Hacker News Reader

Comment by hythloday | Hacker News Reader

In an article from 2004, the author of Freakonomics argued that we should do exactly that: "Should we punish juries that get it wrong?"

http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/everyday_economics/2003/0...

View on HN

If anyone should be punished it's the judges. When lawyers tried to use copyright arguments where they should have used patents, Alsup was all over that. Where Apple should have used copyright claims if they wanted to talk about similarities w/ icons, etc., Koh should have been on that. Koh's leadership of the courtroom was weak, she let too much slide. Alsup made sure everything was by the book with no emotions. Koh's courtroom was an emotional soap opera, which Apple thrived in since legally their case was weak. Emotionally, they had the jurors. Yes Samsung copied, but copying by itself isn't illegal. Koh compared to Alsup, showed that she really isn't fit to lead such a high profile case, or any case for that matter.

No, that would simply lead to risk averse juries or retrials when they refused to return a verdict. I'm quite in favour of the English patents court, but it looks as if we may lose that in EU harmonisation.

"The English courts are already the chosen forum for many European patent disputes. The quality and relative speed of well-reasoned decisions, as well as the use of court procedures such as cross-examination and disclosure, are much respected throughout the world. Most of the English judges who are experienced in patent cases also have technical backgrounds, which is so important in complex cases."

http://www.thelawyer.com/opinion-patently-obvious-eu-patent-...

One problem that comes with that is what is "wrong"?

How can you determine if the outcome is correct or incorrect before the jury does? And if you could, why would we have a jury?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com