Apple, Google Shaped by Silicon Valley Judge Koh’s Gavel

Judge Lucy Koh’s fingerprints are on your Gmail account, your smartphone, and, if you’re a Silicon Valley engineer, possibly your prospects for changing jobs.

Judge Koh, the California federal judge overseeing the three-year patent battle between Apple and Samsung Electronics, has so far thwarted the iPhone maker’s bid to keep Galaxy phones off the market. Now, after a jury found that both companies infringed patents, the firms are poised to take new runs at persuading Koh to order sales bans on the other.

Judge Koh also has made a mark presiding over privacy suits against Google, LinkedIn and Yahoo! In March, she blasted Google’s privacy policy as vague and possibly misleading. Not long after, Google changed its terms.