It’s no surprise that the recent Apple vs. Samsung verdict drew massive ire and certainly no secret that Samsung not only disagrees with it, but plans to fight Apple to the very death. It now appears that Samsung has the additional ammunition needed to contest the court’s ruling and be granted a retrial. During the jury selection process (also known as voir dire), a foreman who happened to be part of the jury selection pool as a prospective juror was originally asked if he will set aside all that he knew of patent law from his personal experience, while following the court’s instructions and make an objective judgment based off evidence alone. The prospective juror who was eventually selected to be part of the jury answered yes to the questions, as he promised to follow the law and not use what he knew from previous cases.
As a precaution, lawyers on both sides extensively check and analyze the responses based off the participants of the voir dire. But naturally, the foreman did the complete opposite and broke his promise to follow the law and not have any sort of bias— based off his responses and interviews to the media after the verdict was handed down. Now that this is out in the open, this observation paints a bigger picture. Seeing the different legal experts present these facts and information again gives Samsung a reason to aggressively contest and appeal the recent verdict. However as Groklaw points out, there is “The tendency is for jury verdicts to stand, even if there is a problem“. Samsung will have a long battle ahead if it wants to win.
source: Groklaw