Jobs' "Thermonuclear" Comment Will Be Fair Game In Android Case
Steve Jobs' comments about Android to biographer Walter Isaacson will be allowed into evidence in the Apple vs. Motorola Mobility lawsuit, despite Apple's attempts to block them. Unless you did not have access to the internet, or were in a some obscure maximum security prison in some foreign land, you surely heard Steve Jobs' contentious comments about Android. If you were locked away, it went something like this: "Google, you f#c%##$ ripped off the iPhone, wholesale ripped us off. Grand theft.....I will spend my last dying breath if I need to, and I will spend every penny of Apple’s $40 billion in the bank, to right this wrong. I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this.”
Those are fighting words right there, and Chicago Federal Judge Richard Posner, who’s presiding over the case, has ruled that Motorola is free to reference Jobs’s colorful comments if they choose to do so. Apple last month filed a request to bar Motorola Mobility from making any reference to this quote. Will prejudice for Apple products play a role in this case? Not if Judge Posner has a say. He made it crystal clear that Apple will not turn this into a popularity contest: “I forbid Apple to insinuate to the jury that this case is a popularity contest and jurors should be predisposed to render a verdict for Apple if they like Apple products or the Apple company or admire Steve Jobs, or if they dislike Motorola or Google.”
Source: AllthingsD
