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This.

Again, the last declaration of war was World War II - related. (There have been 11 total declarations of war in US history.)

There are also diplomatic reasons for a dislike of "declaring war" on a country, as it can often be perceived as holding an entire nation responsible for the actions of a few of its citizens. In the case of the most recent public opposition, those who support such actions have noted that, in the case of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, there was no 'target' for a legal declaration of war, rather political groups or individuals. On the other hand many argue that since an invading army seeks to occupy and cause havoc to a target country and its population and not just a political group or individual, the aforementioned justification is tenuous at best.

Another way to counteract it is to indicate you signed under duress. If you are trying to get a job to put food on the table and you really don't have another option, when when someone tells you sign this or we won't hire you, you're "forced" to sign it even if you didn't want to. Any signature acquired under duress is invalid and doesn't form a binding agreement.
I think it just matters if these agreements are signed after the individual arrives on their first day of work, or before they accept the position and inform their previous business. My assumption is that these agreements are put in front of the person on their first working day... you really have no choice but to sign anything they put in front of you then...

http://www.lawguru.com/article...

Forcible entry is distinguishable from the broader crime of "breaking and entering" which might not include any actual damage from the force used to "break" a way in, such as when one opens an unlocked door to private premises without license to do so, or tampers with a locking mechanism and later takes advantage of the defect. As such, one can assume that the "breaking" refers to breaking the plane of entry; that is, crossing the threshold of a door, window or other entryway into a building.

Antitrust laws are nothing more than a pure power-grab by the government, allowing the Gov to threaten endless lawsuits on any large company any time they want. It is rife with circular reasoning and has no definable test. Worse, many companies prosecuted under the law do not even have monopolies in their industry. And worse still, the companies that -do- have monopolies have them because the government gave them to them! Examples include the old phone system (AT&T), many utilities, and the Post Office. The idea of 'natural monopoly' is totally false. And our current President is trying to create a new government monopoly on Health Care. It's despicable. What we need is to end the monopoly on government power.

Because of the way the law on antitrust has evolved, any business situation imaginable can make you subject to antitrust persecution *cough* ...err, prosecution.

If a business increases prices, then clearly it's because they've already driven out their competitors and are now taking advantage of that fact to milk the consumer.

If prices remain the same, then that's evidence of collusion, and thus comes prosecution for milking the consumer.

And if prices fall, then clearly that's predatory pricing designed to drive a competitor out of business entirely, and makes them subject to prosecution yet again.

So, if a company raises their prices, drops their prices, or leaves them the same, they can be prosecuted for monopolistic practices. How can anyone win? It's been said that if the Department of Justice had enough men, they could arrest every businessman in America for monopolistic practices.

But, even worse than all that, the premise of the law, that monopoly is always bad, or even objectively possible, is totally wrong from an economic point of view--underscoring the fact that the law is nothing more than a tool of a repressive government to use against companies whenever they want. Why did Microsoft get hit with the monopoly stick? Because they made Internet Explorer free and thus put Netscape out of business? Not really. That didn't hurt the consumer at all. The real reason is that Netscape hired political muscle on Capitol Hill, made the right connections, donated to the right people, and lobbied for political favors. And Microsoft, naively, ignored Washington.

Here's what the experts have to say:

-( from: http://wiki.lawguru.com/index.php/Antitrust )
Monopolistic firms are in a privileged position to reap economic benefits by restricting output and raising prices, without fear of competition. However, Thomas Woods asserts that the industries most frequently accused of holding a monopolistic position in the late nineteenth century were neither restricting output nor raising prices.

The Results of "Predatory Pricing": Commodity Prices from 1880-1890
Steel 58%
Zinc 20%
Sugar 22%

During the 1880s output of monopolistic industries grew seven times faster than the overall economy, while prices in these industries were generally falling--even faster than the 7% rate of decline that occurred in the economy as a whole. Template:Ref

Free market economist Milton Friedman states that he initially agreed with the underlying principles of antitrust laws (breaking up monopolies and oligopolies and promoting more competition), but came to the conclusion that they do more harm than good and that therefore they should not exist. Template:Ref

Critics also argue that the empirical evidence shows that "predatory pricing" does not work in practice, and is better defeated by a truly free market than by anti-trust laws (see Criticism of the theory of predatory pricing).

Thomas Sowell argues that even if a superior business drives out a competitor, it doesn't follow that competition has ended:

"In short, the financial demise of a competitor is not the same as getting rid of competition. The courts have long paid lip serv

Not more general, but more understandable. You can be plenty specific, but use english, not latin, french (my local area is still under napoleonic law) or other forms of obscure language.

When language changes, the laws should be updated and reviewed, not left in place... That would also prevent situations where obscure laws are still on the books, but never enforced. Like these

As for the honesty/integrity issue, I belive the above posters where referring to the judges/jury's having integrity, not expecting everyone to magically be honest.

After the Bush executive branch 'lost' millions of emails in violation of the Presidential Records Act, and will probably never have a bit of legal trouble of their actions, why does legality matter?

Obama wants to bring change to the country then demand that laws get upheld and bring those to task who disregarded the Records Act millions of times. Don't want to tarnish a past President then at least disbar the white house counsel which may have known about it under Gonzales. Otherwise don't try to grandstand that you're following the law since it doesn't have any teeth whatsoever to be followed. Kinda like those other Dumb laws that were never taken off the books.

civil law. The right of enjoying a thing, the property
of which is vested in another, and to draw from the same all the profit,
utility and advantage which it may produce, provided it be without altering the
substance of the thing.

The point of proving that he did not have insider information is to protect him from the accusation of trade secret misappropation.

However, IIRC, that would be the extent of what they could go after him for unless he stole actual code.

IANALBAFS.

If you are in the US and a true W-2 employee, it is actually unclear the best way to do this, because: (i) by operation of law, the work is probably Work Made for Hire; and (ii) because of (i), your employer is deemed to be the *author* of the copyright in the work. In this case, in an odd twist, the best way to handle it is probably to either GPL or open source it, or assign the copyright back to you. Making an agreement that tries to retroactively modify who is deemed to be the author (such as backdating it) may not work. This problem arises because you already created a work of authorship.

If you are a US 1099 independent contractor, you are already the author and owner of the copyright in the code (which explains my comment at the top).

If the code involves a potentially patentable idea, the rules are completely different. Unless you were "hired to invent" (and from the post, you were not), even if you are a US W-2 employee, you are the inventor and there is no implied duty to assign the patent; the best the company has is a shop right (limited internal license). Hence, again, my comment at the top.

If your employer truly is this generous (or potentially this dumb), when I am counsel for the employee, I usually ask the employer's counsel to draft the agreement, if they are competent - this costs less.

The posts about determining value and risk are good advice - if this is just ASP or scripting of hacked together GPL code (indeed, if it contains GPL code or derivatives) and is not really a true application - you do not need a lawyer and are probably better off without even an agreement in writing.

If, however, this is a valuable code and it will matter down the line who owns it and who has a license, and the scope of that license, *good* lawyers will save you the $'s in the end.

I practice and teach in this area. The answer is never that you should *always* hire a lawyer, or never hire a lawyer. But I can tell you that if value presents itself later and proper agreements are not in place, you will either abandon the code or spend much more fixing the problems.

To put it in terms of a computer analogy - I still write software code/scripts for may non profits and simple sites - and we do not do formal agreements; but if there is any significant commercial issue, I hire a professional programmer/developer or real techie. The trick is knowing when the issue is serious enough to call on a professional.

If you decide to leave your keys in your car overnight and someone steals your car and gets a speeding ticket are you going to have to pay the fine?
Ironically it is illegal to leave your keys in the car in some places. Australia is one.
Maryland is another one.
There are more if you do a google search.

Yeah, but then the constitutional ammendment that prohibited alcohol might have been prevented if open source was used for input on its implementation. Laws are never implemented in a 'finished' state, they simply are good enough to accomplish the goal at the time. There are many laws on the books that are absolutely bizare, http://www.lawguru.com/weird/.

The open source method might be just what is required to clean up some of the bizareness of the legal world? Not only that, but it should be more than lawyers and lobbyists that have direct access to influencing things like patent laws.

I think that the real issue here is that Apple needs to keep their trade secrets. The USPTO requires that entities ACTIVELY protect their trade secrets (Overview here http://www.lawguru.com/faq/19.18.html or here http://www.ipwatchdog.com/tradesecret.html. If products in development are not trade secrets, then what is?

IANAL

Found this site LawGuru Copyright defined.

Excerpt:

13.- 7. Requisites after the grant. No person shall be entitled to the benefitof this act, unless he shall give information of copyright being secured,by-causing to be inserted, in the several copies of each and every editionpublished during the term secured, on the title page, or the page immediatelyfollowing, if it be a book, or, if a map, chart, musical composition, print,cut, or engraving, by causing to be impressed on the face thereof, or ifa volume of maps, charts, music or engravings, upon the title or frontispicethereof, the following words, viz: " Entered according to act of congress,in the year by A. B., in the clerk"s office of the district court of ___________________"(as the case may be.)

The owner of the media likely did not insert any copyright notice into the media (either by labeling the media or posting in the media contents). I'm not sure that copyright applies here. Now going to a personal example, my church has Ollan Mills (photo company) take family photos for the church directory. The company also offers the photos for sale to the family. When looking at past photos before deciding to make a purchase, I asked if I could get the photo without a little overlay of the Ollan Mills logo. The photographer said that I couldn't have the photo without that mark as they copyright all their photos by including the logo (which does include a (C)).

I guess I'm not convinced that the media owner really has a copyright on the material if they never showed intention to copyright.

That's interesting. In California small claims, lawyers are not allowed, and The defendant may always appeal.

That's interesting. In California small claims, lawyers are not allowed, and The defendant may always appeal.

I beg to differ, see this (among many others):

Legal Research

How does the small claims court work?

In most instances, lawyers are not allowed in small claims court,
so you must represent yourself. However, you can talk to a lawyer
beforehand. This true whether you are the "plaintiff" - the person
is suing - or the "defendant" - the person being sued. Small claim
courts are informal. They do not have complicated ways of doing
things. No one is allowed to make objections. And there are no
juries. Cases move quickly.

Legitimate claims would be devastating.

Imagine SCO having to show up at court in a thousand different places at a thousand different times. Imagine the billable hours, travel expenses. Imagine the default judgements for not showing up. Imagine the leins on SCO property for not paying. Imagine SCO cedit rating going through the floor.

See small claims FAQ.

If you stole their secrets, that's another thing, but a competing product should not automatically be illegal.

A competing product is not automatically illegal. "Independant development and reverse engineering by another party are defenses to claims of trade secret theft." LawGuru FAQ 19.5

However, independent development is not a defense against patent infringement. LawGuru FAQ 13.6
So, you do have to worry about patent problems.

--
YAIP--Yet Another IANAL Post

If you stole their secrets, that's another thing, but a competing product should not automatically be illegal.

A competing product is not automatically illegal. "Independant development and reverse engineering by another party are defenses to claims of trade secret theft." LawGuru FAQ 19.5

However, independent development is not a defense against patent infringement. LawGuru FAQ 13.6
So, you do have to worry about patent problems.

--
YAIP--Yet Another IANAL Post

That which you call "free markets" in the US has long since been perverted by

• the patent system which finances itself and therefore patents everybody and their granddaughter (there's a patent on the wheel in the US, and IBM owns a patent on "sending electrical impulses through metallic conductors", ie. electricity).
• the legislative system which, in general, will allow big boys with much money and more lawyers to "win", even if they were the ones breaking the law (the MS trial is *one* example, but there are many others)
• political parties and politicians being paid by *one* company, to argue for the companie's opinion, instead of the opinion of the voters. Of course, sponsoring exists in Europe - but parties are usually sponsored by dozens to hundreds of sources, not just one to a few.
• the voting system which lets somebody win who did not have the majority of votes (I'm not calling this a democracy on purpose)

Just as some examples. I prefer to call the US system a 'corporate oligarchy', than a democracy.

"Now, a free market doesn't always pick the best technology (or everyone would be using OSX), but it does allow for new ideas to get a shot."

Ah, so that is why there are so few (quasi-)monopolies out there in the US.

"European overlegislation and overtaxation is not appealing to us. That's why we here, and didn't stay there."

Sometimes, a new idea must be protected while it cannot defend itself yet, or it will be trampled down or assimilated by the old dinosaurs. Give me some examples of "overlegislation" in Europe, please, while I read lawguru.com.

"I'm willing to match up, bottle for bottle, our California wines against any French wine you could name. (and no, we don't mix it with Coke, for that matter. Where do you get this stuff?)"

Oh, very simple. We have friends and relatives in the US. For them, it's apparently normal. Just like 'Alsterwasser' or 'Radler') in Germany, which is a mixture of Beer (real beer, capital B) with lemonade.

"The thing is, we didn't ban French fries, -toast and -kissing, We merely temporarily renamed them. Why? Because after spending a significant of American blood to free Europe in the first half of the last century, you have turned your back on us when we needed you, and I think you've forgotten that you need us more than we need you."

You still don't understand Europe, and this renaming made people all over Europe laugh about the US. Germany especially.

• Most Germans (while the fraction of americans against the war is apparently also over 50%, here it's almost 100%) have a basic problem with war, any kind of war, for any kind of reason whatsoever. Period. There are people who commit suicide rather than go into combat. (I witnessed such a thing).
• Most Germans (and other Europeans) have a problem with a war that was not approved by the UN and is therefore, strictly speaking, illegal.
• Yes, the US helped us during WWII, which was obviously a good thing. More to the point though, the US rescued us from somebody who started a war. (That's exactly how many Europeans see Bush now.) You want this debt paid back now?
• Read our constitution. The one YOU wrote after WWII. Germany is not allowed to participate in any kind of non-defensive warfare - whether it is being hidden behind the "anti-terrorism" blanket or not. Strictly speaking, we aren't allowed to "help" you.

And I'd doubt that we need the US more than the other way round. Europe has survived for thousands of years without the US, it'll keep surviving without it if needs be. Of course we'll probably miss mcDonalds and Hollywood, but you'll probably miss more important things.

"As for hamburgers, yes, they have a European origin. Much of our food does. Not surprising, when

For example:

http://www.lawguru.com/faq/19.5.html

"Looks like the monopoly muscles are flexing."

I'm pretty sure I didn't read anything in the article about Microsoft actually enforcing this.

I'm pretty sure it's just one of those things that happens when you have 20 bazillion lawyers all gathered around writting a license agreement.

It's a lot similar to a California law of Animals are banned from mating publicly within 1,500 feet of a tavern, school, or place of worship. Whacky law link.

Why is it similar? Because it's just a stupid thing that a bunch of lawyers or whatever had written up without really thinking about it.

I expect that by the time you see Microsoft actually enforcing this, you'll most likely see two rabbits being hauled off by the LAPD for getting jiggy with it near church.

There is plenty of free legal advice out there by real lawyers. Granted, there is the hook, that they all hope to get you as their next client, but nevertheless I think your chances of getting a decent answer are greater there, than here :)

Check out: Lawguru. If you cant find your question in their DB of 35000 questions, they will answer it.

You're wrong. Plain and simple.

1. Trade secrets are protectable in the U.S. at the state level only; you can't seek trade secret protection at the federal level.

2. To prove misappropriation of trade secrets in the U.S., the plaintiff has to show that the secrets were either stolen or were disclosed under contract (a NDA, Non-Disclosure Agreement) which has now been violated. Either way, the defendent would have had to have access to the trade secrets in question; misappropriation can mean this was done either by stealing them or that they were voluntarily disclosed under NDA and were released in violation of contract.

3. Trade secret misappropriation is not necessarily a criminal offense. In some states, the plaintiff can seek criminal charges; in most states, the defendent can only be sued. (Which is most likely why the DVD CCA case was argued in California State Court)

4. Once a trade secret has been released, it no longer has protection under U.S. trade secret law. The plaintiff can sue all they want, and even win and seek damages. But it is no longer a trade secret.

Truth is..

1. The individual who "misappropriated" the CSS algorithm did not have access to the algorithm; it was obtained via reverse engineering. It would seem that no NDA was signed, no contract was breached. This is why the DVD CCA in California made it a theft case rather than a misappropriation one.

2. The "theft" took place in Norway, whose laws explicitly allow reverse engineering. Since trade secrets in the U.S. are only protectable at the state level, you can't seek international jurisdiction for trade secret protection. This is most likely why the battle got shifted so quickly to the federal level and the DMCA. Copyright infringement is prosecutable as a federal crime.

I know that the facts tend to take the wind out of a well-reasoned emotional tirade.

Honestly, the only way trade secret misappropriation can be shown is by using the argument that the EULA on the Xing player was both agreed to and violated in a jurisdiction where this constitutes an offense. This is far from certain, with lots of holes.

The DVD CCA case is extremely weak; the EFF knows it and the CCA knows it. Trade secret protection isn't enough here. This is why the MPAA (essentially the same folks as the CCA) are filing charges under the DMCA in federal court.

For more info on trade secret protection in the United States:

http://www.lawguru.com/faq/17.html

http://www.lgu.com/ts46.htm