Benchslap of the Day: Are You On Crack?

Apple v. Samsung moves right along and still manages to maintain the crazy.

Every day it seems the Apple v. Samsung trial couldn’t get any more exciting, but somehow every day, the court proceedings seem to ratchet up the ridiculousness. Samsung has rested its case, and commentators expect closing arguments to happen on Tuesday.

But the trial won’t close out quietly. The vitriol from all sides shows no signs of slowing down — least of all from Judge Lucy Koh, who has quite simply had it up to here with the tech giants’ bickering.

Yesterday she again tried to convince the parties to settle, without much success. Today, the judicial badass inquired as to whether or not counsel was on drugs. Good times!

Can you guess which side received the verbal beating?

Here’s what Judge Koh said yesterday in a futile attempt to resolve the case before the jury takes over:

I see risk here for both sides. I think it’s at least worth one more chance. If what you all had wanted is to raise awareness that you have IP on these devices, message delivered… It’s time for peace.

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Reading those words, I immediately imagined that scene from Independence Day, when the humans hopelessly attempt to negotiate with the aliens. I imagine an Apple-Samsung settlement conference going similarly. Both companies could probably play either role:

“Peace… No peace.”

What is it you want us to do?”

Die. Diiiiiie.

Either way, over the past couple days, Samsung hurriedly presented its case, and it appears the South Korean company’s attorneys was feeling the heat. Ars Technica explains:

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Samsung is defending itself against Apple’s claims of copying, as well as pushing its own patent counterattacks. The Korean electronics giant’s lawyers seem stressed, however — and for good reason. They’re clearly grating on Judge Koh’s nerves, and are rapidly running out of time. Samsung’s lawyers speak quickly and are racing through their witnesses, but they have a huge amount of ground to cover in very little time. By the end of testimony today, Samsung had just 2 hours and 35 minutes left of the 25 hours it has been granted to present evidence to the jury; Apple still has nearly 7 hours left.

Yesterday’s highlight was the testimony of Samsung’s lead designer, Jinsoo Kim, who described the process of designing the Galaxy Tab 10.1, allegedly some time before the iPad was unveiled:

His team started working on the Galaxy Tab 10.1 back in October 2009, Kim said — four months before the Apple iPad was unveiled in early 2010.

Kim acknowledged there are some visual similarities between the tablets — both have a flat glass screen and a black frame — but Kim said some of those similarities are driven by simple practicalities and common sense.

“That frame, I think of as providing a fencing mechanism,” said Kim, speaking through a Korean translator who sat next to him. “Otherwise you would have the glass come into direct contact with the user’s hand. If the glass were shattered or absorbs a shock, this could inflict a deep wound.”

You can read more about Apple’s tough cross-examination of Mr. Kim here. Today, Samsung rested its case. According to Bloomberg, the company is asking Apple for as much as $421.8 million for patent violations in its countersuit against Apple.

So far, Samsung’s Quinn Emanuel attorneys have taken the lion’s share of Judge Koh’s frustration. But at least she never accused John Quinn of smoking crack. Apple’s attorneys from WilmerHale were the ones to earn that illustrious distinction today.…

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