Samsung Hires U.K. Judge Who Forced Apple To Apologize To Them Publicly

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Samsung-sign

Remember that one time that a U.K. judge told Apple that they have to publish a public apology to Samsung on their homepage? It was a really weird punishment that made a lot of us scratch our heads, but Apple handled it pretty well.

Well it turns out that that same U.K. judge who was pro-Samsung now has a really good reason for wanting Samsung to win against Apple – he just got a new job with Samsung!

After some digging around, Florian Mueller at Foss Patents discovered that Sir Robin Jacob, the same judge who ordered Apple to issue the public apology and pay Samsung’s legal fees, was recently hired as an expert witness by Samsung.

“I’m sure that Samsung and Sir Robin Jacob wouldn’t be doing this if there was any risk of this conduct violating the law. Apparently an ex-judge who is invited to rule on a case involving a given party is not barred by existing UK rules (though this case here may spark a debate whether some reform is needed) from being hired by the same party in another litigation outside the UK less than four months later.”

Seems like a pretty sketchy situation, but I’m sure Sir Robin Jacob knows his way around the law well enough to avoid going to jail for picking up an extra pay check. But those expert witnesses pay checks are pretty nice, so maybe even Jacob couldn’t resist.

Source: FOSS Patents

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