Microsoft Admonished by U.S. District Court Judge

An anonymous reader writes "The Seattle Times reports that the judge in the z4 'product activation' patent infringement case has increased the jury's original $115 million verdict against Microsoft by $25 million. Both Microsoft and Autodesk (another defendant) were admonished by the judge for misconduct. The judge wrote 'The Court concludes that Defendants attempted to bury the relevant 107 exhibits ... in a massive pile of decoys' and called one failure to disclose evidence 'an intentional attempt by Defendants to mislead z4 and this Court.'"

Comments

Microsoft acting unethically?

[Whiney Mac Fanboy]

MS acting unethically? Willfully infringing on the patents of a small company? Engaging in litigation misconduct? Attemping to mislead the court?

I think Microsoft needs to read their own Put it in writing: Your business has ethics - particularly point 8:

Live it from the top down. It's critical that no one person in a company ever appears to be above a code of ethics. That means it's particularly important that executives and top managers also adhere to the guidelines of an ethics code. If managers say one thing but do something else, that's nothing more than a license for the rest of the company to follow suit. "Good role modeling by top managers is a must," Swanson says. "Without it, ethics codes can be seen as mere window dressing."

You ever read that Steve or Bill?

Mind you - I'm not exactly on z4's 'side' here - I don't like software patents (and it doesn't look like z4 have a product, but rather are an 'IP' company). That said however, live by the sword, die by the sword hey MS? Want to enforce your FAT patents? Expect more of this sort of shit in the future.

Re:Can't help but think of SCO

[nickfrommaryland]

There are provisions that can restrict what the big guy can do during discovery, but these mechanisms are rarely used, mainly because it is difficult to see what is and is not a decoy. Judges prefer to wait until it is clear, and that usually means at the end of the case. These are covered by Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 26(g). It seems to me, however, that the judge added a bit more, just because it was Microsoft.

Re:For a few dollars more....

[Red Flayer]

Here's (pdf) a tidbit. HTML version

Believe me, Kolitkoff is not alone in his predictions, though of course the US could take action to forestall the bankruptcy and reneging on its debts.

Look to Anjan Thakor (Olin School of Business) to discuss Kotlikoff's paper in the next Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis Review.