Apple v. Samsung: Meet Apple's next 7 witnesses
The case between the two tech giants picks back up today, beginning with some more testimony. Here's who is on deck.
After its first real break, court is back in session later today in the case between Apple and Samsung.
The trial is currently in its testimony phase, as both sides break out a string of witnesses. So far that's included testimony from Apple's Christopher Stringer, one of the designers of the iPhone, the iPad, and numerous other Apple products. And just before the break it was Apple marketing chief Phil Schiller, who is slated to the stand once again this morning.
There are six others testifying after Schiller, though you might not know all of them. Here's a quick primer of who they are, and why Apple's using them.
1. Phil Schiller
Schiller is Apple's senior vice president of worldwide marketing, and has been with the company for 17 years. Schiller has long been one of the public faces of the company, appearing on stage at keynote addresses, and running several during times when Apple CEO Steve Jobs was on sick leave.
Schiller took to the stand on Tuesday, providing approximately 10 minutes worth of testimony before the court adjourned for the day. Just before the break, Apple's lawyers mentioned Schiller was about to launch into a narrative about the internal creation of the iPhone.
2. Scott Forstall
Forstall joined Apple in 1997, and currently serves as its senior vice president of iOS software. Forstall came over from the Mac OS X team to architect Apple's iPhone software, which would later be known as iOS.
Forstall has become one of the main faces of Apple with the rise of the iPhone and iPad, and is frequently called on to demonstrate new product features. Most recently that was iOS 6 at Apple's annual developers conference in June.
Per related trial filings, Apple is calling on Forstall to discuss the look and feel of the iPhone's software, citing him as being "personally involved in selecting the icons and layout of the home screen." That's something Apple is accusing Samsung of copying.
3. Justin Denison
Denison has been Samsung's chief strategy officer for the past four years, and joined the company after a similar position at Nokia. Prior to Samsung, Denison worked at Texas Instruments, Motorola, and Freescale Semiconductor.
As far as technical chops go, Denison has a B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from Rice University, as well as a M.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Texas at Austin.
Apple is likely to ask Denison for details of Samsung's early smartphone development history as part of its larger narrative that seeks to paint Samsung as a copycat. One key factor is timing. According to his LinkedIn profile, Denison joined Samsung in June 2008, approximately a year after the release of Apple's first iPhone model, though years before Samsung would go on to roll out the tablets Apple has targeted in the suit.
4. Wookyun Kho
Kho is an engineer at Samsung, and worked on the company's integrated software. Per court filings, Apple aims to ask Kho about his role in the creation of software code for a bounce back effect, something Apple has a utility patent for and is accusing Samsung of infringing.
According to deposition, Kho says Samsung had an internal project called "the glow effect" or "edge glow," something to show users they reached the end of a scrollable area. Apple believes this same behavior is covered in its own patent.
5. Peter Bressler
Bressler was the president of the Industrial Designers Society of America between 1989 to 1990, and is the founder and board chair at product design firm Bresslergroup Inc. He's also currently an adjunct associate professor at the University of Pennsylvania.
According to court documents, Bressler has been an expert witness in seven trials covering utility patents and trade dress claims. He's also listed as the author, or co-author on 73 patents, many of which are design patents.
In a redacted court filing, Bressler said he was called on by Apple specifically to talk about the three design patents it says Samsung is infringing, including the company's tablet design patent.
6. Susan Kare
Kare was at Apple in the early 1980s, doing work that included some of the original user interface design and graphics for the Mac OS. Kare was also at Steve Jobs' NeXT Computer as its creative director. Since leaving Apple, she's done work for other companies, including IBM, Microsoft, and PayPal. Kare was also behind the first 500 or so Facebook virtual gifts, a feature Facebook later killed off.
Kare has been called upon by Apple to talk about the designs of Samsung's accused devices when compared to three of Apple's design patents covering the iPhone, as well as the subtitles of user interface graphics between the two.
As a refresher, here's Kare's work on some early Mac icons:
7. Ravin Balakrishnan
Balakrishnan is a professor in the department of computer science at the University of Toronto, where he also got his Ph.D. in computer science. Balakrishnan co-founded Bump Technologies, the makers of 3D desktop software BumpTop, which Google bought up in 2010.
Apple had Balakrishnan evaluate Samsung's devices against Apple's to see if the software was violating patented software code. Much of the publicly-available deposition of Balakrishnan centered around Apple's bounce back list patent.
These are just the latest seven witnesses to be called by Apple. Per the rules of the trial, each side has 25 hours of court time to make their case, and both sides were allowed to pick 50 witnesses. Both companies need to provide a "rolling" list of witnesses as the trial progresses.