I think he meant that what was perjurious was claiming the invention was yours when you know it isn't. In the US, upon submission of a patent application, inventors have to sign an oath or declaration under the pains and penalties of perjury that the invention described and claimed in the patent application is theirs and that the inventors submitting the application are the true and original inventors.
Some of your speech may be protected, but spreading FUD about anything, including legal issues (especially if you are not a lawyer), is just plain wrong.
There's no law - Unless you count 35 USC secs. 102, 103, and 283, as well as the Sherman and Clayton Antitrust Acts.
There's no requirement to check prior art outside the patent system - Unless you count 35 USC secs. 102 and 103 or the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (MPEP) Chapter 900.
A tax "evader" as opposed to an "avoider" is someone who fails to pay taxes that are LEGALLY OWED. Just because someone pays taxes in Maine instead of Mass. does not make them a tax evader.
Textbooks have been wrong in the past. That is (one reason) why publishers release new editions.
It was a JOKE. Just because I have the work "lawyer" in my nick doesn't mean everything I post here is serious legal analysis. If the RI, CT, NH, or VT legislatures had passed that Act, I might have said that Providence, Hartford, Manchester, or Montpelier was a suburb of Boston. The only thing different here is the kernel of truth that Maine actually WAS part of Massachusetts at one point and that kernel, coupled with the fact that Massachusetts actually IS a Commonwealth, provided the set-up for the joke.
For further discussion on the analysis of jokes, please refer to the website and associated writings and other works of a noted expert in the field, J. Martling, Ph.D.
Actually it is. Maine was the northern part of Massachusetts (which is a Commonwealth). Massachusetts doesn't recognize that Maine broke away and considers Portland and Kennebunkport to merely be suburbs of Boston.
Not to flame your flame of my sig, but it works both ways. I went to law school first then entered an MS in CS program. Now I do patent law. I think we agree on the core concept though - technology-related laws should be written by people who actually understand technology.
There was an intent of a donor to make a gift of an item;
The item was delivered to the recipient by the donor or donor's agent; and
The item was accepted by the recipient; therefore
There is a completed gift and the item is the property of the recipient, free and clear.
Additionally, many states have statutes that provide that if a person receives an item that they did not order or request, that person cannot be required to pay for or even return the item. This is to prevent mail order scams.
I am not going to call you naive. I will say that you have a misapprehension of what constitutes "defense" of a case.
Defense is about making the other side prove its case as it is required to do under the law. If you have a strong defense, you suggest to your client that you make it. If you have a weak defense, you suggest settlement. it is the decision of the client. It is not the place of a lawyer to determine whether someone is right or wrong. That is for the judge and/or jury. It is the lawyer's place to suggest potential defenses warranted by actual (not fabricated) facts and to advise as to risks in each course of action.
Again, everyone has the absolute right to a defense. Without that right, the justice system (which is based on requirements of proof and independent judgment) falls apart.
Are you an intellectual property lawyer or even any sort of lawyer? No matter what your answer, you should know that Ms. Lindor has the absolute right to mount a vigorous defense against any claims and that "ethically" Ms. Lindor's attorneys have an obligation to vigorously defend her. That includes making the plaintiffs prove their case and testing any and all evidence presented by the plaintiffs to show weaknesses and deficiencies.
When dealing with "expert" witnesses, who get to provide professional opinions as opposed to other witnesses who are usually limited to testifying about facts personally known to that witness, it is crucial to test the factual bases of any theory and to ensure that any opinion proffered by the expert is based upon sound principles. Ms. Lindor's attorneys asked for questions to help them do that - not for your opinion as to right vs. wrong in the IP world and your opinions as to how they should run Ms. Lindor's defense.
BTW - Ms. Lindor is being accused of CIVIL copyright infringement which means that she would be LIABLE for a monetary judgment. She would only potentially be "guilty" in a case of criminal copyright infringement which is a case that only a US Attorney can bring - not a private party like the RIAA or in this case, UMG.
For the record, I am an IP attorney and am NOT one of MS. Lindor's attorneys.
If the IT department can't easily ensure compliance with an acceptable use policy then either the IT department is incompetent or the policy is deficient.
Ok - you're wrong. Clearly wrong. But I don't think you should be modded as a troll.
The proper course of action would be to call 911 and get a supervisor from the UCLA PD or someone from regular LA PD down there to intervene. If the students tried to interfere, they would have been arrested for battery on a police officer, interfering with a police officer, and/or obstructing justice.
I am not aware of any law that would require a police officer to provide identification while actively engaged in an arrest situation. You can argue all day long that the arrest was unlawful. The only thing that matters is that an arrest was being made. No court is going to require a police officer to stop his arrest to provide ID to a bystander.
Remember: The place to make arguments is in the courts.
It does not invalidate the patent. It makes the patent unenforceable. The difference is that if the patent is invalid, it is dead forever. if the patent is unenforceable, you can potentially fix the problem that made it unenforceable and obtain a good patent.
Inventorship is easy to fix but has potentially serious consequences. In the US, inventors are deemed to be owners of the patent unless or until those rights are assigned, usually to a company. An owner of a patent can profit from the patent without having to account to the other owners. In this case, for example, if this person succeeds in getting named as an inventor, and assuming that he is under no obligation through an employment or other contract to assign his rights to NTP, he can then potentially license the patents to Palm (who NTP is now suing), keep all the licensing proceeds, and effectively eliminate NTP's ability to collect anything from Palm.
That is not the way exhaustion doctrine works. The event that exhausts the rights must occur (or be deemed to occur) within the geographic area within which the rights to be exhausted exist. That means of you buy a patented product in area 1, you cannot import that product into area 2 if area 2 has granted a patent because importing is an act of patent infringement. You have not exhausted the patent rights granted by area 2 by buying the product in area 1.
Cuyahoga County is where Cleveland is located. The county is using Diebold machines and Cleveland was seen as the area that gave Bush the votes needed to win in the 2004 presidential election. Draw your own conclusions.
Obviously, if you think there is any sliver of truth buried in my username, I've been to law school. That said, I am completely shocked that this survey disclosed such a high level of cheating. Why? It certainly isn't because I think that those who go to law school are less prone to cheating but simply because at least in my law chool, there were so few opportunities to cheat.
I preface this post with a disclaimer that much of what I am about to describe applies to law schools in the US and probably in other "common law" jurisdictions such as the UK and Australia. It does not apply in "civil law" jurisdictions like France.
Law schools are generally accredited by the American Bar Association (ABA) and are commonly ranked into 3 tiers. There is an fourth tier of unaccredited schools. If you attend and graduate from an ABA accredited school, you can sit for the bar exam in any state. If you go to an unaccredited school, you can usually only sit for the bar exam in the state in which the school is located (provided also that the school is "state-approved").
Top-tier law schools (also called the "top 20" although it is commonly stated that there are 25 schools who can claim a place in the top 20 - go figure) generally teach using the Socratic Method. Students don't listen to lectures by professors. Rather, the professors lead class discussions by asking questions about court decisions and then change the facts of each case when constructing hypothetical questions to see if the students reason their way to the same conclusion as in the case decision or whether a different decision is warranted. This is an unnerving way to learn (especially with those professors who strictly adhere to the method and refuse to reply to any question except with a question of their own) but in my humble opinion and experience, it is the single best way to develop and hone critical thinking skills.
In law school the cases you read are specific (and real) controversies between parties. You are supposed to read the cases (and trust me - if you don'tand you are called on in class - at random most times - it will be painfully obvious if you did not read and analyze the cases) and then try to draw out general principles of law from the cases. This is the exact opposite of most undergraduate programs in the US where students are expected to learn the general principles and then apply those principles to specific situations.
Against this background then, students still need to receive grades. Most law school courses give one final examination - all essay questions with either 3 or 4 hours to complete. The grading is based partly upon your knowledge of the law but mostly on the quality of your legal analysis. These are tests where there are really no opportunities to cheat save copying your classmate's answer verbatim - very hard to do with the professor right in front of you. From the professor's perspective, these types of tests are exceedingly difficult to grade because not only do the professors have to read each and every essay, they also have to fit the grading into a mandatory normal grading distribution (a/k/a "grading curve" - in place for most law schools).
Some tests are multiple choice and still require your ability to engage in legal reasoning but like any other multiple choice test, all you have to do is copy a mark on a sheet. However in 3 years of law school, I only had 1 test that had any multiple choice component and that test also included a significant essay.
For some classes, such as seminars, there is no exam but there is a significant writing assignment upon which your grade is entirely based. This assignment is usually expected to be a publication-;quality paper on a legal topic related to the topic of the seminar. As with any other writing assignment done without in-person supervision, there are numerous opportunities to plagarize. However, seminars tend to be smaller in class size and the professor (if any good at all) frequently engages the students in dialog. I th
No reputable lawyer will tell you how to evade the law. What don't you understand about that? A competent, ethical, and reputable lawyer will never present a defense that does not have an adequate factual basis.
Let's assume your WiFi connection is open. So what? You will have to disclose the truthful facts to your lawyer in order for him or her to competently defend you. Nothin will screw up a good case like a client who thinks he is being clever by "embellishing" facts in ways that the client thinks will help their position. At best, such embellishment damages the client's credibility and makes him look like a liar. At worst, it is perjury, a crime punishable by imprisonment in most places.
Bottom line: If you downloaded the files, having an open WiFi connection will not be the basis of a defense. The RIAA WILL ask for your hard drive (and all your connection logs, and those of your ISP) in discovery and WILL get those materials.
That said, as an intellectual property litigator, if I was defending a client who insisted that he did not download files and that it was someone else on his open router, I would absolutely present that defense if the facts supported it (i.e., no copied files on hard drive, client has only 2 computers but there are 4 IP addresses/simultaneous connections assigned by his DHCP server, etc.). If a client insisted that I present an "open WiFi" defense without any factual support under the mistaken assumption that simply having an open access point provides a defense I would first educate the client as to the way the law actually works and second, if the client persisted, withdraw as counsel for that client.
I had the privilege of using this through the beta versions and have to say that the desktop provides a great interface that even rivals OS X. It has elements that are similar to both XP (access to programs through a Start button-type feature) and OS X (a portion of the function of Expose is recreated). IMHO, this desktop fits in well with what corporate users are used to. Also, the Novell distribution of OpenOffice is very stable and handled every doc created with MS office apps that I threw at it. Installation and configuration were a little more complex than Mac OS X but aproximately on par with a clean Windows install. I strongly recommend taking the time to check it out.
Slashdot Mirror
Some of your speech may be protected, but spreading FUD about anything, including legal issues (especially if you are not a lawyer), is just plain wrong.
This is just wrong on SO many levels it is frightening. Stop with the FUD.
There's no requirement to check prior art outside the patent system - Unless you count 35 USC secs. 102 and 103 or the Manual of Patent Examining Procedure (MPEP) Chapter 900.
Quit spreading FUD.
For further discussion on the analysis of jokes, please refer to the website and associated writings and other works of a noted expert in the field, J. Martling, Ph.D.
I may not always be in the Hub, but I'll always be a Bostonian.
Actually it is. Maine was the northern part of Massachusetts (which is a Commonwealth). Massachusetts doesn't recognize that Maine broke away and considers Portland and Kennebunkport to merely be suburbs of Boston.
Not to flame your flame of my sig, but it works both ways. I went to law school first then entered an MS in CS program. Now I do patent law. I think we agree on the core concept though - technology-related laws should be written by people who actually understand technology.
Q: What is the fastest way to crack a DRM scheme?
A: Label it as uncrackable.
Thank you, thank you. I'll be here all week. The 9:00 show is completely different from the 7:00 show. Be sure to tip your bartenders and waitresses.
Thanks for getting that out of the way
Additionally, many states have statutes that provide that if a person receives an item that they did not order or request, that person cannot be required to pay for or even return the item. This is to prevent mail order scams.
Defense is about making the other side prove its case as it is required to do under the law. If you have a strong defense, you suggest to your client that you make it. If you have a weak defense, you suggest settlement. it is the decision of the client. It is not the place of a lawyer to determine whether someone is right or wrong. That is for the judge and/or jury. It is the lawyer's place to suggest potential defenses warranted by actual (not fabricated) facts and to advise as to risks in each course of action.
Again, everyone has the absolute right to a defense. Without that right, the justice system (which is based on requirements of proof and independent judgment) falls apart.
When dealing with "expert" witnesses, who get to provide professional opinions as opposed to other witnesses who are usually limited to testifying about facts personally known to that witness, it is crucial to test the factual bases of any theory and to ensure that any opinion proffered by the expert is based upon sound principles. Ms. Lindor's attorneys asked for questions to help them do that - not for your opinion as to right vs. wrong in the IP world and your opinions as to how they should run Ms. Lindor's defense.
BTW - Ms. Lindor is being accused of CIVIL copyright infringement which means that she would be LIABLE for a monetary judgment. She would only potentially be "guilty" in a case of criminal copyright infringement which is a case that only a US Attorney can bring - not a private party like the RIAA or in this case, UMG.
For the record, I am an IP attorney and am NOT one of MS. Lindor's attorneys.
Or both.
The proper course of action would be to call 911 and get a supervisor from the UCLA PD or someone from regular LA PD down there to intervene. If the students tried to interfere, they would have been arrested for battery on a police officer, interfering with a police officer, and/or obstructing justice.
I am not aware of any law that would require a police officer to provide identification while actively engaged in an arrest situation. You can argue all day long that the arrest was unlawful. The only thing that matters is that an arrest was being made. No court is going to require a police officer to stop his arrest to provide ID to a bystander.
Remember: The place to make arguments is in the courts.
Inventorship is easy to fix but has potentially serious consequences. In the US, inventors are deemed to be owners of the patent unless or until those rights are assigned, usually to a company. An owner of a patent can profit from the patent without having to account to the other owners. In this case, for example, if this person succeeds in getting named as an inventor, and assuming that he is under no obligation through an employment or other contract to assign his rights to NTP, he can then potentially license the patents to Palm (who NTP is now suing), keep all the licensing proceeds, and effectively eliminate NTP's ability to collect anything from Palm.
That is not the way exhaustion doctrine works. The event that exhausts the rights must occur (or be deemed to occur) within the geographic area within which the rights to be exhausted exist. That means of you buy a patented product in area 1, you cannot import that product into area 2 if area 2 has granted a patent because importing is an act of patent infringement. You have not exhausted the patent rights granted by area 2 by buying the product in area 1.
Cuyahoga County is where Cleveland is located. The county is using Diebold machines and Cleveland was seen as the area that gave Bush the votes needed to win in the 2004 presidential election. Draw your own conclusions.
I preface this post with a disclaimer that much of what I am about to describe applies to law schools in the US and probably in other "common law" jurisdictions such as the UK and Australia. It does not apply in "civil law" jurisdictions like France.
Law schools are generally accredited by the American Bar Association (ABA) and are commonly ranked into 3 tiers. There is an fourth tier of unaccredited schools. If you attend and graduate from an ABA accredited school, you can sit for the bar exam in any state. If you go to an unaccredited school, you can usually only sit for the bar exam in the state in which the school is located (provided also that the school is "state-approved").
Top-tier law schools (also called the "top 20" although it is commonly stated that there are 25 schools who can claim a place in the top 20 - go figure) generally teach using the Socratic Method. Students don't listen to lectures by professors. Rather, the professors lead class discussions by asking questions about court decisions and then change the facts of each case when constructing hypothetical questions to see if the students reason their way to the same conclusion as in the case decision or whether a different decision is warranted. This is an unnerving way to learn (especially with those professors who strictly adhere to the method and refuse to reply to any question except with a question of their own) but in my humble opinion and experience, it is the single best way to develop and hone critical thinking skills.
In law school the cases you read are specific (and real) controversies between parties. You are supposed to read the cases (and trust me - if you don'tand you are called on in class - at random most times - it will be painfully obvious if you did not read and analyze the cases) and then try to draw out general principles of law from the cases. This is the exact opposite of most undergraduate programs in the US where students are expected to learn the general principles and then apply those principles to specific situations.
Against this background then, students still need to receive grades. Most law school courses give one final examination - all essay questions with either 3 or 4 hours to complete. The grading is based partly upon your knowledge of the law but mostly on the quality of your legal analysis. These are tests where there are really no opportunities to cheat save copying your classmate's answer verbatim - very hard to do with the professor right in front of you. From the professor's perspective, these types of tests are exceedingly difficult to grade because not only do the professors have to read each and every essay, they also have to fit the grading into a mandatory normal grading distribution (a/k/a "grading curve" - in place for most law schools).
Some tests are multiple choice and still require your ability to engage in legal reasoning but like any other multiple choice test, all you have to do is copy a mark on a sheet. However in 3 years of law school, I only had 1 test that had any multiple choice component and that test also included a significant essay.
For some classes, such as seminars, there is no exam but there is a significant writing assignment upon which your grade is entirely based. This assignment is usually expected to be a publication-;quality paper on a legal topic related to the topic of the seminar. As with any other writing assignment done without in-person supervision, there are numerous opportunities to plagarize. However, seminars tend to be smaller in class size and the professor (if any good at all) frequently engages the students in dialog. I th
I salute you sir for braving the /. flames and taking time to try to educate the /. community as to some aspects of the law.
Let's assume your WiFi connection is open. So what? You will have to disclose the truthful facts to your lawyer in order for him or her to competently defend you. Nothin will screw up a good case like a client who thinks he is being clever by "embellishing" facts in ways that the client thinks will help their position. At best, such embellishment damages the client's credibility and makes him look like a liar. At worst, it is perjury, a crime punishable by imprisonment in most places.
Bottom line: If you downloaded the files, having an open WiFi connection will not be the basis of a defense. The RIAA WILL ask for your hard drive (and all your connection logs, and those of your ISP) in discovery and WILL get those materials.
That said, as an intellectual property litigator, if I was defending a client who insisted that he did not download files and that it was someone else on his open router, I would absolutely present that defense if the facts supported it (i.e., no copied files on hard drive, client has only 2 computers but there are 4 IP addresses/simultaneous connections assigned by his DHCP server, etc.). If a client insisted that I present an "open WiFi" defense without any factual support under the mistaken assumption that simply having an open access point provides a defense I would first educate the client as to the way the law actually works and second, if the client persisted, withdraw as counsel for that client.
"... it's the end of MAC spoofing on wireless networks ..."
If implemented, of COURSE it is the end of MAC spoofing. But it is only the BEGINNING of WiFi fingerprint spoofing ...
I had the privilege of using this through the beta versions and have to say that the desktop provides a great interface that even rivals OS X. It has elements that are similar to both XP (access to programs through a Start button-type feature) and OS X (a portion of the function of Expose is recreated). IMHO, this desktop fits in well with what corporate users are used to. Also, the Novell distribution of OpenOffice is very stable and handled every doc created with MS office apps that I threw at it. Installation and configuration were a little more complex than Mac OS X but aproximately on par with a clean Windows install. I strongly recommend taking the time to check it out.
They are creating job security for the poster of this question.
The more things change, the more things stay the same. Plagarism is the sincerest form of flattery. Insert your own snide copy-related wisecrack here.
We only have 96 years to save ourselves!