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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.
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
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.
Looks like that lady who tried to sue them lost and went bankrupt over this.
http://www.couriermail.com.au/...
She really tried to become famous and make a buck on this, but she lost everything. Looks to me like the system worked.
lucm, indeed.
Yeah, worked so well. Ask the students that had to pay court cost and have their life through the meatgrinder for a few years. Just think if it were you.
GEMSA is currently trying to get a patent on stupidity to protect itself.
redirect to register and pay to read this shit
They ruined everybody's life. Win-win!
There may be consequences because of that..
Only in Australia...
Browsing at +1 - no ACs, I ignore their posts. So refreshing!
What I want to know is which piece of Australian legislation gives the Australian courts any kind of jurisdiction over content hosted in a foreign country and why the judge in Australia thinks they have any right to make a court order against a site located in the USA.
In this case, South Australian defamation law.
Australia's justice system is almost as adversarial as America's, and the EFF did not turn up to court to defend itself. As such, the argument that any order was unenforceable was never presented to the court. GEMSA probably only had to show that the EFF publishes in Australia by virtue of the fact that their web site is visible in Australia.
This may seem like affrontery on behalf of the court, but the fact is they only considered one side of the argument.
Just in case it isn't clear, I think the EFF did the right thing by fighting this in a US court and not an Australian court. I'm merely pointing out that this sort of ruling is inevitable if one party doesn't defend itself, and it's not necessarily the court's fault.
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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.
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Like that never happens in the UK or the USA?
Nobody (apart from Andrew Bolt's fanboys) thinks the law is bad. The students were legally in the right and legally vindicated. It's just that the law was administered badly, and again, Australia isn't exactly alone here.
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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.
Nice one mate, you forgot to mention how many time the British and Americans have interfered with our legal system and democratic process so you can exploit us. We hate patent trolls here too, but America invented them. Just because they exist here doesn't mean we want them here.
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
And that makes it right ?
Nobody claimed that.
My problem is that Australian discourse on this was really fucked up for a while. People were arguing about everything except the actual problem.
The point of AHRC mediation is precisely so that cases like this avoid going to court and nobody gets too inconvenienced if a case is meritless. problem is that The AHRC dropped the ball, making the process itself the punishment.
Contrary to what lucm said, the system didn't work. But more to the point, the system didn't work as designed.
This sums up my feelings about the whole clusterfuck, except that I think the AHRC's incompetence is the problem, not 18C itself.
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US could follow the same approach of this ruling, and stop issuing fines for businesses that broke US law outside of US.
Here's an article with no paywall:
Judge Denies QUT Admin's Racism Appeal
Yeah, worked so well. Ask the students that had to pay court cost and have their life through the meatgrinder for a few years. Just think if it were you.
Did you read the story? They sued her for those court costs and won.
lucm, indeed.
My favorite part:
Ms Prior had argued she was unable to continue working face-to-face with white people following a series of Facebook posts made after Mr Wood was asked to leave an Indigenous-only computer lab at QUT in 2013.
lucm, indeed.
It sucks, certainly, but this is just one overzealous woman with an agenda. The university and the law didn't support her.
patent on stupidity
Sorry, there's existing prior use. I was just reading the other day a cave explorer found on a wall: "Grog, here, hold beer. Watch th"
If the universe is someone's simulation -- does that mean the stars are just stuck pixels?
Not defending, just explaining.
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...it's not necessarily the court's fault.
Me court. Me stupid. Me don't want to check merits of case. Me just hear one argument only. Me cannot think about validity. Me don't know where is ... U s Of A??
"Trump!!", the new Godwin.
Me court. Me stupid. Me thinks TOR is son of Odan. Me thinks IP numbers don't exist. Me rulez!
"Trump!!", the new Godwin.
Me stupid. You explain much better.
"Trump!!", the new Godwin.
Another example: http://www.dilutedthinking.com...
"Trump!!", the new Godwin.
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
Don't look so smug. U s of A did the same thing with Kim Dotcom.
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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.