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Summary: Apple is headed to trial in another lawsuit filed against it and the emails of former CEO Steve Jobs will be featured.
Steve Jobs passed away three years ago, but he will be the focus of a trial slated to begin this month, according to The New York Times.
Apple will head to trial for an antitrust lawsuit filed against it, the third since Jobs died. How can Jobs be such an integral part of the trial? His emails will be the focus of the testimony.
In prior lawsuits, emails from Jobs revealed blunt litigation threats against opposing companies and financial promises to possible business partners.
To read more about Steve Jobs, click here.
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Michael A. Carrier is a professor at Rutgers School of Law. Carrier said that Jobs was a “genius in terms of his vision for the future. But it went along with a really healthy ego and perhaps the lack of an antitrust filter — thinking about how these words would appear years later tossed up on the screen in front of a jury.”
The latest trial will begin Tuesday in Oakland and it involves older model iPods in a class action case. The plaintiffs in the lawsuit claim that Apple violated antitrust laws because consumers had to buy newer, more expensive versions if they wanted to keep their music.
The plaintiffs claim that the videotaped deposition taken prior to Jobs’ death will show him as planning to break a product of a competitor in order to protect Apple’s hold on the digital music world.
To read more about Apple, click here.
“We will present evidence that Apple took action to block its competitors and in the process harmed competition and harmed consumers,” said Bonny Sweeney, the lead plaintiffs’ lawyer.
A handful of emails have been made public. One email was sent in 2003 to Apple executives by Jobs, who was concerned about Musicmatch opening a music store.
“We need to make sure that when Music Match launches their download music store they cannot use iPod,” Jobs wrote. “Is this going to be an issue?”
It is expected that more emails will be made public when the trial begins.
The iPod lawsuit has been moving from federal court to federal court in the Bay Area for close to a decade now. It involves multiple lawsuits, with more than 900 filings from lawyers on both sides of the case.
Philip W. Schiller, the head of marketing for Apple, and Eddy Cue, the iTunes supervisor, will both testify in the case.
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