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Google In Battle With Its Own Lawyers
An anonymous reader writes "Google is at daggers end with a law firm it's been using since 2008, after discovering that lawyers in the law firm, named Pepper Hamilton LLP, were representing a patent licensing business that sued Google's Android partners last month. Google has claimed that Pepper Hamilton LLP never provided notice that it was hired by Digitude Innovations LLC, the firm that filed patent infringement complaints against Google's business allies."
The only problem with this is that no one has sued Google, outside of Oracle. The cases were against other companies and not Google itself. It's definitely dishonest, but then again it's lawyers. They probably have plenty of wiggle room to steer clear of any real problems.
Disney has a market cap of $71.86 billion. News Corp (owns Fox Entertainment Group which owns 20th Century Fox) has a market cap of $50 billion. Sony (owns Sony Pictures) has a market cap if $19 billion. Comcast market cap $74 billion (owns Universal Pictures.) Time Warner (owns Warner Bros. Pictures) market cap $38 billion. I've no idea what Viacom is worth as they're private. The five publicly traded companies have a combined market cap of $252 billion.
Google has $44 billion in cash. Facebook's IPO hopes to raise $5 billion. Not only could they not "buy out the whole MAFIAA with little leverage", they couldn't do it even if they sold their souls. And it's unlikely anyone would want to buy those two souls. FB will have P/E of 166, GOOG's P/E is 20. Two of the most profitable companies in the world don't have such high P/E ratios. (AAPL P/E is 13 & XOM P/E is 10.)
In my experience lawyers exist to extract money from clients.
When I told my lawyer that I needed a EULA for an iPhone / iPad app and gave him a list of concerns, he called me back 15 minutes later to say that Apple's App Store EULA covers third parties like me and that my listed concerns are covered there. That I didn't need my own EULA.
There must be something wrong with my lawyer, he served me well rather than extract the maximum amount of money. YMMV.
In 1958, my grandfather worked for Purina and was severely injured falling four stories down an elevator shaft. The elevator had no doors. He was a complete invalid until he died ten years later. His and my grandmother's lives were living hells.
Grandma spoke to a few lawyers in the area, all of whom told her she she had no case, despite Purina's obvious negligence.
My dad found out later that Purina had every lawyer in the state on its payroll. It's disgusting what lawyers who are owned by soulless corporations will do for their dirty money.
Free Martian Whores!