The latest Apple v. Samsung case is winding down (hooray!) and the jury was given a huge list of instructions in court today to prepare them for their deliberation. Barring any last-minute changes, the jury should cloister tomorrow and start their decision making, wrapping up this particular battle in the patent holy-war. We have no idea how things will work out, and it's very likely that neither side will get what they wanted, but we can be sure that the cost of it all will be paid by us consumers in the long run. We're just glad that this means we'll get a break from ZOMG PATENTS!! being plastered all over the Internet for a little bit.
I read through the written document of jury instructions (all 109 grueling pages of it) and it's all pretty standard. One thing did catch my eye that's worth sharing — jurors have received an unspecified number of unspecified devices to use in their deliberations. We're not sure exactly what devices or how many, but the screenshots that remind jurors not to accept any software updates on the Android devices are of a Samsung Droid Charge. We can be sure the iOS phones will have a 3.8-inch screen, a huge bezel, and a round button, though. I'll let you pore through the instructions yourself, here's a pdf file of them. Keep caffeine handy.
I am glad that jurors have a chance to actually hold the devices in their hands when trying to decide if one looks like the other. Too often court documents are fabricated with the app drawer open on Samsung devices to make them look more like an iOS device, so jurors need a chance to see just how the appear to the user — not the lawyer.
This round is winding down, and all that's left is the verdict, and the weeks worth of online analysis about how it was wrong, how the jury should have seen things, and how one side sucks more than the other. Oh, and the inevitable appeals.
Then we can brace ourselves for the next round.
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