As Apple and Samsung go back to court yet again, it appears from the newly-filed witness lists that top executives such as Tim Cook and Jony Ive won’t be called to testify. According to CNET, the lists include “industry experts and executives” from both Samsung and Apple, but not Apple’s CEO or CDO. Instead, Apple plans to call upon Greg Joswiak, VP of Product Marketing and Richard Howarth, a senior director on Appel’s Design Team who is also one of the co-inventors of the disputed patents. Joswiak is expected to testify on Apple’s marketing strategy and related market forces, while Howarth will talk about the design process at Apple and the patents themselves. The list of witnesses for Apple also notably includes Susan Kare, one of the original designers at Apple who was behind much of the iconic design of Apple’s original Macintosh computers, who could be expected to testify about icon and user interface graphics design in general, but may have some input on one of the specific patents involved in the case. Other expert witnesses that Apple may call include Ravin Balakrishnan, a professor of computer science at the University of Toronto; Alan Ball, an expert on industrial design; Julie Davis, a consultant with expertise in accounting and damages analysis; Karan Singh, a professor of computer science at the University of Toronto, and Tony Blevins, a vice president of procurement at Apple.
Apple and Samsung are expected to once again square off in court on May 14 in the latest battle in the patent war between the two companies that has been going on for several years now on several fronts, with this latest face-off continuing the case that started in August 2012 and made it all the way to the Supreme Court in 2016, which led to a ruling that changed how damages could be determined in cases where infringement comes from only part of a complex product such as a smartphone.
