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Judge Orders Patent Troll To Explain Its 'Mr. Sham' To Jury
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.'"
Too bad there were not any judges like this overseeing the mortgage sham bubble.
Time Bomber the Book coming soon.
William Alsup deserves a medal for finally pushing those trolls a little. Too long have they been getting away with venue shopping and the abusive use of threats to sue. Time to sit back and watch the fireworks...
Meus subcriptio est nocens Latin quoniam bardus populus reputo is sanus callidus
He was also the trial judge in Oracle v. Google.
I think I like the guy.
... when all it really had was a rented file-cabinet room and the 'director' was actually the building landlord ...
Don't cheap out on the props for your cover story.
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
because Miss Swindle was stuck in meetings.
Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.
For the record, please state your name. "Sam T. Sham". Now, Mr. Sham, can you explain why you signed those documents? Yes, your honor A " Wooly Bully made me do it".
It's cases like this that make me miss Groklaw even more. They'd have someone there in the court to report on all this, and explain the legal shenanigans going on, with links to prior cases of the people involved trying the same thing, and probably how Microsoft is funding them!
Waiting for an amusing sig.
I'm guessing that the reason you think she understands logic is because you've only heard about her, rather than having actually heard her. She is a straight moron who jumps to conclusions based on zero facts and then uses them to form psuedo-logical conclusions based upon pure rationalizations. I have never seen a more ridiculous person who could best be described as a bad caricature of herself in all my life.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
If you were paying the legal bills (easily more than $20k per month and $100-200k for the actual trial), you really want bogus claims or the entire lawsuit dismissed. Even if you win, you probably won't recover your legal fees and nothing for your time. I've been there.
Actually, at the end of the day, the judge will instruct the jury in the relevant law. He'll let the jury know that these people are trolling asshats, but that what they are doing is legal and that they have to follow the law. They will win something. It won't be huge though because the jury will have been turned against the troll. The troll will then appeal based on, "but the judge tainted the jury". And they will win their appeal. Because at the end of the day, just because they are scum, doesn't mean they are doing anything illegal.
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.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity.
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
Actually, it isn't. Filing a patent infringement lawsuit on a patent you don't own is very much not legal, which is why they tried so hard to hide that fact. So no, they likely won't get money. And the lawyer representing NPS will be lucky if he isn't disbarred.
That's one reason for the shell companies that patent trolls use. The company that filed suit probably has no money. A ruling that they have to pay the defendant's costs is worthless. That is unless the judge had them put up a bond for that possibility when the case began.
And yet, it seems even east Texas is getting tired of seeing these same patent trolls in their courts every week.
If the landlord was acting as the employee of the company, then the company should be paying social security payments on his earnings, and his rent includes pay as an employee. It's an approach that worked against Al Capone...
Ghengis Khan is said to have said: it's not enough that we win, they must lose. Seems the only way to deal with patent trolls.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
And the lawyer representing NPS will be lucky if he isn't disbarred.
I like the world you describe and would like to know how to get there. :)
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
I believe it's pretty rare. I'm not a lawyer, I just play one in court. I believe it's just when there's a decent chance you'll be ordered to pay the defendant's costs, and due to using a shell company or some other reason the costs may not be paid as ordered.
Consider this if a bond were required for all suits.
If a bond costs 10% of the face amount, and General Motors can claim they spent $10 million defending a lawsuit related to faulty brakes, that would be an extra $1 million cost before you're allowed to sue if your brakes fail and you're horribly injured. I wouldn't want the victims to have to pay an extra million before they can sue. In every case, the plaintiff is claiming they're a victim of something the plaintiff did, and most often it's true.
Actually, it isn't. Filing a patent infringement lawsuit on a patent you don't own is very much not legal, which is why they tried so hard to hide that fact. So no, they likely won't get money. And the lawyer representing NPS will be lucky if he isn't disbarred.
If you read the judge's order, the ownership issue isn't so cut and dried, which is why he denied Fortinet's motion to dismiss for lack of standing.
Specifically, MPH signed a contract assigning the patent to NPS on day X. NPS filed suit on day Y. NPS signed the contract on day Z. Under Texas contract law, the contract need not be signed by NPS if there's mutual assent of the parties. This is actually a common provision - in many states, contracts only need to be signed by the person the contract is going to be enforced against. So, for example, if MPH wasn't going to enforce the contract against NPS ("take my property or I'll sue you to force you to take my property"?), then it didn't need a signature. Anyways, in Texas, that mutual assent can be shown by conduct of the parties, including NPS filing suit on day Y.
In other words, if the jury looks at the contract and determines that both MPH and NPS believed that, as of day Y, NPS owned the patent, then NPS did own the patent on that day, and there's no lack of standing.
And as long as that argument exists (and frankly, it's not a bad argument, because who can reasonably believe that an internal transfer from a company to a shell company didn't have assent of both companies?), then the lawyer can't possibly be disbarred for it.