Earlier quoted context omitted.
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I realised, please excuse me this complete and utter brain-fart, I'm going to stop posting things now and go to sleep. Is for the best. :)
Judge tosses Apple motion, allows patent troll Lodsys to continue rampage
81–90 of 117 posts
Re: Judge tosses Apple motion, allows patent troll Lodsys to continue rampage
#82Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't think it is as clear cut as flat out bribery but these judges know what side their bread is buttered. They live there. They are friends with hotel and restaurant owners. Their family members are local patent attorneys. They have relatives that own 'commercial office buildings' that are nothing more than empty offices for a convenient mailing address for shell companies. If they started looking less friendly t…
These are federal judges. They have life tenure. Fewer patent cases just means more time for golf.
I think the commenter's point was that simply having life tenure as a judge isn't the only potential motivation for their alleged bias toward patent trolls. That, in fact, their friends' and families' stakes in local businesses (e.g. the shell 'office' suites these patent trolls incorporate in) provide additional indirect motivation for the judges to keep the patent troll gravy train rolling.
Peer pressure, especially from close friends and family, and doubly in small towns, is incredibly motivating for most people.
Re: Judge tosses Apple motion, allows patent troll Lodsys to continue rampage
#83Why hasn't anyone addressed the probable criminal activity going on with these handful of judges in this one district of Texas? Just because someone has the title "judge" doesn't give them untouchable super powers. There's a giant reek of illegality coming from that area and someone needs to look under the covers. My hypothesis is there's a payoff racket going on. There's a multi level system setup with a few insider…
The system is transparently corrupt in the larger, common sense of the word.
The corrupt players, unfortunately, may have enough false-Chinese walls and connections that they cannot be brought up for the violation of any particular laws.
The situation, in fact, is one that has become standard in the US. We can see as a broader example the "revolving door" where ex-government officials join industry and vice-versa. As long as particular, explicit payoffs can be avoided, the overall process of favoring certain players and approaches and having a strong expectation of a payoff in the end is basically legal.
Edit: at end of article - Lodsys can be sure it will continue to draw Judge Gilstrap as long as it files its cases in Marshall, Texas. The other judge who considers patent cases filed there is US District Judge Leonard Davis; but since Judge Davis' son William "Bo" Davis is Lodsys' lawyer, the company's cases will all be redirected to Gilstrap. That this kind of essentially incestuous relationship is allowed should say a lot.
Re: Judge tosses Apple motion, allows patent troll Lodsys to continue rampage
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
> If Apple is "instructing" that firm, then they aren't representing their clients' interests correctly. Sorry to pick on just one phrase of your comment but I'm honestly curious. How is the "not-representing the client's interests" thing a problem inside a court? Is it because the other side or the court will pick on it, or is it because it honestly does not represent a client's interests[0]? [0] In this case, I can…
> "Instruct the lawfirm to never settle"
I automatically made the association in my mind that not only would they defend you, they'd fund the thing. Thanks for making my misunderstanding obvious :)
Re: Judge tosses Apple motion, allows patent troll Lodsys to continue rampage
#85The threat that Lodsys represents to anyone doing technology is so large that it would seem to make sense to band together. I'm thinking along the lines of creating a "Patent Defense Cooperative" where members pay a certain amount every month for the three purposes of a) patent lawsuit insurance, b) to fund lobbying efforts to reform the patent system, and c) scrutinize a judicial apparatus that seems biased in favor…
Sweet- so Apple can join this and infringe on anyone's patents and get their legal bills paid for? Seriously though, it would have to have some clear definition of patent troll. It would be interesting to have some sort of insurance- say $5million to be spent in case of patent lawsuit. Make a clear public statement- we will never settle and WILL spend $5m in case of a lawsuit. Would make it very counter-productive fo…
>Sweet- so Apple can join this and infringe on anyone's patents and get their legal bills paid for?
Presumably it would cover litigation costs but not liabilities. So if you lose at the end, you still lose and have to pay damages out of your own pocket.
>Seriously though, it would have to have some clear definition of patent troll.
Not necessarily. You might not classify the likes of IBM as a "patent troll" under some definitions, but having some sort of litigation expenses insurance when they come knocking would certainly be welcome. Why not avoid the hair splitting exercises and just have the insurance kick in whenever someone makes a patent infringement claim against you?
Re: Judge tosses Apple motion, allows patent troll Lodsys to continue rampage
#86The texas east district stuff is fascinating. What if the app and software developers start licensing their apps with a license and technical measures explicitly excluding East Texas (or the entire state of texas, for extra safety) from the operation of the app. It could be enforced by some soft of geofencing at app startup that splashes a "You're from East Texas, our app doesn't work there" type language. Will that…
I like this idea a lot. If the population living in the causative region understands the nature of what their governing body is doing to impact and infringe upon on the rest of the world, maybe they'll change who holds the relevant positions of power. It would be great if we could do this to websites and technology in general as well. Maybe we can start with this kind of campaign [1], but utilize geo-IP targeting. [1…
It's a federal court, the State of Texas has nothing to do with it. These judges are appointed by the President.
Re: Judge tosses Apple motion, allows patent troll Lodsys to continue rampage
#87Apple should hire a nation wide law firm to defend any and all apple developers who are sued by Lodsys fore these patents. Instruct the lawfirm to never settle and actively file actions on beheld of each client against Lodsys. It's simple, once they realize that no one will settle with them, they will go away. Now, where on earth is that patent troll bill congress has been promising?
If Apple is "instructing" that firm, then they aren't representing their clients' interests correctly. That sort of relationship is actually very hard to manage in the courts, which is why it's quite rare (and usually limited to true pro bono work by established non-profits).
Ok, instruct is probably a bad term, I know what you mean. What Apple can do is promise to indemnify the individual developer for any out of pocket expenses above and beyond the initial settlement offer, as long as the developer chooses to use the free legal defense apple would provide, and not settle the case.
If the lawyer and the developer, for what ever reason, decide that it's best to settle, it's fine, in that case the developer would have to pay out of pocket for the settlement, but they would be no worse off, and they would get a free attorney helping them in either case.
For apple this arrangement would be relatively inexpensive, as long as they hire a nation wide firm. Since the causes of action in each case are exactly the same, the defense would be exactly the same, same expert opinions, same motions, etc. For developers that publish to both Google Play and App Store, it's only fair if google would kick in 1/2 the costs, but if they do not, then it would be a huge PR win for apple. Basically, they would be saying, develop with us, and we will take care of you.
Re: Judge tosses Apple motion, allows patent troll Lodsys to continue rampage
#88Why hasn't anyone addressed the probable criminal activity going on with these handful of judges in this one district of Texas? Just because someone has the title "judge" doesn't give them untouchable super powers. There's a giant reek of illegality coming from that area and someone needs to look under the covers. My hypothesis is there's a payoff racket going on. There's a multi level system setup with a few insider…
You do realize that Texas doesn't appoint or elect these judges, the President does, right?
Re: Judge tosses Apple motion, allows patent troll Lodsys to continue rampage
#89Earlier quoted context omitted.
>In a 2010 article, Stanford law professor Mark Lemley, who is known for his careful statistical analysis of patent cases (and is cited amazingly often by the Supreme Court), noted that the win rate for patent owners in the Eastern District was 40% That statistic is meaningless without the base rate, which turns out to be 32.5%. I'd also point out that there's something very weaselly about Lemley saying the district…
My strategic advice would be to research the shape of a graph of all states; is there anything peculiar about Texas? It might be possible to change the locale without changing the outcome. A similar analogy would be declaring poverty to be the bottom quartile of financial resources, then being surprised that as long as more than 5 people exist we'll always have a bottom quartile therefore always poverty. What I'm get…
These judges aren't appointed by Texas, they're appointed by the President. We're talking about a federal district court.
Re: Judge tosses Apple motion, allows patent troll Lodsys to continue rampage
#90Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is the definition of "What the fuck." Why should he be careful about what he says on a forum, just because he's talking about a judge? He didn't threaten anybody.
> Why should he be careful about what he says on a forum? He didn't threaten anybody. Like it or not, libel laws apply on-line as much as anywhere. As just one example, in 2006 a Florida woman won an $11 million verdict against a Louisiana woman who had called her a crook, a con artist, and a fraud in an on-line forum [1]. Do a Google search for "libel on-line" and you'll see lots of ads for lawyers hoping to be hire…
The case you are sighting is a default judgment. That's hardly indicative of the current state of law regarding liable.