Last year a UK judge forced Apple to publish on its website, and in several newspapers of great circulation in Great Britain, a text acknowledging the fact that Samsung would not have copied the design of the iPad tablets. This was one of the strangest sentences given against the Apple company, it was respected, but the motivations of the judge can now be questioned, since he he was hired by Samsung. The judge had retired in March 2011, but according to British law he could still judge if he was called to do so, and judging the trial between Apple and Samsung was one of his last cases.
Professor Sir Robin Jacob. As Wikipedia explains, he "retired from the Court of Appeal in March 2011" to become a professor, but under Section 9 of the Senior Courts Act 1981, ex-judges can still be invited to sit on the bench. For someone so concerned with "integrity" it is utterly unusual to issue a high-profile and extreme ruling in favor of a particular party (Samsung in this case) only to be hired as an expert by that same party in another dispute.
Being an expert in intellectual property matters, the former judge was employed by Samsung in the team of experts fighting with Apple's lawyers and he is now named as one of the experts testifying in a trial taking place in USA v. Ericsson. Of course, it is difficult to prove that this judge was bribed by Samsung, either with money or with the promise of being hired as an expert, but it is not normal for a judge who presided over court hearings and won the case a company, to be employed at that company 4 months later.
There will be a lot of discussion about this employment, mainly because it is immoral and a question is raised regarding the judge's intentions, even if we are talking about a country where, theoretically, justice is a bit more blind than in Romania.
