Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Being sued, in East Texas, for using the Google Play Store [video]

youtube.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 431 posts

Re: Being sued, in East Texas, for using the Google Play Store [video]

#11

Post by teej »

distances wrote: post #6
clavalle wrote: post #2

People will mention the problem with patents but I see another, perhaps bigger, problem: We do not have equal access to our judicial system in the United States. If you have money, you have the power to legally hold people with less over a barrel. That exploitable inequality is poison for a well functioning society. That is the problem that needs solving.

"Loser pays" would go a long way, I think. Not being that familiar with the US system, what's the reasoning not to have this?

It's called the English Rule. People argue that implementing it could disincentivize people bringing forth valid cases and that it could lower the liklihood of settling, increasing legal and court costs for cases that do go through.

I don't really have an opinion either way, those are just the common arguments against it.

Re: Being sued, in East Texas, for using the Google Play Store [video]

#12

Post by saint_fiasco »

distances wrote: post #6
clavalle wrote: post #2

People will mention the problem with patents but I see another, perhaps bigger, problem: We do not have equal access to our judicial system in the United States. If you have money, you have the power to legally hold people with less over a barrel. That exploitable inequality is poison for a well functioning society. That is the problem that needs solving.

"Loser pays" would go a long way, I think. Not being that familiar with the US system, what's the reasoning not to have this?

If loser pays, poor people would be discouraged from even attempting to sue rich people.

Even if the poor person has a legitimate claim, there is a small probability that the rich person will win with their superior lawyers and the poor person will be bankrupted by the legal fees. Since they will know that from the beginning, they won't sue in the first place.

Re: Being sued, in East Texas, for using the Google Play Store [video]

#14

Post by macspoofing »

distances wrote: post #6
clavalle wrote: post #2

People will mention the problem with patents but I see another, perhaps bigger, problem: We do not have equal access to our judicial system in the United States. If you have money, you have the power to legally hold people with less over a barrel. That exploitable inequality is poison for a well functioning society. That is the problem that needs solving.

"Loser pays" would go a long way, I think. Not being that familiar with the US system, what's the reasoning not to have this?

It deincentives those who don't have deep pockets from asserting their rights through the judicial system.

Re: Being sued, in East Texas, for using the Google Play Store [video]

#15

Post by c3534l »

distances wrote: post #6
clavalle wrote: post #2

People will mention the problem with patents but I see another, perhaps bigger, problem: We do not have equal access to our judicial system in the United States. If you have money, you have the power to legally hold people with less over a barrel. That exploitable inequality is poison for a well functioning society. That is the problem that needs solving.

"Loser pays" would go a long way, I think. Not being that familiar with the US system, what's the reasoning not to have this?

You have that in some cases. My parents just went through that. A complete nonsense legal case (the other person stole tens of thousands of dollars in property and then sued them for demanding it back and spreading lies that the property was stolen from them). In the end, the judge ruled my parents were absolutely in the right and demanded court costs be paid for. Except, you know, that person didn't have any money and a nasty, multi-year long lawsuit is emotionally and financially devastating. There are also "anti-slap" laws sometimes where you can demand court costs paid for if the other person was suing you to try to suppress your freedom of speech. I'm sure that something could be done legally to curtail this atrocious behavior, but as the guy in the video mentioned, congress seems unwilling to take up the subject.

Re: Being sued, in East Texas, for using the Google Play Store [video]

#16

Post by clavalle »

distances wrote: post #6
clavalle wrote: post #2

People will mention the problem with patents but I see another, perhaps bigger, problem: We do not have equal access to our judicial system in the United States. If you have money, you have the power to legally hold people with less over a barrel. That exploitable inequality is poison for a well functioning society. That is the problem that needs solving.

"Loser pays" would go a long way, I think. Not being that familiar with the US system, what's the reasoning not to have this?

The one major pitfall of 'loser pays' is that it creates greater risk for legitimate complainants that might still lose. It is less direct but still favors entities that can absorb that risk. Even so, I think you are right and it could be helpful especially if there is some 'legitimacy threshold' that must be crossed before it is invoked to keep the actual cases that need to be heard and judged by legal experts to be teased apart fairly from being quashed prematurely.

Re: Being sued, in East Texas, for using the Google Play Store [video]

#17

Post by oddevan »

comboy wrote: post #5

Couldn't Google offer defense in such cases for its users? Every case is the same so it shouldn't even be that expensive (I guess, IANAL), and it would discourage future cases because the troll would know he will have to fight against Google.

I do feel like when a similar thing happened with the iOS App Store (app devs sued for using in-app purchases), Apple tried to insert itself into the case saying that all the technology used was theirs.

Re: Being sued, in East Texas, for using the Google Play Store [video]

#18

Post by InvisibleCities »

tomglynch wrote: post #8

A comment from a reddit thread states: The gist behind this case is that the Judge's son owns patent law firm in East Texas where they often represent both sides. This guy doesn't live in East Texas. However, the dad lets these stupid cases into the town to bring business to his son. Really shady. I agree with clavelle's comment. It's not so much the laws, but the system that allows this to occur. Link here: https://…

> The gist behind this case is that the Judge's son owns patent law firm in East Texas where they often represent both sides.

Isn't this a blatant conflict of interest? If this isn't grounds for disbarment, what is?

Re: Being sued, in East Texas, for using the Google Play Store [video]

#19

Post by merpnderp »

saint_fiasco wrote: post #12
distances wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Loser pays" would go a long way, I think. Not being that familiar with the US system, what's the reasoning not to have this?

If loser pays, poor people would be discouraged from even attempting to sue rich people. Even if the poor person has a legitimate claim, there is a small probability that the rich person will win with their superior lawyers and the poor person will be bankrupted by the legal fees. Since they will know that from the beginning, they won't sue in the first place.

This only favors rich people when the case is questionable. So it slightly favors them. The current situation massively favors rich people.

Re: Being sued, in East Texas, for using the Google Play Store [video]

#20

Post by jiiam »

It's good to raise awareness, especially on the users of the play store (I mean, the developers).

For example I learned a lot from this video: in case I decided to sell an app on any store, I'd better contact my lawyer to get advised on where and how to incorporate my company.

I don't know if it can be easily resolved by incorporating in another country, but the difficulties of an international litigation should discourage trolls.

Post reply on HN