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one thing to think of for those who say laymen can't understand the technologyone thing to think of for those who say laymen can't understand the technologyPosted Aug 27, 2012 19:36 UTC (Mon) by Kluge (guest, #2881)In reply to: one thing to think of for those who say laymen can't understand the technology by dlang Parent article: There's a Verdict in Apple v. Samsung (Groklaw)
I'm not suggesting that professional panels replace courts for these kinds of torts, but your example has a significant flaw.
There's a difference between this case and a medical malpractice case. In a malpractice case, you have a doctor (or other medical professional) on one side and a member of the (non-medical) public on the other. Any chauvinism on the part of the medical community will favor one side only.
In the case of Apple vs Samsung, both sides consist of multinational corporations and their associated lawyers and software developers. It's not clear that a panel of their professional peers would favor one over the other.
I do think that there should probably be greater use of special masters in this kind of case, but that's not a guarantee against bias.
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one thing to think of for those who say laymen can't understand the technology Posted Aug 27, 2012 21:47 UTC (Mon) by dlang (✭ supporter ✭, #313) [Link]
having a "Special Master" to investigate and provide explanations and education to the court is very different from having that person decide the entire case.
Part of this case is "are the patents valid", but there is also a substantial part of this case that boils down to "did Samsung intend to infringe" and other "who knew what when and what were they thinking" types of questions. It's exactly this type of thing that a random jury should be deciding, not a panel of experts.
I raised the example of medical malpractice because I was on a Jury for such a case last year. And afterworlds I spoke with the lawyers and they mentioned that there has been talk among the medical community questioning if Jurors are able to understand enough of the medical terminology and other information to be able to make a fair ruling in such cases (among other things, just because there is a test that could have been run, and with 20-20 hindsight may have provided information that changed a diagnosis, was the Doctor negligent in not ordering the test)
This sounds eerily similar to the logic that laymen can't handle the complexities of a case like the Samsung/Apple case.
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