I believe the only unavoidable cost of getting a patent is the filing fee (and the issuing fee, if it's accepted), but that only amounts to a few hundred dollars. There are maintenance fees every few years, and while these are a bit more expensive, it's not an insurmountable expense. All the prior work research and everything can be done by an individual, assuming they're determined and resourceful, although depending on the nature of the patent that could get real tricky.
This is true, and I like to see people doing things on their own as much as possible. But the unfortunate truth in this case is that writing a good patent is actually quite hard, and I'd hate to see the OP put a great deal of work into an invention, another great deal of work into writing the patent, and a bit more money into filing fees only to have nothing to show for it but an easily circumventable patent and $0.00 in royalty payments because of it. If you really think your invention might be valuable, hire a patent lawyer. It will be worth it. Yes, they're expensive, but they're highly paid (in part) because they're highly skilled and their job is actually very difficult.
No need to wonder: men don't want to grow up, we want to be immature some times
Well, right. I meant to be asking a rhetorical question. As a man I agree that it's a lot of fun to be an immature asshole. But I don't think it's reasonable to ask women to change to accomodate our desire to behave like imbeciles.
Did you seriously just equate women in the workplace to slaves?
No, in fact I didn't. What I said was that the GP's argument would have worked just as well as a defense of slavery. Of course I agree that slavery is much worse than the situation of women today. There's no comparison.
As for the evidence of discrimination, I'll leave you to look at some of the other posts for that but, there are quite a few. But you're exactly right that there isn't much we can accomplish by trading anecdotes, so all I'll say is this: it's important to remember that it doesn't take repeated, egregious cases of sexism to make a community hostile to women. A vocal fringe is all it takes.
Of course I agree that most men in these communities are not sexist (at least not noticeably so). The problem, as I see it, is that there is a vocal, immature minority of FOSS men who are always making sexist jokes, talking about porn, and asking women out on dates on message boards when they try to make serious contributions. This is a problem, and its a shame so many here on/. want to respond by asking women to grow a backbone instead of asking that men not beheve like middle schoolers.
Well, here is something we can agree on: a minority of men are responsible for most of the genuinely offensive conduct of men, and there is a minority of women who demand more deference to their sensibilities than they are owed. We can probably both agree that those groups people need to alter their behavior/expectations. Fair?
The tricky part is dealing with the situations in the middle where both the men and women are behaving like reasonable men and reasonable women. But, nonetheless, the women are offended by the men.
We have a choice here: we can tell the men to behave themselves, or we can tell the women to suck it up. I'm honestly floored by the fact that there is any question of which way to go in this case.
You seem to think that the question is resolved by pointing out that nobody is forcing the women to participate. And there's something to this. And if we were talking about something like a private club then I think you would absolutely be right. But there are real external social reasons for a woman to get involved with a FOSS project (like employment obligations, wanting to hone her skills, giving back to a project); it's not just that women want to get involved. So the question as I see it is this: is it fair to make women choose between being offended and furthering their career/improving their skills/ etc. when the ONLY cost of avoiding the dilemma is to ask men to behave like gentlemen.
I'm not sure if I agree with your formulation or not, but you're right that I could use to phrase my view more clearly, so here's a stab:
I take it as a premise that there is a pattern of offensive conduct towards women in the FOSS community (or the workplace, etc.).
But this is unacceptable for at least two reasons (and I think they're the ones you've picked out). An economic reason: it's good for everyone economically if women are able to participate more fully. And a moral reason: it's wrong to force women to choose between being routinely offended and working (this point has more force if we're talking about a conventional workplace than if we're talking about the FOSS community).
This being the case, something has to give. Either men need to stop behaving offensively, or women need to stop being so easily offended.
I'm finding that the latter is a popular suggestion here on/. and I wonder why that is. It seems to me that it's more reasonable to ask the people being immature to cut it out than to ask women to suck it up. (Again, for a few reasons: assignment of responsibility to track moral fault and assignment responsibility to the cheapest cost avoider come to mind)
I also think a lot of people are taken in by a false dichotomy here. Women can (and should) do both; they can do their best to function in our society as it is while challenging its inequities.
She still enjoys it greatly, and banters with the guys because she just doesn't view herself as a victim of anything.
Well that's great, and I'm happy for her. But you might want to think about all the other women who you are asking to bend their views of what it means to be respected in the workplace to conform with the frat boy behavior of what you call the "boys club." Maybe instead of focusing the debete on how women can learn to live with men's misbehavior, our efforts would be better spent telling the men responsible for this to not be such infants.
There are certainly parts of this that I agree with. It's true that men are discouraged (at least in some ways) from becoming programmers. And, certainly, more self confidence helps one succeed.
But when you say that sex discrimination (and other social factors) are not to blame and pin the responsibility solely on women's emotional frailty is where we part ways pretty drastically. This is a very widespread attitude that is itself a hinderence to greater equality between men and women in our society.
Plenty of other commenters here have dug up instances of offensive conduct in the FOSS community and I don't think I need to repeat what they've said. And the response generally seems to have been much like yours: "it's just at the fringes." Maybe that's so, but imagine you're a women who is actually trying to be taken seriously by the community. Even if this is only fringe conduct, it's fringe conduct that women are systematically exposed to and that reinforces messages that they have likely been resisting their whole lives: that women aren't meant to be professionals, that women exist to please men, that women aren't to be taken seriously.
Can a strong woman resist these messages? Of course. Would it be a good thing if every woman were this strong? Certainly. But the fact remains that this is a hurdle that does not exist for men. If we want women to be able to contribute equally, we should all be fighting these attitudes and not making apologies for them.
Well, I think it should be obvious that I agree that there is a vast difference in degree between the oppression of women and the oppression of slaves. But the GP's logic is equally applicable to both. That was the point.
You seem pretty pleased with your 0.1% number, but have you thought about what that really means? Consider a normal workplace environment. If you were a woman and, in your office, one out of every 1000 interactions with a coworker included references to porn or some of the other examples commenters have dug up, I think you would have a decent Title VII lawsuit.
It doesn't take frequent, repetitive sexist comments to create an environment of sexism. Particularly when you couple this with the perpetual frat party that is today's internet culture.
I think this almost entirely misses the point. Feminists say that the structure of society and individuals' prejudices make it more difficult for women to succeed in (e.g.) the workplace than men. Your response to that seems to be "Get used to it. You'll get a lot farther by growing a backbone than by bitching." This is only true in the short term, if its true at all. Tomorrow's women will be better off if we, today, address the prejudices than if today's women merely "grow a backbone.
It's also pretty shocking that you think it's mere "bitching" for women to point out and attempt to address the systematic disadvantages that they face in the workplace. Does this mean that women should only "bitch" and not try to work despite their disadvantages? Of course not. But we as a society would never get anywhere if oppressed/disadvantaged groups were expected to just deal with it without protesting the inequality. Would you have said the same thing, "Quit bitching and grow a backbone" to slaves? Where would our society be today if we all thought like you?
This is all to say nothing of your implicit premise that both men and women catch equal amounts of flak for taking up programming, which is, I think, obviously false.
I agree with most everything you say, except this:
There is nothing wrong, but you have to pay damages... Uh ? Kinda weird logic you have there.
I should start by saying that this isn't just my reasoning, but that of most scholars in the field of contract law (hence the Holmes quote). And I want to also emphasize that I mean, in some sense, "morally wrong" when I say "wrong." But I agree that it's a surprising line of thought at first blush. Here's one way to think about it that I've found helpful: Contract law exists primarily to promote economic efficiency*. It is very helpful economically if actors can shift risks to one another and act certain in the knowledge that the contract will be fulfilled as promised. When a promisor breaches a contract, we make them pay to put the promisee in as good a situation as they would've been had the promisor held up their end of the bargain and no more. So, the damages aren't assessed to punish the breaching party (there are no punitive damages in contract law) but just to fulfill the expectations of the person counting on the promise.
From a purely theoretical perspective, its also worth thinking a bit about what "illegal" does really mean outside of the realm of criminal law. For example, if I negligently allow you to be hit by a rock shot out from my lawnmower, I haven't broken any laws. But, under the common law of torts, I still am liable for the damages. This is often the structure of the law outside of criminal law: the bare ascription of liability for actions, not the outright prohibition of them (as in crim. law). Contracts are this was as well. So is my negligence illegal in the usual sense of the word? I'm not sure. Again, I'm not arguing with you, I'm just sharing some thoughts about the word "illegal" that this conversation has brought to mind. And, of course, this has really nothing to do with the law, only our definition of "illegal."
* This is a controversial statement, but it's certainly true enough to work for our purposes.
If you read my post again I believe you'll see that I intended to do no such thing. Rather, your use of the word "illegal" seemed to me to be calculated to impute some sort of unsavoriness about Palm's conduct. I was just pointing out that, at least in the eyes of contract law, there is nothing at all wrong with breaching a contract.
Right, but if you know this much you must also know that, generally, equitable remedies are generally only given if there is no way to reliably measure the monetary damages (with a few narrow exceptions).
In short, equitable considerations only come into play when there is no adequate remedy at law, and these situations are quite uncommon.
Contract law is law, and breaking a contract is unlawful, ie illegal.
We can get into a debate over the proper definition of "illegal", but the way you seem to be using it implies that, in the eyes of the law, breaking a contract is somehow discouraged as a matter of public policy. It isn't. Yes, the party you've contracted with can sue you if you breach, but the law actually goes to some lengths to permit breaches of contract to the extent that they promote economic efficiency.
From Judge Oliver Wendell Holmes:
Nowhere is the confusion between moral and legal ideas more manifest than in the law of contract...The duty to keep a contract at common law means a prediction that you must pay damages if you do not keep it - and nothing else.
If it is important to prevent the jury hearing about the trial then ban all coverage of it in the media until a verdict is reached. Of course that only applies to the country the trial is in but very few trails hold any interest outside one country and even those that are are unlikely to be covered by international media until there is a verdict. Jurors that are treated sensibly and with respect are far more likely to do a good job than those who are subject to arbitrary rules that are applied unevenly.
Are you serious? You're telling me that you'd rather censor every media outlet than allow about 12 people to endure a little boredom?
As for judges, there are at least four reasons I can think of why the rules oughtn't apply.
1. They're professionals. Unlike a juror, a judge generally will have a better understanding of the legal aspects of the case than the media and, thus, is not so likely to be influenced by the coverage.
2. A judge is thoroughly trained to resist these sources of bias. They must go through law school and then, generally, quite a long career before we trust them to judge. Are they perfect? No. But we have more reason to think they can resist being biased by media coverage than jurors.
3. Unlike the jury, there is no time during the trial when things are going on in the courtroom that the judge doesn't have to pay attention to. For them, either the trial is going on and it requires their undivided attention, or its not and they can do what they like.
4. Judges are judges for a long time. Requiring them to avoid the media would would mean barring judges from all media for much of their adult lives.
Bonus:
5. Judges are concerned with the legal questions in a case, which are not generally at issue in the media. The jury, on the other hand, is expected to rule on the facts of the case. The media will routinely draw unwarranted conclusions on the facts, broadcast information excluded from the trial, etc. making taint (lovely word) more likely.
I don't know if you're trolling or not, but I think you're almost certainly correct (and, btw, that your -1 Troll mod probably isn't fair). Though bear in mind that MS has always had an incentive to clean up the malware situation proportional to the risk of its customers defecting to another OS. The threat of cloud computing to them just cranks up the risk, and thus the incentive. Whether or not it definitively tipped the scales in this case is hard to know - maybe they would have gone ahead with this 5 years ago if their lawyers told them they could win - but I'm sure it had some effect.
Wouldn't they have to organize a class action for this to go anywhere?
Probably not. This sounds like tortious interference to me. The theory is that Microsoft's interests are damaged by a third party interfering in its relationship with its customers. When it comes to calculating damages there are all sorts of theories you could use. As you say, any would probably start with lost customers, but you can also look at higher support costs, reduced sale of upgrades (moving to a non-MS OS is not necessary for MS to lose profits), stymied growth in market share, etc.
Of course, if we're interested in the consumers' remedies, that's a whole different can of worms. They couldn't sue for tortious interference (probably) because they're not the ones engaged in the relevant business activities. But they might be able to bring other causes of action (in fraud, for example). They could sue individually, but if they want to get a big shot lawyer involved they would need to go for a class action so there's a bigger lump payout to take fees out of.
(IANAL, but I am a law student. I am not competent to give real legal advice.)
Slashdot Mirror
1) most of the time people suing corporations are lazy people that want to get rich
Here's a radical question: do you have any idea if this is true?
I believe the only unavoidable cost of getting a patent is the filing fee (and the issuing fee, if it's accepted), but that only amounts to a few hundred dollars. There are maintenance fees every few years, and while these are a bit more expensive, it's not an insurmountable expense. All the prior work research and everything can be done by an individual, assuming they're determined and resourceful, although depending on the nature of the patent that could get real tricky.
This is true, and I like to see people doing things on their own as much as possible. But the unfortunate truth in this case is that writing a good patent is actually quite hard, and I'd hate to see the OP put a great deal of work into an invention, another great deal of work into writing the patent, and a bit more money into filing fees only to have nothing to show for it but an easily circumventable patent and $0.00 in royalty payments because of it. If you really think your invention might be valuable, hire a patent lawyer. It will be worth it. Yes, they're expensive, but they're highly paid (in part) because they're highly skilled and their job is actually very difficult.
No need to wonder: men don't want to grow up, we want to be immature some times
Well, right. I meant to be asking a rhetorical question. As a man I agree that it's a lot of fun to be an immature asshole. But I don't think it's reasonable to ask women to change to accomodate our desire to behave like imbeciles.
Did you seriously just equate women in the workplace to slaves?
No, in fact I didn't. What I said was that the GP's argument would have worked just as well as a defense of slavery. Of course I agree that slavery is much worse than the situation of women today. There's no comparison.
As for the evidence of discrimination, I'll leave you to look at some of the other posts for that but, there are quite a few. But you're exactly right that there isn't much we can accomplish by trading anecdotes, so all I'll say is this: it's important to remember that it doesn't take repeated, egregious cases of sexism to make a community hostile to women. A vocal fringe is all it takes.
Of course I agree that most men in these communities are not sexist (at least not noticeably so). The problem, as I see it, is that there is a vocal, immature minority of FOSS men who are always making sexist jokes, talking about porn, and asking women out on dates on message boards when they try to make serious contributions. This is a problem, and its a shame so many here on /. want to respond by asking women to grow a backbone instead of asking that men not beheve like middle schoolers.
Well, here is something we can agree on: a minority of men are responsible for most of the genuinely offensive conduct of men, and there is a minority of women who demand more deference to their sensibilities than they are owed. We can probably both agree that those groups people need to alter their behavior/expectations. Fair?
The tricky part is dealing with the situations in the middle where both the men and women are behaving like reasonable men and reasonable women. But, nonetheless, the women are offended by the men.
We have a choice here: we can tell the men to behave themselves, or we can tell the women to suck it up. I'm honestly floored by the fact that there is any question of which way to go in this case.
You seem to think that the question is resolved by pointing out that nobody is forcing the women to participate. And there's something to this. And if we were talking about something like a private club then I think you would absolutely be right. But there are real external social reasons for a woman to get involved with a FOSS project (like employment obligations, wanting to hone her skills, giving back to a project); it's not just that women want to get involved. So the question as I see it is this: is it fair to make women choose between being offended and furthering their career/improving their skills/ etc. when the ONLY cost of avoiding the dilemma is to ask men to behave like gentlemen.
(Btw, I'm a man. Not sure if that was clear.)
I'm not sure if I agree with your formulation or not, but you're right that I could use to phrase my view more clearly, so here's a stab:
I take it as a premise that there is a pattern of offensive conduct towards women in the FOSS community (or the workplace, etc.).
But this is unacceptable for at least two reasons (and I think they're the ones you've picked out). An economic reason: it's good for everyone economically if women are able to participate more fully. And a moral reason: it's wrong to force women to choose between being routinely offended and working (this point has more force if we're talking about a conventional workplace than if we're talking about the FOSS community).
This being the case, something has to give. Either men need to stop behaving offensively, or women need to stop being so easily offended.
I'm finding that the latter is a popular suggestion here on /. and I wonder why that is. It seems to me that it's more reasonable to ask the people being immature to cut it out than to ask women to suck it up. (Again, for a few reasons: assignment of responsibility to track moral fault and assignment responsibility to the cheapest cost avoider come to mind)
I also think a lot of people are taken in by a false dichotomy here. Women can (and should) do both; they can do their best to function in our society as it is while challenging its inequities.
She still enjoys it greatly, and banters with the guys because she just doesn't view herself as a victim of anything.
Well that's great, and I'm happy for her. But you might want to think about all the other women who you are asking to bend their views of what it means to be respected in the workplace to conform with the frat boy behavior of what you call the "boys club." Maybe instead of focusing the debete on how women can learn to live with men's misbehavior, our efforts would be better spent telling the men responsible for this to not be such infants.
Exactly. ...or protesting, or being an activist, or sticking up for himself, or taking a stand...
There are certainly parts of this that I agree with. It's true that men are discouraged (at least in some ways) from becoming programmers. And, certainly, more self confidence helps one succeed.
But when you say that sex discrimination (and other social factors) are not to blame and pin the responsibility solely on women's emotional frailty is where we part ways pretty drastically. This is a very widespread attitude that is itself a hinderence to greater equality between men and women in our society.
Plenty of other commenters here have dug up instances of offensive conduct in the FOSS community and I don't think I need to repeat what they've said. And the response generally seems to have been much like yours: "it's just at the fringes." Maybe that's so, but imagine you're a women who is actually trying to be taken seriously by the community. Even if this is only fringe conduct, it's fringe conduct that women are systematically exposed to and that reinforces messages that they have likely been resisting their whole lives: that women aren't meant to be professionals, that women exist to please men, that women aren't to be taken seriously.
Can a strong woman resist these messages? Of course. Would it be a good thing if every woman were this strong? Certainly. But the fact remains that this is a hurdle that does not exist for men. If we want women to be able to contribute equally, we should all be fighting these attitudes and not making apologies for them.
Why would I be agreeing with batshit crazy people? ;)
But, yes, I take your point. There are crazy feminists. I am intending to agree with the sane ones.
Well, I think it should be obvious that I agree that there is a vast difference in degree between the oppression of women and the oppression of slaves. But the GP's logic is equally applicable to both. That was the point.
You seem pretty pleased with your 0.1% number, but have you thought about what that really means? Consider a normal workplace environment. If you were a woman and, in your office, one out of every 1000 interactions with a coworker included references to porn or some of the other examples commenters have dug up, I think you would have a decent Title VII lawsuit.
It doesn't take frequent, repetitive sexist comments to create an environment of sexism. Particularly when you couple this with the perpetual frat party that is today's internet culture.
I think this almost entirely misses the point. Feminists say that the structure of society and individuals' prejudices make it more difficult for women to succeed in (e.g.) the workplace than men. Your response to that seems to be "Get used to it. You'll get a lot farther by growing a backbone than by bitching." This is only true in the short term, if its true at all. Tomorrow's women will be better off if we, today, address the prejudices than if today's women merely "grow a backbone.
It's also pretty shocking that you think it's mere "bitching" for women to point out and attempt to address the systematic disadvantages that they face in the workplace. Does this mean that women should only "bitch" and not try to work despite their disadvantages? Of course not. But we as a society would never get anywhere if oppressed/disadvantaged groups were expected to just deal with it without protesting the inequality. Would you have said the same thing, "Quit bitching and grow a backbone" to slaves? Where would our society be today if we all thought like you?
This is all to say nothing of your implicit premise that both men and women catch equal amounts of flak for taking up programming, which is, I think, obviously false.
I agree with most everything you say, except this:
There is nothing wrong, but you have to pay damages... Uh ? Kinda weird logic you have there.
I should start by saying that this isn't just my reasoning, but that of most scholars in the field of contract law (hence the Holmes quote). And I want to also emphasize that I mean, in some sense, "morally wrong" when I say "wrong." But I agree that it's a surprising line of thought at first blush. Here's one way to think about it that I've found helpful: Contract law exists primarily to promote economic efficiency*. It is very helpful economically if actors can shift risks to one another and act certain in the knowledge that the contract will be fulfilled as promised. When a promisor breaches a contract, we make them pay to put the promisee in as good a situation as they would've been had the promisor held up their end of the bargain and no more. So, the damages aren't assessed to punish the breaching party (there are no punitive damages in contract law) but just to fulfill the expectations of the person counting on the promise.
From a purely theoretical perspective, its also worth thinking a bit about what "illegal" does really mean outside of the realm of criminal law. For example, if I negligently allow you to be hit by a rock shot out from my lawnmower, I haven't broken any laws. But, under the common law of torts, I still am liable for the damages. This is often the structure of the law outside of criminal law: the bare ascription of liability for actions, not the outright prohibition of them (as in crim. law). Contracts are this was as well. So is my negligence illegal in the usual sense of the word? I'm not sure. Again, I'm not arguing with you, I'm just sharing some thoughts about the word "illegal" that this conversation has brought to mind. And, of course, this has really nothing to do with the law, only our definition of "illegal."
* This is a controversial statement, but it's certainly true enough to work for our purposes.
If you read my post again I believe you'll see that I intended to do no such thing. Rather, your use of the word "illegal" seemed to me to be calculated to impute some sort of unsavoriness about Palm's conduct. I was just pointing out that, at least in the eyes of contract law, there is nothing at all wrong with breaching a contract.
Right, but if you know this much you must also know that, generally, equitable remedies are generally only given if there is no way to reliably measure the monetary damages (with a few narrow exceptions).
In short, equitable considerations only come into play when there is no adequate remedy at law, and these situations are quite uncommon.
FYI:
Contract law is law, and breaking a contract is unlawful, ie illegal.
We can get into a debate over the proper definition of "illegal", but the way you seem to be using it implies that, in the eyes of the law, breaking a contract is somehow discouraged as a matter of public policy. It isn't. Yes, the party you've contracted with can sue you if you breach, but the law actually goes to some lengths to permit breaches of contract to the extent that they promote economic efficiency.
From Judge Oliver Wendell Holmes:
Nowhere is the confusion between moral and legal ideas more manifest than in the law of contract...The duty to keep a contract at common law means a prediction that you must pay damages if you do not keep it - and nothing else.
Well played. (But we all know that Steve Ballmer is as analog as they come.)
Hey, a broken watch is still right twice per day.
and they were planning on doing it at maybe a 1/20th of the budget of a Toy Story movie
But how many Libraries if Congress would it have been?
If it is important to prevent the jury hearing about the trial then ban all coverage of it in the media until a verdict is reached. Of course that only applies to the country the trial is in but very few trails hold any interest outside one country and even those that are are unlikely to be covered by international media until there is a verdict. Jurors that are treated sensibly and with respect are far more likely to do a good job than those who are subject to arbitrary rules that are applied unevenly.
Are you serious? You're telling me that you'd rather censor every media outlet than allow about 12 people to endure a little boredom?
As for judges, there are at least four reasons I can think of why the rules oughtn't apply.
1. They're professionals. Unlike a juror, a judge generally will have a better understanding of the legal aspects of the case than the media and, thus, is not so likely to be influenced by the coverage.
2. A judge is thoroughly trained to resist these sources of bias. They must go through law school and then, generally, quite a long career before we trust them to judge. Are they perfect? No. But we have more reason to think they can resist being biased by media coverage than jurors.
3. Unlike the jury, there is no time during the trial when things are going on in the courtroom that the judge doesn't have to pay attention to. For them, either the trial is going on and it requires their undivided attention, or its not and they can do what they like.
4. Judges are judges for a long time. Requiring them to avoid the media would would mean barring judges from all media for much of their adult lives.
Bonus:
5. Judges are concerned with the legal questions in a case, which are not generally at issue in the media. The jury, on the other hand, is expected to rule on the facts of the case. The media will routinely draw unwarranted conclusions on the facts, broadcast information excluded from the trial, etc. making taint (lovely word) more likely.
I don't know if you're trolling or not, but I think you're almost certainly correct (and, btw, that your -1 Troll mod probably isn't fair). Though bear in mind that MS has always had an incentive to clean up the malware situation proportional to the risk of its customers defecting to another OS. The threat of cloud computing to them just cranks up the risk, and thus the incentive. Whether or not it definitively tipped the scales in this case is hard to know - maybe they would have gone ahead with this 5 years ago if their lawyers told them they could win - but I'm sure it had some effect.
I heard you like italics...
Wouldn't they have to organize a class action for this to go anywhere?
Probably not. This sounds like tortious interference to me. The theory is that Microsoft's interests are damaged by a third party interfering in its relationship with its customers. When it comes to calculating damages there are all sorts of theories you could use. As you say, any would probably start with lost customers, but you can also look at higher support costs, reduced sale of upgrades (moving to a non-MS OS is not necessary for MS to lose profits), stymied growth in market share, etc.
Of course, if we're interested in the consumers' remedies, that's a whole different can of worms. They couldn't sue for tortious interference (probably) because they're not the ones engaged in the relevant business activities. But they might be able to bring other causes of action (in fraud, for example). They could sue individually, but if they want to get a big shot lawyer involved they would need to go for a class action so there's a bigger lump payout to take fees out of.
(IANAL, but I am a law student. I am not competent to give real legal advice.)
Fair enough; I'm not a chemist. But I think you see my point...