," Koh told Apple lawyers. "You were successful in getting that August 2010 date [at which Samsung should have been on notice to retain e-mails], now you have to live with it as well. I feel like this is a situation of Apple's own making."
