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EFF Beats 'Stupid' Patent Troll In Court (courthousenews.com)
An Australian court can't make a California advocacy group take down a web page, a U.S. federal judge just ruled on Friday. Even if that web page calls a company's patents "stupid." Courthouse News reports:
San Francisco-based Electronic Frontier Foundation sued Global Equity Management, or GEMSA, in April, claiming the Australian firm exploited its home country's weaker free speech protections to secure an unconstitutional injunction against EFF. Kurt Opsahl, EFF's deputy executive director and general counsel, hailed the ruling as a victory for free speech. "We knew all along the speech was protected by the First Amendment," Opsahl said in a phone interview Friday. "We were pleased to see the court agree." Opsahl said the ruling sends a strong message EFF and other speakers can weigh in on important topics, like patent reform, without fear of being muzzled by foreign court orders.
The dispute stems from an article EFF published in June 2016, featuring GEMSA in its "Stupid Patent of the Month" series. The GEMSA patent is for a "virtual cabinet" to store data. In the article, EFF staff attorney Daniel Nazer called GEMSA a "classic patent troll" that uses its patent on graphic representations of data storage to sue "just about anyone who runs a website." The article also says GEMSA "appears to have no business other than patent litigation."
The judge granted EFF a default judgment, saying the Australian court's injunction was not only unenforceable in the United States but also "repugnant" to the U. S. Constitution.
The dispute stems from an article EFF published in June 2016, featuring GEMSA in its "Stupid Patent of the Month" series. The GEMSA patent is for a "virtual cabinet" to store data. In the article, EFF staff attorney Daniel Nazer called GEMSA a "classic patent troll" that uses its patent on graphic representations of data storage to sue "just about anyone who runs a website." The article also says GEMSA "appears to have no business other than patent litigation."
The judge granted EFF a default judgment, saying the Australian court's injunction was not only unenforceable in the United States but also "repugnant" to the U. S. Constitution.
if the outcome would have been the same had the firm in question been American rather than Australian. I have the impression that US courts are much more likely to condemn such overreaches when they are foreign than when they are domestic.
'The Economy' is a giant Ponzi scheme whose most pitiable suckers are the youngest among us and the yet-unborn.
The ones that claimed for the patent, or the patent itself.
That'll fix it.
If the EFF does not take the page down, they will still be in contempt of the Australian court. There may be consequences because of that..
These guys deserve a gift. a lotta gifts!
https://supporters.eff.org/donate
https://www.eff.org/helpout
Damn right there will be consequences.
DAVE JONES FOR PRIME MINISTER.
Before we had one stupid patent. Now we have one stupid patent and one stupid Australian court.
Freedom of speech in Australia is in a pathetic state.
In 2013 some student of QUT (a Queensland university) went in a computer lab. The supervisor asked if they where aborigines.
They say they weren't and they were kicked out. Note that the lab was not signposted as aborigines only.
As a citizen, I didn't even know that such thing existed or, indeed, could exist.
Anyway, the students, thinking they were living in a democratic country, and not in North Korea, wrote sarcastic messages on FB,
like "Just got kicked out of the unsigned Indigenous computer room. QUT stopping segregation with segregation?"
Another "I wonder where the white supremacist computer lab is. "
Other, more offensive posts were never proven to be from the person who appeared to own the account.
The supervisor took offense, and, after, the university process went nowhere, she went to the Australian
Human Right Commission. Some people were bullied in paying $5K in compensation.
Other resisted and went to court :
http://theconversation.com/qut-discrimination-case-exposes-human-rights-commission-failings-68235
The judge laughed off the case but the students that resisted ended up paying more than $5K in
court costs.
I'm writing this as this shameful episode must be known worldwide.
There needs to be much more of that. Lawsuits like this shouldnâ(TM)t be brought and the way to discourage them is to take away the milk.
Corporatism != Free Market
Are you gonna cry?
That a company in one nation can even utilize the laws of another country against a company residing within it is just wrong. This is everything wrong with globalism. It's bad enough having multiple states where someone across the country can have a say in anything impacting your life, but across national boundaries is just beyond corrupt.
Australian law is so shamefully embarrassing due to them being the most disconnected out of all the English speaking countries. There are many third world countries with far greater Internet capabilities. Many new users from there exhibit fascist obsessions with foreign powers. If a dictatorship forms there I don't know if anyone will be able to stomach going to war with a fellow English speaking country.
That is why I am trying my best to put together care packages of content to acclimate new Australians to the web. If anyone would like to contribute to project flood them with lulz then I recommend using simple high compression images with a clear message. Example: https://tinyurl.com/ybl4xg8b
Never heard of it, mate. But steak sounds good.
What, you mean the Monkee or Bowie? They're both dead, mate.
Besides, they'd have to give up their citizenship. We take Section 44(i) seriously these days.
sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f(q{sub f{($f)=@_;print"$f(q{$f});";}f});
Slogan: "Government. Don't turn it on, take it apart!"
From GEMSA's cease and desist letter "... to write you in relation to the defamatory, false and malicious slander which you and Electronic Frontier Foundation made concerning our client..."
There really can only be one response:
"I resent that! Slander is spoken. In print, it's libel."
(In passing, I find it curious that they say "to write you" rather than "to write to you". Previously I've only seen the former construction from Americans, but this is an Australian law firm.)
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.
Google got a US judgement that they need not obey a Canadian Supreme Court order (a temporary restraining order), but it wasn't about free speech, just commecial speech, by which they meant advertisements for stolen hardware designs.
They would have been far happier if the Canadian case was the <expletive deleted> pile of crap the Australian one was.
davecb@spamcop.net
US could follow the same approach of this ruling, and stop issuing fines for businesses that broke US law outside of US.
Virtual disk/containers/whatever have been around for a long time; almost certainly before this damned company even existed. (It's hard to describe the intensity of the hate I have for companies like this.)
We used to manage/store datasets in virtual disks (mounting them in a way akin to using Linux's loopback device) on RSX-11 fer gawd's sake.
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
This is a funny outcome, as the US courts think they have any jurisdiction over other countries by doing exactly the same as the Australian court. So with this outcome, it also nullifies any US court decision on any other countries judgement.