Samsung has accused Apple of calling expert witnesses that exhibit “slavish adoration” to the company during an ongoing patent trial between the two consumer electronics giants. As noted by patent expert Florian Mueller of FOSS Patents, court documents filed by Samsung in California seek to exclude testimony made by a number of Apple’s expert witnesses on the grounds that they were biased.
“Apple’s damages expert, Terry L. Musika, writes in his report that ‘Apple has built a considerable and at times a cult-like following to all things Apple,’ ” Samsung’s attorneys wrote in a court filing, according to FOSS Patents. “That cult-like following apparently includes several experts who are appearing on Apple’s behalf in this case, and may explain why they have cast aside established scientific methods and governing legal principles in favor of slavish adoration of their client and platitudes about its alleged magical and revolutionary products, issues that are of no relevance to the claims and defenses at issue.”
The filing goes on to attack a number of Apple witnesses, repeatedly suggesting that they are among Apple’s cult-like following, sometimes referred to as “iSheep,” and therefore their testimony cannot be included in the trial. Mueller notes that Samsung appears to take particular issue with one witness in particular, Henry Urbach, who Samsung accuses of being a “loyal devotee of Apple.”
“Before being retained by Apple in this matter, Mr. Urbach wrote an essay on the design of Apple’s retail stores, entitled Gardens of Earthly Delights, describing them as ‘Quasi-religious in almost every respect, . . . chapels for the Information Age,’ ” Samsung’s motion stated. The filing also claims that Urbach referred to Apple’s co-founder Steve Jobs as “St. Eve.”
Finally, Samsung notes that beyond Urbach’s potential bias, he is not a qualified witness because he “has admitted he has no experience in product design, or marketing, and therefore any opinions he could offer would be beyond his area of expertise.”
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