As Apple-Samsung trial drags on, jurors deliberate their lunch options

By Neil Hughes

More than week into the retrial between Apple and Samsung, jurors are still deliberating how much money to award Apple for patent infringement by Samsung. But the jury has already come to a negative conclusion about their daily sourdough bread sandwiches.


Grilled gorgonzola and apple on sourdough, via Mini Baker.

Jurors this week asked Judge Lucy Koh to grant them new options for lunch after eating sourdough bread for the last week, according to The Wall Street Journal. In a note to Koh, jurors asked for a new lunch order during Thursday's proceedings, with the word "please" underlined three times.

So far, jurors have spent a day and a half deliberating the case, but they have yet to reach a decision. They have been instructed that the award for patent infringement granted to Apple should be between $52 million and $380 million.

The eight-member jury is re-hearing the original case, in which Apple was awarded $1.05 billion. But Koh subsequently reduced the damages award, and ordered the retrial.


Comparison of Apple and Samsung devices. | Source: Apple v. Samsung court documents

As the jury asked for a new lunch option on Wednesday, Samsung asked the court to halt the trial, citing the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's invalidation of a key Apple patent related to the "pinch to zoom" gesture. Apple has been given one day to respond to the motion to stay.

Closing remarks were given by both sides in the trial on Tuesday, setting the stage for the jury's deliberations. Apple's attorneys said the company has a chance to be "made whole" by reinstating $380 million in vacated damages, while Samsung's lawyers argued that Apple exaggerated the importance of the five patents involved in the case.