Apple releases the names of its next several witnesses in trial

Tomorrow is Monday and that means that it will be the start of the second week of the Apple v. Samsung patent trial. Over the weekend, Samsung attorney John Quinn might have been sticking pins into his Judge Lucy Koh vodoo doll. The Korean based manufacturer did catch a break when four jurors admitted viewing the excluded evidence featuring the designs from Sony allegedly used by former Apple designer (all together now, 1...2...3...) Shin Noshibori, in producing sketches of early Apple iPhone designs. Judge Koh, who was livid when she heard of the leak, could have banged her gavel down and allowed Apple's request for summary judgment and today we'd be doing the comparison to the 58 second heavyweight fight between Ken Norton and Duane Bobick. But the jurors promised they'd remain impartial (Shin who?) and Judge Koh, luckily for Samsung, ruled no harm, no foul.

On Sunday, Apple did present a list of the the next several witnesses it plans on calling to the stand. Among them will be Susan Kare, a designer whose name might not be familiar to you, but her work should be. Ms. Kare is the one who designed the "Happy Mac" logo which has been around for 30 years. She is expected to testify about the design of Samsung's devices compared to Apple's three design patents used on its touchscreen phone. She also could be asked to discuss the differences in UI graphics between Samsung's smartphones and the Apple iPhone.

Justin Dennison was called to the stand and testified briefly before court recessed for the weekend. After working at Nokia, Dennison has spent the last four years as Samsung's Chief Strategy Officer. Apple is trying on Direct Examination to get Dennison to admit that Samsung managers used the iPhone as a blueprint to design its own smartphone models. Before the weekend recess, he told the jury that some design features that Samsung models and the Apple iPhone had in common were due to common sense. Rounded corners made the devices more durable, and a flat screen is cheaper to use than curved glass.

Another name on Apple's witness list is Wookyun Kho, a Samsung engineer. Based on court filings, it seems that Mr. Kho will be asked for his role in the writing of the code for the "bounce back" effect which Apple owns a utility patent for, and alleges that Samsung infringed upon.

Apple plans on calling Peter Bresslerto the stand as an expert witness on design. The co-author of 73 patents, Bressler has appeared as an expert witness in 7 trials relating to utility patents and trade dress claims (sounds like a Playbill, doesn't it?). Apple will bring him on the stand to discuss the three iPhone design patents and to talk about tablet designs. What makes him an expert? Bressler was president of the Industrial Designers Society of America between 1989 to 1990, and is currently an adjunct associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

Another expert Apple plans on calling is Russel Winer, chair of the Department of Marketing at the Stern School of Business for NYU and the author of more than 70 papers on marketing. His role is to tell the jury about the strength of Apple's trade dress and to explain that Samsung competes with Apple in similar marketing channels. Hal Poret is an expert on survey research for advertising and trademark and he will be used to introduce a survey showing that consumers associate the iPad trade dress with Apple.

Kent Van Lierewould appear to be an important expert witness for Apple. With an expertise in statistics and surveys done for litigation, Van Liere is expected to show that in a survey he conducted, consumers in a post-sale environment (in other words, not in a store)  were likely to believe that the Samsung GALAXY Tab 10.1 was an Apple device.

Ravin Balakrishnan, expected to testify in the upcoming week, was hired by Apple to see if the software used by Samsung violated patented software code. His deposition centered on Apple's "bounce back" patent. Finally, Karan Singh, the last name on the list, is an associate professor of computer science at the University of Toronto. Apple plans on having him testify this week that Samsung infringed on Apple patents like "tap-to-zoom," and "scroll vs. gesture."

Depending on how fast things go in the courtroom, we might not see all of these witnesses take the stand next week. If the courtroom turns into a three-ring circus like it seemed on the verge of last week, some of these witnesses might not get called. Remember, the Judge is limiting each side to 25 hours of direct testimony. We wonder if any side that goes over that time cap will be literally throttled by the court.

source: CNET