As Samsung opened their defense Friday against Apple’s patent infringement claims and its demand for 2.2 billion U.S. dollars in damages, their lawyers tried to put a human face on Google’s Android development efforts. The eight-person jury at the federal court in San Jose heard about the early days of Android, the long period engineers put into the operating system, and the “tasty treats” successive iterations were named after, such as Honeycomb and Ice Cream Sandwich.
The former Android chief Rubin said to Lockheimer, vice president of engineering on Google’s Android team that they hadn’t talked in a while but they’re welcome to check out the work. He also said that he thought of Google as a search firm and he didn’t realize Google was engaged on a mobile operating system.
In January, two months after the demonstration, Lockheimer joined Rubin’s team at Google. He talked about Google’s goal to work out a single phone platform that was consistent and open source and of the long hours 20 to 30 engineers of the team put into developing it.
Samsung’s lawyers were attempting to indicate the hard work that that went into Android, as a counterpoint to Apple’s assertion that Samsung’s devices only copied those from its competitors. They were also attempting to emphasize that Google was responsible for many features of the phones.
It was similar to how Apple’s lawyers started their case with marketing chief Schiler and other executive recounting stories of iPhone’s incipient development. However, Apple’s story somehow sound more compelling. They could be down partly to the enigma of founder Steve Jobs and his well-known obsession with secrecy. it establishes an air of drama and mystery around what takes place at the firm.
What occurred behind the scenes at Apple hasn’t always worked in its favor during the case, while the secrecy at Apple might have made the iPhone story more attractive.
