Judge Says Steve Jobs’ “Thermonuclear” Comment Is Admissable


The Apple v. Motorola Mobility lawsuit has just gotten more interesting as the judge overseeing the case in a Chicago federal court ruled that comments made by former Apple CEO and co-founder Steve Jobs could be heard at trial.

Apple’s own lawyers tried to have the comments suppressed from the record. In his comments Jobs specifically went after Google’s Android platform. In the Walter Isaacson biography Jobs said of Android:

“Our lawsuit is saying, ‘Google, you f**king ripped off the iPhone, wholesale ripped us off.’ Grand theft,” he then remarked, “I’m going to destroy Android, because it’s a stolen product. I’m willing to go thermonuclear war on this.”

Apple asked one month ago that information from the Isaacson biography be suppressed, Apple’s team feels the comments need to be removed to “avoid any potential prejudice to Apple if Motorola attempts to use the book to appeal to the jury’s passion.”

In a turn of events it is actually Apple who wants to turn the “jury’s passion” against Motorola Mobility, On Thursday judge Richard Posner said Apple could not argue with jurors that they should favor Apple over Motorola if they like Jobs and/or Apple products. According to Judge Posner:

“I forbid Apple to insinuate to the jury that this case is a popularity contest.”

Apparently Apple is worried enough about comments made by Steve Jobs to also ask that a judge in California suppress the former CEO’s comments from the Apple v. Samsung trial which is set to start in July.

This may not be the “thermonuclear” war Steve Jobs was hoping for. Also didn’t Apple “rip off” Motorola, after all they invented the cell phone, you know the device the iPhone owes all of its success to in the first place.

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