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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.'"
I think Microsoft needs to read their own Put it in writing: Your business has ethics - particularly point 8:
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.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
Even if MS gets burnt by them doesn't make them good.
Plus "product activation" must have been reinvented a million times or something.
That said MS deserves to get smacked if they try to mess about with the courts.
I bet they can.
No sig for now.
"judge wrote 'The Court concludes that Defendants attempted to bury the relevant 107 exhibits ... in a massive pile of decoys'
I see that Microsoft is still retaining Elmer F.U.D. for his legal services.
Where were you when the voynix came?
Hopefully these sorts of legal problems will discorage other companies from using annoying anti-customer "activation" schemes...
I'm sure with for a few extra bucks MS can buy whatever legal resources (including judges, prosecutors, congressmen, lobbyists) it needs to make it all better. Ain't it great living in a society where money rules all....
"Money's like honey, my little sonny, and a rich man's joke is always funny"
So for every company that wants to use this 'Product Activation',they should pay royalty to 'z4' ?
Is that what z4 wants? or Is it that no one else should use 'PA'.
Wincopy
I just had a great movie idea.
He cited several examples in which the defendants failed to fully and promptly disclose evidence, calling one instance "an intentional attempt by Defendants to mislead z4 and this Court."
Ok, so if this is an actionable item - why hasn't SCO been nailed with something similar? They've been doing the smoke and mirrors thing for years now.
What gives? Why can a judge nail MS with this, but not SCO?
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
The defendants marked 3,449 exhibits, but only admitted 107 of them at trial.
Does the defendant have to say "Your Honor, I'd like to admit exhibit X into the court records as evidence" for each one? That would be a long trial, even if only 107 were admitted!
So a large corporation has ripped off a small company's software, which was specifically designed to stop people ripping off software. Somehow I doubt individuals sharing software is as big a threat as corporations cloning it.
We see that MS (and they are not alone in this) regard the law as something to be circumvented, something to play games with. Law is not absolute to them -- any risk of punishment is exactly that -- a possible risk to be weighed against the potential returns of a strategy or action.
Props to the judge for calling MS on its shenanigans; jeers for the penalty being insignificant to them.
These actions by MS are indicative of the collapse of the rule of law in the US. Without meaningful punishments for attempting to circumvent the laws and/or undermine the legal process, it will not change. $25MM is hardly a disincentive for MS.
IMO, the lawyers who used the obfuscatory tactic should be disbarred... and personally fined for contempt of court. And the executive(s) who authorized the tactic (or were responsible for the law team) should also be personally fined. And production of MS products should be halted until they can prove they are not still abusing the patent (by providing their code, in entirety, for review by the justice system, with any relevant sections clearly denoted).
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
You mised the part of the patent application that specified "on the internet." That makes it both unique and non-obvious, because doing anything on the internet is completely different than doing it off the internet. Hasn't /. taught you anything about the USPTO this past decade? ;-)
Is it just my observation, or are there way too many stupid people in the world?
FTA: Autodesk did not return calls for comment.
Maybe the power went out.
Software Patents should never have existed in the first place.
They're basically patenting logic and Math equations.
All it's doing is making patent law more profitable.
Imagine how many lawyer would be out of work without Software Patents.
Software Patents = Welfare for Lawyers
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
Now that the z4 case is wrapped up, can we get that judge to take over the blatantly abusive SCO vs IBM case, and wind it up this weekend?
--
make install -not war
... this won't stop the practice of product activation using the internet. The whole process makes it a pain in the ass to migrate to new hardware and, it could eventually render the software you paid for today unusable tomorrow once these companies decide to cut support for it. I'm just waiting for the day large numbers of people find their software suddenly refusing to run because the activation server never responds, or fails to recognize the software/serial number due to the older versions' databases being dumped as obsolete data.
8==8 Bones 8==8
$25m is like $0.25 to Microsoft. If he thinks it'll even matter to MSFT then he's not aware of Microsofts monopoly position and their profit levels. If he'd asked around, he would have known that $125 - $250 is the standard payoff for stealing someones tech. Playing 'games' in court is also SOP for these guys. And payoffs are probably even built into their budgets. You know, the Payola Dept. IMO.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
Bill Gates is no saint, and should not be treated like one. Using your logic, he could speed through a red light and squash Granny in the crosswalk. The cops stop him and sure enough "Sorry, did not know it was you Mr. Gates. Good work in Africa! You can go along now. Don't worry about a ticket or anything at all."
Where were you when the voynix came?
Please, you act as if that money would not have existed if Billy hadn't of pulled it out of his ass. If Microsoft had never of existed, others would have stepped in. Perhaps there could have been real competition and we would all be better off. Perhaps we would all be just a little richer, with software that works better, if this man had never built his little empire on theft, coercion and deceit. So now that he's essentially stolen so much money that it doesn't matter how much he gives away, we're supposed to respect him for giving some to charity? When he never should have had that much to begin with? You know, Mafia dons occassionally give money to charity too.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
I think you are failing to see the problem here. We are talking about Microsoft's patchy business ethics; not about Bill's admirable charity work. These are two completely different subjects. I think the biggest problem most people have with Microsoft is the company's lack of innovation set against the background of its more than ample resources. We are talking about the world's leading software developer with a multi-billion budget. And the crap it produces.
And he made his money doing what! Sell lemonade?
In sum, Davis wrote that the court was "greatly disturbed by the repeated instances where Defendants actions go beyond what can be dismissed as a mere appearance of impropriety and collectively appear to represent a pattern which is of disappointment to the Court and a disservice to legitimate advocacy."
Oddly enough, MS and others probably do this all of the time. This judge threw the flag while others assume that type of conduct is business as usual, no big deal. In the appeals process, MS will eventually find an old school judge that accepts this practice as normal and will not raise the issue and as almost always appears to happen, the one with the bigger pocket and connections will win.
I'm not sure there was ever any actual theft involved. Unauthorized / unapproved / disliked duplication? Yeah, sure. But theft?
Where were you when the voynix came?
I can see it now...
NEW Microsoft Ethics 2.0! It's fully featured with an all new "don't lie" format, and add those little extra touches with the "don't steal things" toolbar.
And to make your ethical decisions simpler... use Clippy, the Ethics 2.0 help agent!
The defendants are trying to mislead the court!
Did you miss that this article is directed at the leadership of small businesses?
Bill and Steve have nothing to do with it.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
MS is always causing problems. How is it possible that a "small" company (in comparison to MS) like Apple is able to produce an incredible operating system and entire suites of applications for home, work, and pro, and it is incredibly stable, while MS, with significantly more resources and market share, and a more powerful position in the industry, cannot make something half as good?
As for the patent it is of course totally uninventive, obvious, there is prior art and any skilled person would have come up the the same thing without reading the method.
When are they going to fix that crock known as the US patent system?
davecb5620@gmail.com
They should be cited for contempt, fined some amount that is a multiple of what they billed their client assembling the dishonest materials (ensuring they don't profit from the behavior and in fact lose money), removed from the case and possibly jailed if the behavior was particularly egregious.
Most ethics boards for professions (law, medicine, etc) are just a BS screen to keep their members involved in theiving, drug use, sexual misconduct and other naughty behavior out of jail and not lose their professional certifications. I've known several people with accurate, well-documented complaints (ie, affidavits and materials from other professionals) that have gone before ethics boards that just get swept under the rug.
The legal profession is worse, since they rig the courts and the judicial system so that they can be damned hard to use against them.
It's not a straw man. It's a good comparison because both situations involve Gates/Microsoft committing a crime.
Where were you when the voynix came?
ok let's see, that $140 mil divided by Microsoft's cash on hand =
underflow error
nevermind.
slashdot troll = you make a compelling argument I do not like the implications of.
A judgment does not mean Payment
-- I am the NRA, enough said...
Well???
All content in this message is copyright (c) 2008. All rights reserved. RIAA is prohibited here.
Wake up. (1) All companies/institutions play dirty. (2) Money is an artificial social construct. (3) There are no saints. (4) If the queen had balls, she would be king.
I didn't say he didn't screw anybody, nor did I say he is/was a saint, nor did I say his company was a religious institution. The reality is that his current actions which attempt to make the world a better place are overshadowed by some petty business practices, practiced by anybody who can get away with, especially in a free market environment. For all I know, Gates is atoning for his sins, but that is not the point. The point is that he is doing something about it.
"...that I think I could probably do a better job than he of using it to make the world a better place..."
While you're philosophizing about free market, efficiency, opportunity, and real competition, Gates Foundation donates about $90 every second to some worthy cause, trying to make the world a better place. What are YOU doing to make the world a better place?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurt_G%C3%B6del
"Gödel had a most distinguished coach for his citizenship exam: Albert Einstein, who had earlier earned his own citizenship, but knowing of Gödel's unpredictable behavior, was concerned that his friend might somehow behave erratically during the exam. Einstein accompanied Gödel to the hearing. To everyone's consternation, Gödel suddenly informed the presiding judge that he had discovered a way in which a dictatorship could be legally installed in the United States. Fortunately, the judge, who was apparently a very patient person, took this in good part and awarded Gödel his citizenship. (See [1][2].)"
I wonder what would Godel say about a "free market", and "real competition" in a legal system that could allow for a dictatorship.
It's critical that no one person in a company ever appears [emphasis mine] to be above a code of ethics.
What it really means is: DON'T GET CAUGHT LYING, CHEATING, BREAKING LAWS, etc.
Mmmm, the rich scent of astroturf on a hot August afternoon sent roiling into the air by the power of mod points. What you have witnessed is the "slash" in slashdot. These zombies fail to grasp that modding down "funny" with "overrated" is in the same class as killing kittens.
Gary Dunn
Open Slate Project
(giggle)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
So someone can make a book with a world like "Lord of the Rings" (and many have) or a game like Doom or music like (in same genre) Michael Jacksons - they just can't reproduced the original and claim it as theirs.
Funny you should use Lord of the Rings in a copyright example. The first US publication of LotR was in violation of copyright: Somebody ripped off a copy of an early version of the manuscript and took it to a US publisher, purporting to be doing so as an agent of Tolkein.
Those editions are collector's items now.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
Sure, but this story is not an example of lack of protection for the smaller players. Getting an extra $25 million in damages because BIG_CO tried a dirty trick in court sounds more than reasonable. On the other hand, if Steve Ballmer were publicly flogged, I don't think it would send as positive a message to small business as you seem to think. The small businessman is not going to think, "Isn't this great how the government is protecting me by tearing bleeding chunks off Ballmer's back." He's going to think, "If this can happen to Ballmer, it can happen to me. Time to move somewhere sane."
IMO, the key word is "appears", so to put emphasis:
"It's critical that no one person in a company ever appears to be above a code of ethics."
If anybody reads that carefully, it should be plain that being above that particular code of ethics is OK as long as thouse bounded by it do not appear to be above it (i.e. they carefully hide acts which are against the code or use some other "PR" tactics).
hany
Lobby groups target the people that need targetting. Comittees, ministers, or the big man or woman if necessary.
The corrosive consequences of lobbies in Western democracy (but particularly in the US) are so well documented that pretending there is no problem is what looks like a college-dorm-room mindset.
And sorry to be skeptical, but when you look at the current top echeloens in the US government, all former oil industry executives, and you see that the industry that has beneffited the most during their tenure, is precisely the oil industry, any person with even the slightest of curiosity left on his brain would smell something very fishy.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Here's something mayby slightly off-topic byt still usefull to answer your request:
Krassimir Petrov, Ph.D.: The Proposed Iranian Oil Bourse
hany
I orgasm at patent companies falling in their own trap, yet the experience is not 100% fulfilling as the company who won develops digital restrictions management technologies (i.e. software AIDS). Ideally, both companies should pay millions and software patents should be abolished/overcome.
I was about to say 13256278887989457651018865901401704640, but it appears this number is private property.