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Judge Orders Patent Troll To Explain Its 'Mr. Sham' To Jury

Posted by samzenpus on from the that-name-again-is-mr.-sham dept.

netbuzz writes "Judge William Alsup of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California has no problem calling Network Protection Sciences (NPS) a patent troll. What he does have a problem with is NPS telling a Texas court that NPS had an 'ongoing business concern' in that state run by a 'director of business development' when all it really had was a rented file-cabinet room and the 'director' was actually the building landlord who merely signed legal papers when NPS told him to do so. Judge Alsup calls the alleged business a 'sham' and the non-employee 'Mr. Sham,' yet he declined to dismiss the patent infringement lawsuit filed by NPS against Fortinet from which this information emerged. Instead, he told NPS, 'this jury is going to hear all of this stuff about the closet. And you're going to have to explain why "Mr. Sham" was signing these documents.'"

6 of 117 comments (clear)

  1. We've heard from Judge Alsup before by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    He was also the trial judge in Oracle v. Google.

    I think I like the guy.

    1. Re:We've heard from Judge Alsup before by sconeu · · Score: 5, Informative

      He's the guy who pointed out the he could write rangeCheck, and that he'd have written it identically.

      --
      General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
  2. District of Eastern Texas by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    Not sure if this is widely know, but the Eastern District of Texas is horribly corrupt. All the patent trolls have an "office" there so they can sue everyone in that district. Why? Because the court system is infamously plaintiff friendly. Just about any bullshit argument you can make will fly. Doesn't matter if pretty much all cases get overturned on appeal, the plaintiffs get what they wanted: costing the defendants lots of money, forcing most all to settle. And the district gets what they wanted: lots of lawyers and experts flying in to the small towns pumping up the local economy. Those laws congress is mulling over can't get passed fast enough.

  3. Re:Is this Judge Judy? by retchdog · · Score: 5, Informative

    She's not a "Judge," or at least not any more. She's an arbiter/celebrity. The "trials" on that show aren't real trials, they're arbitration with a contractual agreement not to pursue further arbitration elsewhere.

    And, yes, she can be extremely biased and unprofessional. It's easy to do when you stack the "docket" with the worst human scum you can find.

    --
    "They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
  4. Re:Too bad by MaskedSlacker · · Score: 3, Informative

    The wiki suggests you need to learn the difference between Hollywood and history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Bean

  5. Re:Wish I could buy that judge a beer by kenshin33 · · Score: 4, Informative

    yes, where de I signe ?