Agreed. The guilty party, here, is either Samsung's lawyers for failing to convince the foreman of the law and its applicability to their case, the judge for refusing to permit prior art to be presented, or the laws themselves which were incomprehensible to a layperson.
It isn't Samsung's (or Apple's) job to convince the foreman of the law. It is the judge's job to tell the jury what the law is for the purposes of their deliberations. It is the jury's job to follow the judge's instructions with respect to the law and to reach factual (not legal) conclusions to determine their verdict. Even though the judge makes the jury instructions with input from the lawyers on both sides, the jury doesn't see that and, from their perspective, that's irrelevant.
We saw this very clearly in Oracle v Google. Judge Alsup told the jury that APIs were copyrightable and the jury found that Google infringed there. This is despite the fact that at least some jurors were uneasy about that conclusion (see, among other things, the deadlock over fair use). Judge Alsup later decided that APIs weren't copyrightable, so that portion of the jury's verdict turned out to be unimportant, but that's separate from the job the jury was asked to do. If the jury had found that Google didn't infringe because they decided APIs weren't copyrightable, that might have been the right bottom-line result, but they still wouldn't have been doing their job.
Or the jury can just do whatever: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jury_nullification . We had a case like this in NZ a few years ago, activists broke into and damaged an ECHELON spybase, admitted to it but said it was for the greater good, Jury agreed.
Jury nullifcation is applicable in criminal cases, this was a civil case.
In civil cases the jury can ignore the judges instructions but if the judge feels that in doing so they've rendered an unreasonable verdict, he or she can issue a judgement notwithstanding verdict which essentially amends or entirely over rules the jury's decision.
