Regulation

I was surprised that Apple won a $1 billion verdict against Samsung. I put the verdict down to home field advantage: Americans favoring an American company, a bizarrely popular American company, over a Korean company. But it appears that confusion also played a role.

"In discussing the first patent on the list, he says they got into a discussion about the prior art that was presented at trial. Here's why they discounted it: 'The software on the Apple side could not be placed into the processor on the prior art and vice versa. That means they are not interchangeable. That changed everything right there.' That isn't disqualifying for prior art. It doesn't have to run on the same processor. It doesn't have to run at all. It can be words on a piece of paper."

I don't know if this foreman was stupid or evil, but his analysis if flat wrong, and it contributed to a bad verdict that's going to hurt us all. Here's what this case was really about:

"Samsung, the world’s top smartphone seller, is offering a variety of Galaxy handsets, with different sizes and features, to lure consumers from limited choices offered by Apple."

Samsung is beating Apple in the market, so Apple used the coercive power of government to damage its more successful competitor.