Edible Apple

The Apple/Samsung trial got underway yesterday, preceded by a flurry of court activity that revealed a plethora of information about various Apple prototypes and much much more. But more on that later.

For now, the jury for the trial has been selected and it’s all systems go. Bloomberg yesterday reported on the jury selection process and there are a few interesting nuggets of information.

All told, there are 7 men and 3 women on the jury, and as you might expect from a jury pool sourced out of Silicon Valley, there are some tech inclined folks on the jury. Which, of course, is a good thing given the complexity of the legal dispute at hand.

Some of the jurors include a woman who previously worked for a semiconductor company, a man who has previously filed for his own patents, and a software engineer.

Interestingly enough, a Google employee was being considered for the jury, obviously against the wishes of Apple.

Koh twice rejected a request by William Lee, a lawyer for Apple, to dismiss “for cause” the Google engineer who said he owns shares in his company.

The engineer said he started at Google before it bought YouTube, working on user interface layouts. He said he had worked on the company’s AdWords program, maps and a version of the company’s Android operating system called Jelly Bean. He said he assisted in some capacity with patents covering some of those technologies.

Koh has been seemingly balanced in her decisions thus far, but this seems a bit odd.

“His credibility, as far as I’m concerned,” Koh explained,  “I believe it when he says he can be fair and impartial. For right now he’s been solid that he can be fair and impartial, so he’s staying on.”

Eventually, the report notes that the Google engineer in question was subsequently dismissed after counsel from both Samsung and Apple met and conferred on the issue.

The engineer who applied for his own patents told the court he worked in the hard-drive industry. He said he’s married with two children and that he had worked for Memorex, Digital Equipment and Seagate, among other companies. during the seven years it took him to get the patent approved, he was “active” with his lawyer during the process, he said.

A woman serving on the jury said she worked for National Semiconductor Corp. and now works in retail. She said her husband worked for Applied Materials Inc.

And so, let the games begin!