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Meet the Lawyer Suing Anyone Who Uses SSL
Sparrowvsrevolution writes "Since 2008, Dallas, Texas attorney Erich Spangenberg and his company TQP have been launching suits against hundreds of firms, claiming that merely by using SSL, they've violated a patent TQP acquired in 2006. Nevermind that the patent was actually filed in 1989, long before the World Wide Web was even invented. So far Spangenberg's targets have included Apple, Google, Intel, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, every major bank and credit card company, and scores of web startups and online retailers, practically anyone who encrypts pages of a web sites to protect users' privacy. And while most of those lawsuits are ongoing, many companies have already settled with TQP rather than take the case to trial, including Apple, Amazon, Dell, and Exxon Mobil. The patent has expired now, but Spangenberg can continue to sue users of SSL for six more years and seems determined to do so as much as possible. 'When the government grants you the right to a patent, they grant you the right to exclude others from using it,' says Spangenberg. 'I don't understand why just because [SSL is] prevalent, it should be free.'"
Who's up for forming a lynch mob?
Nevermind that the patent was actually filed in 1989, long before the World Wide Web was even invented.
Now, don't get me wrong, this is patent trolling at it's absolute worst, but what exactly is this quote supposed to mean? We (rightly) complain all the freakin time how people shouldn't be granted patents just by adding "on the internet" or "on a computer", we can't have it both ways. If there is a valid patent to provide secure communications through USPS and the key steps of that patent are being performed as part of secure communications online, why shouldn't that be considered to be violating the patent?
I don't understand why the WWW was mentioned. SSL isn't tied to web technology. It makes me wonder if the submitter (and editors) have any idea what SSL is.
Nevermind that the patent was actually filed in 1989, long before the World Wide Web was even invented.
Your sure about that are you?
Cases like this might be bringing the patent system closer and closer to some form of "Intellectual Property Eminent Domain," which would be very suitable for something as widespread and important as SSL.
Now I am in danger if I activate SSL on my website? Why didn't Apple grind them to dust? Are their lawyers too busy duking it out with Samsung?
C'mon Google, take aim and give 'em both barrels!
All it would take is Google or one other company with adequately deep pockets to actually take this guy to court and that would be the last we'd hear of Mr. Spangenberg or his trollish little company.
The problem here is not that the patent was filed before SSL was invented (about 1995) -- that could be fine, if SSL was using a patented technology that pre-dated its own invention.
The problem here is that the attorneys are accusing the practice of 'sending network records over a wire and encrypting them with a stream cipher', where in this case the cipher is (I believe RC4). However RC4 was invented in the 1980s and should pre-date this patent. I'm certain that somebody used it to encrypt network traffic in an almost identical manner, so there should be prior art.
Moreover, stream ciphers in general have been around for much longer than that. Someone somewhere has published/deployed this idea before. It should not be a live patent. Note that the case has never been tested by a court.
You must see the good in this man. He has set up well over 200 companies to make the point that software patents is a bad thing. He even tells this to all the companies and judges he can find. He will finally succeed and software patents will be abolished.
It's not profitable for Apple or Google, or any other large company, to stand up to patent trolls that annoy their entire industry. Apple probably spent more to settle than they would have to defend, but they are probably happy that this troll will cost their competitors as well.
Lawyers... the peak of human anti-logic and stupidity after the belief that money is the best resource sharing technology ever.
Patents should be like Trademarks. Use it and protect it or lose it.
According to TFA, the patent apparently infringed upon has expired, however this mob can still sue people who used it in the past for the next six years.
So, if you start a new company now that uses SSL you should be in the clear.
He may be on the correct side of the law as far as current patent law goes, but I'm of the opinion that, at least sometimes, the fact that it's prevalent means that it should be free. Particularly when it comes to computer software, and particularly when it comes to communications and the exchange of information. File formats should be able to be written and read without a license. You should be able to make your software communicate with others using network protocols that are unencumbered.
I don't know that I have an objection to software patents per se, but when it comes to file format standards and network communications standards, you should not have to pay in order to participate.
I already know plenty of douchebags. Why would i want to meet another one? And a lawyer one at that.
Pass.
The patent was actually filed in 1992. It describes a very poor stream cipher. SSL seems to "infringe" the generic stream cipher parts of the patent. However, since stream ciphers pre-date the patent (e.g. A5/1 from 1987 also used pseudo-random numbers) it's really not clear that the patent should ever have been granted.
But what if they were to lose? Having case law on their side would open up an even worse fate for every SSL enabled website out there.
Marconi was sued by telegraph companies that thought they had a fifty year monopoly on morse code. The communications IP legal situation has been a sick joke since at least then.
I don't see how their patent has anything to do with it. SSL encrypts the stream, not the pages.
It's too bad that when corporations go to the expense of acquiring huge patent portfolios to be used as legal weapons against other patent wielding companies, that they don't hire some specialized "patent mercenaries" to take handle the cases where their opponent isn't a company, just legal firm holding some patents. I saw a corporate hit team like this in the movie, Michael Clayton so they've got to exist, right?
Let me dissuade you of what seems to be a fairly common misconception in the tech world:
Businesses do not exist for your benefit. They exist to make money for themselves - period. Any benefit you may perceive is simply a by-product of their primary function. No matter how warm and squishy it may be.
If they legitimize this troll they can troll back later in the next 20 years for even more damages vs others. They consider it "the cost of doing business" and they (apple etc...) are glad that the cost is too high for you and me to engage in but they can just pay off the extortion fee. Infact this troll is a little like mob man they hire out to extort everyone and pretend to be victims too.
Organized crime at its best. But the problem is of course in a system that enables this behavoir.
'I don't understand why just because [SSL is] prevalent, it should be free.'
This statement is one of those really douchebaggy things that douchebags douche out.
All of that being said, SSL needs to be replaced with something better anyway.
Sorry if this is totally off, but aren't patents supposed to prevent the manufacturing and distribution and/or selling of the patented items, and have nothing to do with the usage? That means this statement is at least misleading, if not down right lying: “When the government grants you the right to a patent, they grant you the right to exclude others from using it.”
To clarify: If I use SSL on my website, I don't think this patent applies to me. I didn't make SSL, and I'm not providing SSL for download. Go sue the OpenSSL guys, or sue Debian, Red Hat and Canonical for distributing your patented thingy, and hope the EFF doesn't chime in.
The big guys who settled are making and selling products that ship SSL within. Except Exxon Mobil - I have no idea what they could sell me with SSL in it, and appear to have settled just because the inconvenience of a lawsuit wasn't worth it. If he isn't asking for crazy amounts, the big guys may not even twitch and just pay up. As in "hey, I see your patent, it doesn't look like it could hold in court, but... you're asking for peanuts, so here you go, please go away". Because in that case the lawyers would cost a lot more just to throw the case out of court, and this guy's company doesn't have any assets that can be reposessed to cover the costs.
Conclusion: he's not going to sue anyone small, and he'll stop when all the big cows have been milked - unless he meets the wrong kind of cow before then.
Question for religious people: where do unrepentant masochists go when they die?
Read the article, the guy has different companies for each patent. That is one of the signs to recognize a patent troll, create a shell company with no assets and no product so if you loose, you loose nothing and they can't counter sue because you have no product so nothing that can infringe.
Many big companies just consider this the cost of doing business and just pay up, thereby feeding the leech to become ever stronger. But fighting it would gain you nothing except a warm feeling.
mind you, most of the big companies are jealous they didn't think of it first. Apple sued by a patent troll? Awh!
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
All it would take is Google or one other company with adequately deep pockets to actually take this guy to court and that would be the last we'd hear of Mr. Spangenberg or his trollish little company.
From the summary:
And while most of those lawsuits are ongoing, many companies have already settled with TQP rather than take the case to trial, including Apple
A company with deep pockets? $100 billion dollars isn't "adequately" deep enough?
I don't know anything about this patent but if there was a company that thought they'd have the money to shut these guys up, it'd be the elephant in the universe with so much money they have a dividend and share repurchase program.
My work here is dung.
a Proposed penalty is if you get convicted of being a "patent troll" and try to use a submarine patent (or purchase an otherwise inactive patent to use as a submarine patent) ALL patents held by you are rendered VOID and are now Prior Art as applies.
also to violate a patent you should have to hit each and every claim (no partial claims allowed) unless the claims form a complete set but have Common Sense branches (deploying a patent in a Fixed Mobile land Mobile Air Mobile Water manner would be one)
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
there's always some asshole like this
the problem is an intellectual property legal status quo that actually empowers these douchebags
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Now I am in danger if I activate SSL on my website?
No, because the patent has expired.
You are in danger if you enabled SSL[*] on your web site back when the patent was active. Then you can be sued now over it.
[*]: Or used any other of a wide range of symmetric encryptions facilitated by a handshake, web or no web.
Also, to clarify, this seems to not be over SSL itself, but rather over "using a shared seed value to generate pseudo-random key values at a transmitter and a receiver." RTFA on CipherLaw Blog.
Isn't CTR-mode use of a cipher block prior art? This was invented in 1979 by Dife and Hellman and in effect turns a key into a series of pseudo random values which are xored with the plain text.
We, in the rest of the software-patent-free world, can happily ignore this kind of counter-productive nonsense.
When the democrats say, "you didn't build that", maybe they mean this guy?
in the article, since you can look for free at full text
www.uspto.gov
www.patentlens.com
and of course all the loathsome companies that charge you (!) for pdf of a patent, in case you are to stupid to know that they are free
Why should anybody be allowed to sue for a patent six years after it expired? Isn't the whole point of the patent expiring that you can't sue anymore?
Actually, Google has a track record of doing exactly that. They just fought (and lost) a case this last week to a patent troll company. In it, the jury awarded a 3.5% royalty of (bear with me here) the amount of demonstrated revenue increase for the previous year of infringement for U.S. revenues, plus 3.5% going forward until the patent expires. This amounts to an estimated $700-900 million over the next 4 years. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/08/idUS136757+08-Nov-2012+HUG20121108
They could have settled for about half that based on the offers the patent holder made, but they went to the mattresses, and lost big time, even though the evidence was CLEARLY in favor of the patent inventor. (He was CTO at Lycos, who owned the patent before they went tits up and sold it back to the inventor, who formed the company which sued Google.)
So, even when Google KNOWS they're infringing on a valid patent, they still fight it to the end. Why would they start settling cases in which they know they are not infringing a patent?
TQP just got Pwned and wiped off the face of the Internets
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stream_cipher apparently somebody has patented something related to stream ciphers in 1946 , so I assume there is prior art somewhere there..
erich@ipnav.com
The attorney is a Complete Moron. This is patently false.
"I don't understand why just because [SSL is] prevalent, it should be free.'"
Why shouldn't it? By default knowledge is free for all. The only reason creators were given exclusive rights over the knowledge they produced was under the premise that without guaranteeing reward through such a temporary monopoly, further innovation will stifle.
This has nothing to do with prevalence. What we should ask is, has the rights that were given to the innovator facilitated to produce further innovation? And now, do they still?
I personally doubt the plausibility of a scenario in which, for the sake of further innovation, a software should be awarded protection beyond 5 years.
"practically anyone who encrypts pages of a web sites to protect users' privacy"
but conspicuously not the U.S. Govt.
Some see the vessel as half full; others see it as half-empty; We pour it out on the floor and laugh
179 W. Front Street, Suite 244, Tyler, Texas 75702.
I don't see why patent troll lawyers shouldn't be set ablaze for free.
What a jackass.
Double-tap to the forehead, then exfil with the tango wrapped in a carpet. In unmarked ocean, give him a burial at sea.
This guy probably has a legitimate patent on handshaking that has the capacity to switch encryption keys. However, he's generating massive collateral damage in exchange for his personal profit, at the expense of industry.
That in itself is not an efficient solution, and means he's essentially taking from each of us each time he unnecessarily raises costs...
Which brings me back to the SEALs. Hoo-rah!
After all that was granted back in the middle 70's...
This nutjob has not change in hell he will win in our courts even though +500.000 of our users are U.S. based.
Damn, I love the EU. Truly the land of the free*.
*excluding guns, hard drugs,...
Erich Spangenberg embodies everything Apple stands for! Countless lawsuits for pure profit. Will they offer him a job?
The point of absurdity here is that Intel didn't just sue his ass off for patent infringement when he first knocked on their door.
This is a software patent. He likely uses a computer with an Intel chip in it. Thus Intel owns all of his software patents for things that run on Intel processors. Why?
A software patent is invalid because software is math. Specifically, software is a mathematical proof of the functionality of an electro-mechanical system, like an Intel CPU. Intel holds patents on their CPU's. Thus software patents for things that run on Intel CPU's are re-patented manifestations of what an already-patented Intel CPU can already do. Thus, prior art, and Intel owns that prior art.
They should have stayed the course, counter-filed against him, and taken all of his toys and broken them in a court of law. Then he'd be up the proverbial creek, and we wouldn't be hearing this absurdity EVER AGAIN.
Only thing from Shakespeare I remember LOL.
... someone with far greater provenance in this matter, than you, already decided it should be free.
Its funny because I see so many people who want to dump on this guy for doing what he legally is allowed to. So this guy is operating within the limits of the law and yet you shit on him? Give me a break. You guys just want a reason to complain is all. He owns a patent, he feels its threatened, he takes action, thats all he is doing. But you guys act like anything to do with a patent anymore is a person skinning babies alive and forcing them to work in porno movies while smoking crack and eating kittens alive while making racist comments and pissing on anne franks corpse.
This guy isnt bothering you, he isnt effecting your lives. If you didnt read this on here today youd never have even heard of him.
Just because its a patent related topic everyone wants to get onboard against whoever does the suing for no reason at all and be overly judgemental when in reality you arent involved or know any intimate details. Like how anymore when the word patent shows up everyone wants to start using patent troll because its this months buzz word for sounding like youre smart and savvy to a bunch of strangers on the internet.
Especially how people seem to love calling people patent trolls and then demand their execution like some criminal because lets face it, if you owned a patent and someone else was using it without your permission you would sue them also but you all act like you wouldnt. By your logic of what you think of patent trolls if someone robbed your house you would just let the people and not try to stop them or call the police, but if I called the police you would be upset with me. So your all hypocrits.
You're treating those businesses like sentient beings. Stop with that. A business does no more and no less than what the people in charge of the business want done. If you're a money-at-all costs scumbag, sure, that's how your business will operate. It's not a law of any sort that a business has to be run that way. And stop spreading the fiduciary-duty-to-shareholders bullshit, because it's tired and old and not true at all. Shareholders who invest in a business decide for themselves if their investment goals are aligned with those of the business. Nobody forces them to invest in a business that is not all about maximizing shareholder ROI.
A successful API design takes a mixture of software design and pedagogy.
Nice karma then, seeing as Marconi stole Tesla's radio design because his own patented systems didn't work.
He is just suing to make sure the patent he worked so hard on researching and developing isn't stolen so that he can use it to develop a business around it. Oh wait, he just bought it so he could just use it to extort money from deep pockets and those that can't afford to defend themselves.
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
not to stereotype but the clue to him being a douchebag is in his surname.
week after week day after day the same name styles crop up whenever trouble is happening, coincidence ?
It don't need to be bad, just an opportunity to change things. Why not sue not big/small internet companies, but politicians, government and associated consultants, lobbyists and so on? If they can't use encrypted communication, will force the government to be truly transparent. Or abolish that kind of patents (that will be less costly for them, they can break all the international laws for chasing someone that hints that could disclose a small portion of what they really do). In either case, we win.
Land of the free
excluding guns, hard drugs...
and little girls wives.
So basically you are allowed nothing any good.
I'm a little confused by this.
I'm the owner of a (potentially) patient violating Galaxy phone. Could Apple go after me or only Samsung? If only Samsung, why is SSL different? If I enabled SSL on my-little-webpage.invalid then I'm enabling a feature provided by a 3rd party (Apache or Microsoft depending on the box).
Wow, I should not post when knackered.
Subject of the comment explains the reasoning behind this move.
Do any of you have a link to the patent in question? Then maybe we could speculate on it's validity and share some opinions. I would like to see it, personally. There is always the chance that it is a real innovation, and we should look into it. That way we can decide if the pre-webernet patent is relevant in application to the internet. I am not implying that this is not a patent troll, I'm just saying that maybe we should look at each case individually. Still, I quote the linked article: "TQP is just a small part of Spangenberg’s empire of 247 IP-focused companies, most of which were created with the sole purpose of holding patents and filing lawsuits against those unlucky enough to infringe them." If any of the cases gain traction in the legal system, surely a competent judge will throw the case out because of the basis of his business? Right?
OTH, if the litigated firms can just parry the court stuff for six more years then it won't really matter. But seeing how fast things are progressing with tech recently (with the tech sector being integrated with all the sectors, so prevalant!), this is probably an important topic. Especially since I my bank's website and various retailers utilize SSL, this may impact the customer base of many companies.
Also, do we have another security thing that we could use instead of SSL if we need to?
What sort of a name is that???
But the bugger certainly deserves to be stripped naked, coated in honey and pegged out next to an anthill.
Its always fun seeing something putting the bite on a lawyer...
How soon before a "white hat" patent-holding company starts licensing patents under these conditions:
1) implementations (i.e. software implementing the patent) be licensed, not sold (to avoid "doctrine of first sale" and "patent exhaustion" issues)
and
2) that any implementations made be licensed on the conditions that
2a) they are never used for a certain set of blacklisted purposes, such as being used in the preparation of any lawsuit to prosecute a "software patent,"
and
2b) that they are never used by certain of companies or individuals, such as a specific list patent-troll companies, a specific list of their executives, and a specific list of their lawyers.
While I doubt any such "condition" would survive court challenge, it would get a lot of publicity while it was working its way through the courts.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
looks exactly like I expected it to...
I think that if you receive a patent that you should have a statute of limitation as to when you can start filing a lawsuit in addition to when you have to stop filing a lawsuit. Even though patents last for 20 years why is it that people wait to file a lawsuit, even though they know full-well that their patent is being infringed; is it because they need to wait and see if there is money to be made from it? If you have a patent then you should be limited to filing a lawsuit within 2 years of someone infringing upon your patent...otherwise you have no claim since you're most likely just trying to profit off the effort of the infringing party.
``kill all the lawyers'' --picard
``which was done'' ---StarTrek Q
targets have included Apple, Google, Intel, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, every major bank and credit card company
It would be very interesting if these companies filed some sort of class action in retaliation. Partly because it would be a rare occurrence, and partly because of the combined might that those companies could vent upon TQP.
Marconi bought all the patents from Oliver Lodge for radio, aswell as moving coil loudspeakers.
Lodge was after Telsa, but patented stuff.
I'm a little confused by this.
I'm the owner of a (potentially) patient violating Galaxy phone. Could Apple go after me or only Samsung?
They could go after you. They won't, because there's nothing in it for them, but they could.
35 USC Â 271 states:
(a) Except as otherwise provided in this title, whoever without authority makes, uses, offers to sell, or sells any patented invention, within the United States or imports into the United States any patented invention during the term of the patent therefor, infringes the patent.
That said, many patent case settlements with manufacturers will have a clause barring the patent holder from going after the end users.
Nevermind that the patent was actually filed in 1989
Nevermind is an album by Nirvana, not a word.
Yours faithfully,
Captain Pedantic
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
'I don't understand why just because [SSL is] prevalent, it should be free.' With logic like this, how could we ever run into problems. Apparently prevalence is the main benchmark of viable patents. Why didn't I realize this before? Calling a lawyer now to patent water...oh, and my genes.
This is just another in a long series of slashdot articles that have pointed out the broken nature of our patent system. What I have not seen is any serious proposals for fixing the issues beyond "throw it all out". I have to agree that making software (even software running in specific hardwire specifications) something that you cannot patent is superior to the current patenting solution. Something similar could be said about some of the pharmaceutical patenting that is going on as well (make it last "seven days" instead of "one", get to extend my patent).
What if we made patents peer reviewed by a group of high profile experts in the field in which the patent is filed. So notable software professionals would be consulted for software patents. This group would use a high bar on the "obviousness" and "prior art" test so that rewriting prior art into a different language and giving a slightly different spin would not make it past this group. The group would be paid based by on the (likely to be substantial) fees charged to the person filing the patent. This is how research articles are handled for the best scientific journals. If a patent is laughably far from being publish worthy for a reputable scientific journal, why are we letting it control millions (or billions) of dollars of commerce? Currently, we are forcing our higher courts to learn all types of arcana before they are able to kill a patent based on prior art and obviousness. Using a group of true experts (not the underpaid and overworked staff at the patent office) would do a lot to improve the situation. Patent lawyers are not a sufficient substitute.
Don't you need to provide a defined protocole layout or something of the sort? Are you telling me that I can get a patent right now for mind controlled input devices without having developed mind input devices?
If the punchline of your joke has been reduced to an abbreviation, then it's time to get a new joke.
"Technically, it is not a protocol in itself; rather, it is the result of simply layering the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) on top of the SSL/TLS protocol, thus adding the security capabilities of SSL/TLS to standard HTTP communications." - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTPS
Yea, America sucks, it's not like they provide the technology that is the basis of your modern civilization, You should stop using ASCII (which you've extended as ISO-8859), Unicode, C, Unix, TCP/IP, Ethernet, ...
It should have been "I don't understand why just because [SSL] is prevalent, it should be free."
Sic is used when quoting something that may be incorrect, to show that what has been written is in fact what was quote. It doesn't apply when inserting a word to make the context of the quote clear.
The defendant claimed that he had "slupped [sic] on a banana skin". This is an example of how "sic" should be used.
Have gnu, will travel.
The internet is older than the web.
SSL stands for 'secure socket layer' and can be used to channel any protocol.
E.g. my eMail comes via POP 3 via SSL on port 995.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
I'm the owner of a (potentially) patient violating Galaxy phone.
Is it an S III and the (potential) patient goatse?
"I have downloaded hundreds and hundreds of records, why would I care if somebody downloads ours?" Robin Pecknold
2012 - 1989 = 21
Isn't it expired by now?
It should be free precisely because it's prevalent.
Just dig into this guys past. According to the article, he owns an empire of 247 patent troll companies. This tells me he is deliberately trying to hide things from the courts (patterns of lawsuits, etc).
When greed is rewarded by the government. Greed is what you get.
Tesla even gave Marconi his blessing.
' The purpose of patents is to advance science and the useful arts by providing inventors with a motive to publish the details of their inventions, so that other inventors can learn from them, and either license them or explore new possibilities."
-Then by definition there should be no "generic" patents. These patents don't actually explain how things are accomplished, they only state the end result. That does not benefit anyone.
Another great reason for patent/copyright law reform.
Not "suing anyone who uses SSL", "suing anyone who uses SSL and has lots of money."
"[sic]" is used when something being quoted is spelled incorrectly. It's used to denote that fact that the error isn't the fault of the person doing the quoting.
So, if SSL is now a standard, then should it not be subject to FRAND?
I don't quiet grasp the issue, not my discipline.
I don't know what the current legal state is, but patents should be like trademarks: if you don't assert the patent for a number of years, then it should be invalidated, to prevent patent owners from pulling out these surprise patents after allowing the technology to gain market share unimpeded.
God Bless America
Only people living in a country where software patents are legal. This is why I'll be skipping Silicon Valley on my next round of investment hunting.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
West of the Rockies, it's known as Diffie and Best Food ;>)
Just a joke, people, just a joke.
Is he really named 'Eric Spongebob'? Ha ha!
Good. Because what we need are a LOT more lawsuits just like this one so the whole software patent fiasco finally implodes.
Software patents are fundamentally wrong for reasons we all know too well to recite here. But what is going to stop the system? Thew surest way to stop the system is to have it collapse under its own weight. Everyone always suing everyone over everything is the final place software patents will go if left unchecked. We have been saying this for a decade at least now. So why interfere with your enemy while he's busy committing suicide?
No. The patent has expired.
circletimessquare helped his uncle jack off a horse
My personal website does not use SSL (HTTPS) yet but maybe in the future. As for my professional website it has used SSL (HTTPS) since Day One and automatically converts HTTP requests to HTTPS.
"many companies have already settled with TQP rather than take the case to trial, including Apple, Amazon, Dell, and Exxon Mobil."
secede already!
Two of my imaginary friends reproduced once
Yes, I think all sentences are punishment. That's why you get fined or put in prison.. for punishment.
"We refer you to the reply given in the case of Arkell v. Pressdram."