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You're wondering about the ethics of beating someone up to get what you want?
It might make the world a better place overall but likely cause problems for the beater.
Also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8XknFl1l_8 He visits East Texas and shows that the 'offices' of the 'companies' that hold each patent are empty shells.
Tl;dr: He visits the listed offices of several dozen patent trolls in East Texas, including one directly across from the court house. Each one is empty with no sign of human activity. One has a secretary who claims the address is the accounting firm for those businesses. Then one person comes out to say that he is "a representative" of the businesses, and that those businesses "are based in East Texas" though. He recites one sentence about patents being property and then the video creator is kicked out.
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Wow, a real patent lawyer in a patent law thread. You don't belong here, but I'll upvote whatever you have to write. I have a comment and a question: The comment. Summary judgement does not accomplish what I think sheepleherd was proposing. As you say, if you get a summary judgment against you, you go home. That means that a judge has to be convinced that there is definitely no case in order to issue one. What's need…
Well, first of all, I have to confess: I'm not a patent lawyer. I'm a regulatory lawyer. And, just so we have our terminology straight, summary judgment is actually different from the motion-to-dismiss phase I was describing. In super simple terms, the latter happens after the parties have has the chance to gather evidence and seeks to determine whether it is legally possible for a party to win at trial. Therefore it…
But inasmuch as it was an official proposal, the proposition was not that the all costs would shift to one party; it was that if you lost the preliminary ruling on the main point you could decide if you wanted to spend money on further litigation or look for a settlement; in a more nuanced way, if the preliminary ruling was 80-20 culpability/damages conceivably the winner might also wish to litigate further. I wasn't shifting the legal costs, I was educating the decisions along the way.
There potentially is something to be gained from more "loser pays" legal fees, but I was not making that proposal.
I find it oddly funny how Google hasn't stepped in to support their "clients", I'd think they'd help shutdown patent trolls so developers can continue to improve and distribute applications
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> It's only a matter of time until a patent troll writes a for loop on the store index to send out infringement suits DMCA-takedown style. Perhaps a competing troll owns the iteration patent.
No, iteration is fair game, but `for` is an API name patented by Oracle. Legally, a patent troll would have to write a `whenceforth`, `do...thither`, or `oft` loop.
#define whenceforth for
Can these services just be disabled in East Texas to avoid their jurisdiction? At the very least, it would force the patent trolls into more neutral territory.
edit: It'd actually be pretty effective if you stop to think about it, even if it doesn't technically prevent litigation.
Just think: "Sorry, this product isn't available in you're area due to patent litigation concerns". Part of me wonders if that happened with Netflix, Google Maps, etc. wouldn't the people start hating the patent litigation instead of being content with it?
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I'm one of those hated attorneys. And, in my experience, while there are issues that sometimes may seem to outsiders like pointless minutae that keep people from getting at the real issues, the rules of civil procedure (especially at the federal level) are designed to do exactly what you want: to facilitate getting to the core of the issue as fast as possible (of course, if the core of the issue is a factual question…
In my cases, I felt that the court spent time on issues that were not only minor, but the court left them unopined. This just encourages laywers to keep doing it, it earns them more money. For example, and since you are an attorney I'll let you research this rather than give you the answer, does a signature on a shareholder petition under corporate by-laws require the word "certify" to be a valid signature? How much…
And, frankly, I'm not surprised that it took a fair amount of legal work to figure out the answer. I, like you I take it, have the intuition that the answer should be "no." But I'm also not confident that the answer is not "yes." If the answer is "yes," I'd say the odds are 50/50 that there is a good reason behind it. (If, as one should, you count as a good reason "there is binding precedent in this circuit that says it must use the word 'certify'" then the odds jump to pretty near 100%.)
But I will say that, if you're trying to argue that the legal system is too arcane and complicated, a lawsuit over a "shareholder petition under corporate by-laws" is an exceptionally poor example. This is an especially technical areas of law that, among other things, makes the almost explicit assumption that, given the subject matter, parties will be unusually sophisticated and well resourced.
So, no attempts to bring Davis in front of the Texas BAR association for unethical practices? I'm also curious why numerous developers have not demanded an Insurance Protection Product / Plan that would take a premium in return for subrogation (defense) if a frivolous Patent Suit is filed. I'm rather certain the market exists and while it may be for larger businesses or players, developers forming a Mutual Company an…
The insurance would cost more than the expected cost of the litigation which is of course how insurance works. They key with the patent system is that you have to pay millions to defend yourself, but it's exceptionally rare to be able to recover attorney's fees even if you win. So in the end it's a choice between capitulating and paying some amount (and perhaps unleashing more trolls in the future) or wasting million…
I find it oddly funny how Google hasn't stepped in to support their "clients", I'd think they'd help shutdown patent trolls so developers can continue to improve and distribute applications
I would totally want this too, but legally, can Google do something here when they are not a party in this litigation?