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Judge Makes Lawyers Pay For Frivolous Patent Suit
Gallenod writes "The Denver Post is reporting that the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld the decision of a Federal judge who threw out and reversed a jury decision in favor of a patent infringement claim and ordered the plaintiff's lawyers to pay the defendants' court costs. U.S. District Senior Judge Richard P. Matsch sanctioned the plaintiff's attorneys for 'cavalier and abusive' misconduct and for having a 'what can I get away with?' attitude during a 13-day patent infringement trial in Denver. With the Appeals Court in agreement, could this case be the 'shot heard round the world' in the revolution against patent trolls?"
I never thought this one would stand up to appeal...The judge threw out the jury verdict and then made the plaintiff pay the court costs. Read that again: he threw out the jury verdict.
And the appeals court backed him up! Holy crap! I guess that's one way to deal with stupid juries and slick lawyers...Get some decent judges who aren't willing to put up with the crap.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Law is a slow beast to change, by design. Technology will advance much faster then Law. As a result, we'll continue to see issues like the one we face with "patent infringement". But, Law does eventually change to correct itself. I'm relieved to see that things are working as they should.
How is that the same? The small label wouldn't be "patent trolling" since they would have a legitimate claim. They also wouldn't be displaying a let's see what we can get away with attitude. The judge made the kind of impartial corrective action they are supposed to make. If anything, this sets precedent for less frivolous lawsuits.
Ummm... the fact that Clean/Family flix - who held no rights in the movies they were redistributing - was redistributing copyrighted material for money in direct violation of the copyright holders' rights?
If you find the content morally objectionable, how is it more moral to buy an edited version from someone who has no right to sell it? It seems to me that the best thing you can do is vote with your wallet and not buy it.
And if that is too extreme for your tests, I respectfully suggest that you don't see that content as nearly so "objectionable" as you make it out to be.
Wouldn't they be better off releasing a clean version of the movie themselves, and keep the profit? But since they refuse to do this, then I do not think that there is anything wrong with editing a movie to clean it up. Yes, I'm sure they would. But that's their choice -- and they're under no obligation to give away their work for another company to profit off of, if they choose not to do it. Prohibiting the editing of movies altogether is not the answer.The courts prohibited only using copyrighted material without permissions, which is after all what copyright is for. Whether the owner of the copyright wishes to allow a company to PAY for the rights to do what Clean Flix wanted to do is entirely up to the owner(s). The court is quite correct in stating that it has no say in it.