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Leaving out the fact that they’ll never be able to properly serve most of the defendants, the key thing is if they get a judge inclined to stick to Second Circuit law, this complaint has to be dismissed. The days when you could file a thin Complaint just in the hopes of getting discovery are long over.

The Court has adopted widely a doctrine called “Iqbal/Twombly” which means that mere allegations of facts don’t cut it: there has to be enough factual foundation in the Complaint to make a plausible claim. Every “factual” allegation of consequence in this Complaint is unproven speculation. The Iqbal doctrine requires a complaint to allege facts that, if proven, would support the relief requested and to show that the alleged facts are “enough to raise a right to relief above the speculative level, on the assumption that all the allegations in the complaint are true (even if doubtful in fact).”

This case is more than a publicity stunt. It’s become clear even to the most ardent Trump haters that there’s simply no evidence of Russian “collusion” and the focus moved to Stormy Daniels. This is an effort to reanimate the “Russian collusion” narrative.

Of course, because it’s in a judicial pleading, any re-reporting on it is absolutely immune in libel, and its being filed at all is a news peg, so it’s pretty much Tom Perez’ gift to MSNBC and others, allowing them and others to re-tell the “Russia collusion” story as if it had more credibility.

extortion (ek-stor-shen)
n.
1. Illegal use of one's official position or powers to obtain property, funds, or patronage.
2. The act or an instance of extorting something, as by psychological pressure.
3. An excessive or exorbitant charge.

"Hey, management: stop opposing unionization and we make the bad headlines and lawsuits magically go away"

Wow, that was a hard one. Not saying that's what is happening here, but it's not exactly a mind bender to put that one together. And it's not like some in the UAW haven't resulted to extortion in the past. And doesn't this all sound eerily familiar to what the UAW says about Nissan after getting their ass kicked in a vote to unionize a plant in Mississippi? Yeah, yeah; "Perhaps recognizing they couldn’t keep their workers from joining our union based on the facts, Nissan and its anti-worker allies ran a vicious campaign against its own work force that was comprised of intense scare tactics, misinformation and intimidation." Who talks like that? Do you think they have a boiler plate press release with these quotes on them that they just change the company name on?

Funny how the UAW goes whining to the NLRB with complaints, and whines to the press about how terrible the workers are getting it, yet they keep getting bounced out on their asses BY THE WORKERS even after forcing a vote. The result is that the UAW conducts a "corporate campaign" to shame the employers and hopefully sway some minds towards a 'yes' vote in the process. It's shameful shit, and they've been doing it for years.

But yeah, a lawsuit over racism probably doesn't have anything to do with a campaign like that...

The PTAB (the folks who do IPRs) themselves declared early this year https://www.law360.com/articles/885214/ptab-says-state-sovereign-immunity-applies-to-iprs that the IPR process cannot be used against a patent owner who has sovereign immunity.

It would certainly appear that Congress had no issues with the board's ruling until tribes tried to use it to their benefit.

They're settled, not litigated. No company's legal team is crazy enough to go to trial on something like this. Especially when it's VC money, they'll just peel off a couple million and throw it at the problem. It sure beats having your company dragged in front of the world every time a new court date comes up in a case that could last years. Large, established companies do this too. It's cheaper for GM to pay a huge settlement and fine than risk damaging their brand over a faulty ignition switch -- especially when you have an admissible e-mail that has an engineer describing the design flaw and expressing concern. (link)

People who file founded lawsuits like this should get settlements. They're totally done career-wise in the startup spectrum, and even established companies might consider her too radioactive... Most lawsuit settlements of this size can allow you to live out your life assuming you can invest carefully. Since neither side is talking about it, I'm assuming it's a big number and she signed a deal saying she would never speak of it again.

I hope they prevail and some sort of precedent is established.

You would think that companies might would learn after Lockheed Martin's flat out millions of dollars loss for their blatant and rampant age discrimination.

We all know this — the "free speech" Amendment only applies to government. You must not prosecuted for calling Trump "traitor" or a policemen — "an asshole".

Though the work to abolish the Amendment is in progress, it may take a while for us to become "more like Europe".

So, in order to control, what people say — and what politics they support — the statists have invented a new trick. Instead of pursuing the individuals, they would go after employers. See, the First Amendment may protect James Damore's speech, but it does not protect Google from charges of "creating hostile work-environment".

And just what constitutes such an environment? Whatever the government says it does (somehow "gender identity" is on the list already, for example)... Sure, sure, to actually win in court, the prosecutors/lawyers need to persuade a judge and the jury. But the process is daunting and very costly — and whereas the employer has to pay their own expenses, the "attackers" are paid by the taxpayers.

It is to protect themselves from such nonsense, that employers establish these "internal policies" and set up positions like "Vice President of Diversity" in the first place. These people sincerely believe in the justice of their causes, doing the government's job for it...

By inventing "protected categories" the government gets to decide, what Americans aren't allowed to say. At least, at work — where we spend about half of our waking time. And then come Social Justice Warriors, who would gleefully pursue you even for convictions privately held...

First Amendment? Yes, sure — you still have it, but best talk in your shower, where no one can hear it and get offended.

Do you really believe half the spew you post here?

Your article is about the EB-5 visa program, which has been around since 1990. It has nothing to do with Trump or his family. And if a family member operating a business under the program is a Bad Thing, then certainly even more so is a family member operating a business that recently got terminated from the program for abuse, as was the one operated by Hillary's brother.

And the very article you posted explicitly alludes to the fact that Trump may not let it go on:

Since Donald Trump became president, rumors have circulated among the wealthy of the world about the future of the EB-5 program, given Trump’s repeated vows to crack down on immigration and the increased congressional scrutiny of EB-5s.

Apart from all that, awesome post.

Then Chris Vickery not only will be able to defend himself, but may be able to countersue under New Jersey's anti-SLAPP laws (SLAPP = Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation - exactly what this suit seems to be). The penalties can be quite substantial, $280K in a recent case. Not only that, but there is another New Jersey law that allows a judge to dismiss a case with prejudice within 45 days of the SLAPP filing. This is all cogent, because RCM is a New Jersey corporation.

Furthermore, there is a shareholder group engaged in a proxy battle right now, saying that they see this as a desperate attempt to distract shareholders from corporate mismanagement. So this may not even get filed, depending on how the existing shareholders see this action>

It's only a problem when a Democrat does it better.

Well, Dems do the personal enrichment from being in power better.

Because just averaging in the Clintons accounts for that.

Remember the FIFA corruption cases? Well, those got rolling because US Attorney General Eric Holder was part of the US delegation trying to win the 2022 World Cup, and Holder got pissed off at all the corruption.

Bill Clinton was also part of the delegation. He got paid.

Right. Where are all the successful lawsuits, then? Nowhere? Got it.

Yeah, you sure as hell got "it". Do they pay you per bullshit post, or a lump sum monthly?

Anyway, here's one case, how many more do you want? Well, for good meassire, here's one more. I could go on, but you will pretend you didn't lose another argument. So why bother.

Oh, what the heck, here's one they settled after years of refusing to pay royalties Suck on it, SamsungCon.

since the laws have not changed, you the driver (non driver) is still held to be responsible for now.

What current laws preclude manufacturer liability in the event of an accident due to a manufacturing or design defect?

Ok, ok, that was a rhetorical question. There's actually an entire body of law built around exactly the opposite proposition. It's called, aptly enough, "product liability" law. You can read some commentary by actual product liability lawyers on the allocation of liability for self-driving cars here.

Saying "an appeals court with a panel of judges" is redundant: Appeals courts are always judges, never juries. Anyone who has watched 5 minutes of any TV legal drama can tell you that. Here appeals judges were upheld a jury verdict.

For Jury Bias: http://www.theglobeandmail.com...

For Judge Bias: https://www.techdirt.com/artic... https://news.ycombinator.com/i... http://arstechnica.com/civis/v... http://www.law360.com/articles... https://yro.slashdot.org/story...

It's curious though, just a few days ago the FBI had a bunch of their evidence tossed for wiretapping a courthouse without a warrant. Maybe they need a new way in.

Soooo you are too lazy to google it? Here, here, and here.

Granted the list was from 2013 and I remembered where I read it when Vestas was trading at 25 bucks a share. I am sure the record Amonix set is impressive, but they have a habit of doing things like this. I could do impressive things too if I was getting that kind of federal funding.

That's an experiment, not a reasonable solution that exists for widespread use today. Also, good luck finding hydroelectric facilities that can be used that way in Texas..

Like the Wildflower Pump Storagein Southeast Oklahoma that will

... deliver power into three electrical grids: ERCOT (Electric Reliability Council of Texas), SPP (Southwest Power Pool) and MISO (Midcontinent Independent System Operator), providing peak power that will help reduce energy shortfalls as well as ancillary services.

and the proposed Cedar Creek Pumped Storage Project for Briscoe, Armstrong and Randall counties

You're correct that these opportunities are limited in Texas, but according to Texas State Energy Conservation Office:

Annually Texas generates approximately 1 million megawatt-hours (MWh) of electricity directly from water resources via 675 MW of hydroelectric power capacity. This hydroelectric generation amounted to only 0.3% of the total electricity generation during 2007, and further development of feasible hydropower resources could result in approximately 4 more million MWh per year.

But, the above does also note that:

The use of Texas water resources together with other technologies that can exploit saline gradients between water sources is possible, but limited to several million MWh/yr.

*sigh*, I see this crap far too often. Just because Big Pharma publishes its profits for all to see, doesn't mean their the only money grubbers out there. This whole alternative medicine thing is typically one big scam. They want your money as badly as BP does, but they are _more_ willing to lie about their snake oil. Does anyone wonder why the nutraceutical industry strives so hard _not_ to get FDA oversight of their products?

Now, I'm not giving BP a free pass, but saying that at least there is usually some evidence that what they peddle is safe, and sometimes effective.

They go after other companies for antitrust, you just don't hear about it. If you go to their antitrust case search engine and do a search for all antitrust/cartel cases in the last 6 months you will find 8 cases. How many of those 8 cases did you hear about? btw EU is already investigating Amazon over E-Book antitrust.

of making it difficult for homeowners to utilize this technology thanks to the regulatory capture of giant utility companies. http://www.law360.com/articles/573896/enviros-blast-pa-limits-on-customer-solar-generation http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/as-hawaii-demands-utility-reform-thousands-of-solar-installers-are-laid-off This along with downgrading of utilities stock by one of these banks or analysts (I can't recall which right now), we are going to see utility companies use their political connections to stifle this until they can have full control of the solar electricity production.

of which I've to actually see an example

Let me quickly respond to that point too. One recent victim (at least at the lower courts) was this patent: http://www.google.com/patents/.... The district court found the claims to upselling to an online buyer invalid under the Alice case. http://www.law360.com/articles...

Technically, one could easily argue that the District Court found the claims to be invalid under 35 USC 103 over an electronic device in view of Official Notice that "suggesting an additional good or service... based on certain information obtained about the customer and the initial purchase" is known in the art because "shrewd sales representatives have long made their living off of this basic practice" and it therefore is "purely conventional steps that are well-understood, routine, and previously known to the industry". Certainly, nothing in the decision points to it being abstract - rather, the judge repeatedly states that it is known.

In fact, one could argue that if something is routinely done, it's not abstract at all. It's just not new.

of which I've to actually see an example

Let me quickly respond to that point too. One recent victim (at least at the lower courts) was this patent: http://www.google.com/patents/.... The district court found the claims to upselling to an online buyer invalid under the Alice case. http://www.law360.com/articles...

I can see why their pill advertiser wanted to advertise as
Schiff are convicted (US) scammers
http://www.law360.com/articles...

proving once again that Facebook (and others) adverts tell me who to avoid not who to trust with my purchases

SparkFun doesn't really mind Fluke's trade dress (other than believing it to be overly broad - they themselves deem the old SFE DMM's border to be more of an orange..). What they mind is the inflexibility of the system once you're confronted with such an issue. For example, SFE didn't appear to have any way to tell CBP that they believed the borders to be orange and thus not even run afoul of the trade dress to begin with and enter e.g. arbitration with either the CBP or with Fluke.

What they mind is having to take any responsibility for investigating their situation at all. Or, apparently, spending any money to modify the meters, ship the meters out, or do anything to help themselves short of whining that the world is being so unfair to their $25+ million-per-year import-from-China-all-the-time business that has remained blissfully ignorant concerning a routine import-export problem. Just wait until they find out that there are arms control laws that apply to their international electronics shipments. It'll blow their minds.

Contacting a trademark attorney is not hard. Using Google is even easier: "customs exclusion order appeal"
First page result: Your Options After An ITC Exclusion Order - Law360

While it's easy enough to say that SFE should have done better in figuring out this could occur beforehand, that doesn't help once the issue does arise.

Picking up a phone or using Google helps a lot more than claiming that the yellow surround included in your very own picture of your very own device, which is quite clearly yellow, is not in fact yellow while writing couple thousand words about how this is everyone's fault but your own.

Instead of a government theoretically beholden to the Constitution theoretically being held responsible for their actions, we get a corporation practically beholden to nobody but its shareholders selling the information to practically all comers (LexisNexis, anyone?)

In theory, this is shit. In practice, it's worse.

Republicans want access to individual medical records that can't be ethically shared

+1 Informative.

Here's a link to support you:

Johnson wrote to Smith on Wednesday expressing serious concern about the chairman's plans to send research data to third parties, noting that credible scientists already had access to the information and that those researchers could be in legal trouble if they hand over the data requested by Congress.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eolas gets you started

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/02/interactive-web-patent and from the last paragraph,
Those companies include: Apple, Argosy Publishing, Blockbuster, Citigroup, eBay, Frito-Lay, JP Morgan Chase, New Frontier Media, Office Depot, Perot Systems, Playboy Enterprises International, Rent-A-Center, Sun Microsystems (bought by Oracle while this litigation was underway), and Texas Instruments.

http://www.law360.com/articles/146435/argosy-first-to-settle-with-eolas-in-web-patent-suit has what I would guess to be an informative article but it's behind a paywall.

For the amounts of settlements, good luck. Many if not most entities settling out of court do not, or are enjoined so can't, divulge amounts. Often one has to go on rumor, "unidentified sources" and the like. But do look at the names of the companies who settled; most have fairly deep pockets even on small margin.

Oh, I don't know so much...

Most people responding to you have assumed you are referring to Apple. If that is the case, then you are late. Eolas already sued Apple back in October 2009, and they settled August 2011.

There has been no definitive ruling by the courts in this litigation. The judge only denied Capitol Records request for a preliminary injunction against ReDigi to force them to cease operations while the litigation proceeds. That, most likely would have forced ReDigi out of business, which may well have been what the judge was thinking about. We won't have any real answers about this until after a trial and, presumably, the inevitable appeals.

More Info here and here

In February, William Lawrence Cassidy was indicted for interstate stalking, a felony charge. The indictment stated that Cassidy used Twitter to “engage in a course of contact that caused substantial emotional distress” to an unnamed person.

According to court documents, the person was Alyce Zeoli, the leader of a Buddhist organization known as Kunzang Palyul Choling. Cassidy was allegedly a member of KPC before having a falling out with Zeoli, who is known as Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo to KPC members. After the split, he began directing several thousand public Twitter messages toward Zeoli, some of which were threatening, according to prosecutors.

Twitter case

"duping customers out of $200,000 doesn't make your testimony more believable."

...except when compared to duping others out of $65,000,000 or more.

Monopoly's multiple patents were been variously upheld and overturned on the facts of the cases.

Atari settled over a patent for an in-game camera perspective.

Beneficial Innovations received a settlement from Digg Inc., CBS Interactive Inc., and Jabez Networks Inc. over a patent on Internet gaming technology.

Innovention Toys won an injunction against MGA Entertainment, Toy-R-Us, and Wal-Mart for the game Laser Battle infringing on Innovention's game Khet, and was granted summary judgment when MGA and Wal-mart appealed.

So as far as I know, yes.

And now you know... and knowing is half the battle.

I kicked the shit out of EA by completely bypassing their EULA in court and making it a full property rights issue instead of a contractual one.

Citation needed.

Three searches. Twenty levels deep into Google. I can't find a case that fits this description.

If a decision exists - if it has any value as precedent - it seems to have no visibility whatever: Electronic Arts [Law360: The Newswire For Business Lawyers]

Besides, exactly what available drugs can enhance your ability to operate heavy machinery? I'm pretty sure anything with alcohol is out, and narcotics too. I can't think of anything stronger than what's in an energy drink, even those can be trouble if you're not careful.

Stimulants or similar drugs; all the good ones are controlled substances. Specifically, the linked Discovery News article says the astronauts take modafinil, which is approved in the US for those with sleep disorders but useful for many other conditions as well. Modafinil can be used in many situations where ampetamine/methylphenidate and friends could be used instead, and typically with less side effects. Also, the Discovery News article mentions dexedrine. Any of these drugs are likely to improve mental performance when used properly; although I must say it's unfair that astronauts get to use modafinil off-label when people know it can be effective for other conditions.

Caffeine is rather weak compared to these (scheduled) drugs, and has side effects of its own. Energy drinks might just create more problems - I've only used them a few times - and most of the time I felt worse afterwards. If I need to consume caffeine, I stick with pills (around a hundred times cheaper than energy drinks!) or coffee.

When taken at the doses needed to be effective, caffeine has more side effects than any of the scheduled substances I've used. (I've been addicted to caffeine since high school.) Of course, caffeine is usually consumed in the form of beverages or cheap pills, not expensive pills with gradual release mechanisms that reduce the effects of a large initial dose and sharp drop-off.