“A federal jury handed Apple a win in a long-running antitrust case on Tuesday, rejecting plaintiffs’ claims that the company had sidelined competitors and hiked up prices during the iPod’s heyday,” Julia Love reports for The Mercury News.
“After just a few hours of deliberations, the eight-member jury sided with Apple that iTunes 7.0 was a meaningful improvement over previous versions of the software, rather than a plot to hobble rivals,” Love reports. “The verdict defuses a case that could have cost Apple as much as $1 billion.”
“The trial was full of legal drama, including an eleventh-hour search for a plaintiff after Apple revealed that the two class representatives had not bought iPods covered by the case. U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers appointed a new plaintiff just hours before closing arguments were given on Monday.,” Love reports. “Although a few Apple executives took the stand, Steve Jobs was the trial’s star witness. Plaintiffs played a deposition taken of the late Apple CEO shortly before his death in 2011.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: Blessedly, it ends. How much time (including that of a terminally ill visionary) and money was wasted on this farce?
Shouldn’t those who instigated this greedy, baseless idiocy be forced to pay for this frivolous waste of everyone’s time and resources?
Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers should have ended this joke the minute the plaintiffs were disqualified, but, she’s an Obama nominee (of course) and therefore is likely too fscking stupid to do much of anything right.
To be fair, nominees of all kind are guilty of such nonsense. (Personally Obama probably did not even have an idea that this Rogers guy is nominated; staff prepares such things).
1. The judge is a woman, not a “guy.”
2. Right, Obama isn’t responsible for anything. Because he’s black. So, he gets a free pass where any other president would be held accountable.
“… Obama isn’t responsible for anything. Because he’s black.”
1. That’s a pretty racist statement, Idiot
2. That’s a pretty idiotic statement, Racist
Unfortunately, it’s true. The fact that Obama is partly black African blood from Nigeria has nothing whatsoever to do with his competence. However, it has everything to do with not allowing people to criticise him. As you have just shown, attacking Obama gets you labeled “racist”.
The “I’m black so you can’t attack me” defense is getting old, getting tired, and needs to be put to rest. Obama just like every president needs to be held accountable for the things that he is responsible and race should play no part in this.
What does Obama’s heritage have to do with any of this conversation? By inserting colour into any discussion not about race is by definition racist.
First, I did not insert race into the conversation, second, it frequently gets brought up when someone criticises Obama. His race should never be relevant for criticisms of praise, but unfortunately it frequently gets brought up by both sides.
We do not live in a “color blind” society, race is a huge factor in many things where it has no business.
Kenya, not Nigeria. You obviously know SO much about Obama.
Is it that relevant? I really don’t care what his race is, only what his policies are and how they effect me and the country.
The trouble I have with some who criticize Obama is that they do so using the *n* word.
Are you daft, twimoon? Read “TruthTeller’s” post. He expressly referred to his skin color as the basis of his ridiculous argument.
Have you read or listened to ANY media over the past several years? Obama is being blamed for practically everything.
Wow buddy ….. Color of skin has nothing to do with this ….
Get a life!
Spoken like a true racist.
So everyone that criticises Obama is a racist?
Proves my point.
No, not everyone that critizes him. Just the idiots that use the phrase “Because he is black.” You optimize what it is to be racist.
“epitomize” not “optimize.” But everything else you say is true.
If you are calling me racist, then prove it.
He doesn’t have to; you’re doing a fine job all on your own.
(Hint: learn when to shut up.)
No one proved anything, you assumed things which are wrong. I have no duty to shut up to any intellectual thugs or bullies be they from the left, right or anywhere on the political spectrum.
That some idiots on this forum think I am racist means they have no ability to think or reason and their opinions about me are about as valuable (but not quite) as elephant farts in Africa.
You in particular can go pound sand.
Were you born stupid, or did you just turn out that way?
She was actually Clever enough to go along with what Apple wanted. Apple wanted to WIN this case properly rather than have it dismissed on a technicality. The WIN is a far stronger verdict and stops future shenanigans of a similar nature.
It was Apple that challenged the standing of the plaintiffs. However, I think you are right that this result is stronger than dismissal.
Challenging the plaintiff’s standing was the first blow Apple wanted to land to win the case, not to have it dropped. If the “plaintiffs” had any class, they would have at that point realized the best thing to do was to slink away sheepishly into the night. But the greed with vultures like that is strong.
Maybe, but better to end with a clear win than a mistrial that allowed the plaintiffs to regroup and start over. Apple wanted this trial to go to conclusion too, so this judge provided the ability to finish this once and for all. I, for one, don’t believe that every judge is swayed by their political affiliation, and am grateful for the conclusion of this trial.
“I, for one, don’t believe that every judge is swayed by their political affiliation, and am grateful for the conclusion of this trial.”
I agree that most judges can look past their political party, but their ideology may come from or be related to their political view, and their ideology absolutely colors their decisions.
I am very glad this went to a conclusion favorable to Apple who was in the right here.
MDN was right: how much of Steve Jobs’ time was wasted on this instead of coming up with some amazing new product?
When you don’t have anything worthwhile to add to the discussion, you can always resort to a personal attack and link it to Obama.
whrn you are born without a brain. Blame Obama!
Correction: When you are born without a brain. Vote Obama!
you’re welcome.
I’m surprised that you voted for Obama!
of course, somebody has to blame Bush.
And, to be fair, I’m surprised that you blame Obama!
A court following the rule of law is too much for you, F14 . . . .?
FYI, the plaintiffs who were DQ’d were just the class representatives. There were plenty of other plaintiffs. While it was within the court’s discretion to dismiss the case when the class reps were disqualified, it would have simply been refiled with new class reps, costing Apple and the court more time and money. The obvious thing for her to do, and the intelligent thing for her to do, was allow a new class representative and allow the case to be decided on the merits. Which is what she did.
Is that so hard for you to understand?
To bring a class action lawsuit, you have to have a class of persons who have been injured by the defendant. As Apple pointed out, no evidence was ever entered that ANYONE ever experienced or ever complained about this supposed injury! This supposed “injury” was made up by the Attorney Plaintiffs to have something to sue about after their original complaint about Apple tying requiring the use iTunes to the purchase of iPods was dismissed due to being completely legal!
here trolly troll…
Given the point in the trial, to disqualify the case would not have put an end to it, it would have mearly started to clock over again when a lead plantiff was found. I think the right decision was made to continue and it hastened the ending of this clearly silly lawsuit.
Let’s hope this same logical thinking carries over to the E-Book deliberations that the 3 judge panel will be undertaking.
In a class action lawsuit you know you are going to lose when you have more lawyers than affected clients.
Much better for Apple that the jury rejected the plaintiffs’ claims on the merits, rather than Apple winning on a technicality. Now there can be no doubt that the case was frivolous.
After the ebooks case gets thrown out I’ll stop wearing my “Free Apple” t-shirt.
Would loved to have seen the crestfallen look on the opposing lawyers faces when they realized there would be no payday for them, their main ambulance chasing concern. I hope Apple files to have their expenses reimbursed (if possible) to add to their pockets-turned-out misery. Might make future trigger happy lawyers take a more careful litigating view.
How about triple “damages” for a frivolous lawsuit ?
I LIKE the way you think Tom! 🙂
Yeah, 10 years of effort down the drain. 🚽
How bright could they be having failed to vet out plaintiffs claims of iPod ownership within the ample allotted time period and having it virtually collapse at the last second because they didn’t? D’Oh!
Apparently the actual attorney on the case there was either Nathan Thurm or Lionel Hutz. Or perhaps both.
A good win for Apple, for a trial that should never have happened.
the good guys win a round.
I propose a shareholder and tax payer class action suite against the plaintiff attorneys to recover both funds lost by Apple and US tax payers.
Looking from Europe, US justice system is built for ambulance chasers. Here you pay everybody’s expenses if you accuse someone without a reason. This keeps idiotic cases like this out of the courts. In US it’s always worth to sue someone just in case and hope for a nutjob judge or (literally) blind jury.
wait a minute, what about Icy Dancer’s retirement fund?
I do feel this was a frivolous class action case brought by lawyers looking for a big payday. I too believe they should be billed for Apple’s time in defending themselves. This wasn’t a good faith effort to help a group of abused consumers, it was ambulance chasing.
1. When you buy an iPod you buy into the Apple iTunes Store ecosystem & agree to the terms in the User Agreement. This is public knowledge that Apple never hid from public.
2. You can choose to never use the Apple iTunes Store & just use the free Mac/Win version of iTunes software to import CD music files from your computer to you iPod.
No monopoly.
These ambulance chasers were just confused about what ApplePay really is.
Finally! People with real brains made the right decision!
Bahh ha ha ha! Hope the ambulance chasers wasted a lot of money on this… we need some tort reform that says if you lose, you pay the court costs for everyone…
Shiver me timbers, they be appealing the case.
EXACTLY!
Woo-hoo! I was wrong! I was wrong! I’ve never been so happy to be wrong! I was certain that the jury would find for the plaintiff, just because Apple had a lot of money. But the jury wasn’t as shallow as I figured they’d be.
Partial faith in humanity: Restored!
——RM
An EXCELLENT conclusion to this farce.
Now: Who is going to pay the nasty lawyers who perpetrated and shoved this nonsense into court without legal plaintiffs?
And Why does Apple have to waste money defending nonsense like this? How about the nasty plaintiff lawyers pay for the whole stupid show??? That would be justice.
We need to keep this law firm’s name in public view. Hopefully they have screwed the pooch and no one will hire these morons anymore.
I agree…the problem is the plaintiffs don’t have to “hire” anyone…the PI lawyers advertise “won’t cost you anything unless we win”…so there is no negative incentive to bring a frivolous case…hence the need for tort reform for loser to pay all costs. That would tighten up the BS in a hurry.