Public companies generally are required to disclose settlement terms if they are material.
Last quarter Microsoft's gross revenues were somewhere north of $14 billion. If they paid 500 million to Eolas (and presumably it was less than that, given the verdict of $521 million and the fact of a pending reexam that might kill the patent), that's way less than 5% of their revenues for one quarter. Most securities experts would say that isn't material.
And the other terms of the agreement probably amount to saying that Microsoft can do what it used to do. That's not material, either.
Finally, as TFA says, Eolas is not, in fact, public, so has no public disclosure obligations.
I haven't ever filed anything in small claims court, so perhaps the rules are different there, but in every other court I've filed something in (I'm a lawyer), you need to submit at least two copies. The original goes in the court file, and the other copy is the "chambers" copy. The chambers copy is routed to the judge, while the original is there for anyone to look at as part of the public record.
What happens to the court file copy varies from court to court. Some judges/courts like to have the file copy in front of them when there's a hearing, in which case they might review the original copy (though they probably reviewed the chambers copy before that).
In other words, in the ordinary course, sometimes the court file copy will be paged through and sometimes it won't. But that isn't indicative of whether the court read the brief.
Like I said, I haven't filed stuff in small claims court (and indeed the procedures are not the same in every state), but in the courts I have been in, this experiment wouldn't prove anything.
I am sad to report that the chicken article [pdf] has been classified as inauthentic. But maybe the program just doesn't understand papers written in Chicken [gif].
that's because you've been trained by other sites to assume you need a separate symbol search option.
you can type in the name of a company in the same spot you would type in a ticker symbol. That's why, below that box, it offers the tip, 'e.g. "Google", "Cars", "AAPL"'. Indeed, you can just type in the type of company ("Cars") -- try "search engine," for example, and you get links to listings for 50+ companies that (presumably) all have search engines.
There are a lot of stakeholders interested in having cases like this decided in a court of law, and whenever a sealed settlement happens, it just means that cases just like it will go to court again and again and again and again...
none of those stakeholders have wagered a dime on this litigation. nor have they had their employees' lives disrupted by the litigation.
are these "stakeholders" willing to fund the attorney costs that blocking such a settlement would entail?
What I found annoying was it's insistance on placing yet another icon in my system tray.... I couldn't see how to disable the tray icon while keeping the accellerator enabled....
At least in XP Professional, if you right-click in the taskbar and then choose "Customize" in the "Notification area" section, you can set any tray icon to "Always hide" to make it disappear.
Ok, I understand why specific documents would be sealed. But the way I read this, all of the documents related to those cases are.
The article does indeed say the "cases" are sealed. If they are talking about US cases, that's simply incorrect reporting. Patent "cases" don't get sealed in the US. Documents, though, may be. In many cases, so many documents are filed under seal that it's difficult to get a clear understanding of what is going on in the case.
Plus, this is about patents, which should be public anyway, right?
Patents are public. But that doesn't mean everything in a patent case is public. Again, using the examle of suing Microsoft... if I say M$ is infringing my patent, I of course have to publicly identify my patent. But what is infringing? Perhaps I say feature X in XP is the so-called "accused product." At some point in time, I need to offer evidence of that allegation. I do that, probably, by offering into evidence, among other things, XP source code. And that evidence, and discussions about that evidence, likely end up filed under seal.
It's fairly common for some documents in a patent case to be filed under seal. For example, if I sue Microsoft, and allege that certain code in XP infringes, I might need to put into evidence some of the source code. Microsoft, in that situation, likely would insist that such filings be submitted under seal, to protect trade secrets. A court likely would allow this.
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Public companies generally are required to disclose settlement terms if they are material.
Last quarter Microsoft's gross revenues were somewhere north of $14 billion. If they paid 500 million to Eolas (and presumably it was less than that, given the verdict of $521 million and the fact of a pending reexam that might kill the patent), that's way less than 5% of their revenues for one quarter. Most securities experts would say that isn't material.
And the other terms of the agreement probably amount to saying that Microsoft can do what it used to do. That's not material, either.
Finally, as TFA says, Eolas is not, in fact, public, so has no public disclosure obligations.
I haven't ever filed anything in small claims court, so perhaps the rules are different there, but in every other court I've filed something in (I'm a lawyer), you need to submit at least two copies. The original goes in the court file, and the other copy is the "chambers" copy. The chambers copy is routed to the judge, while the original is there for anyone to look at as part of the public record. What happens to the court file copy varies from court to court. Some judges/courts like to have the file copy in front of them when there's a hearing, in which case they might review the original copy (though they probably reviewed the chambers copy before that). In other words, in the ordinary course, sometimes the court file copy will be paged through and sometimes it won't. But that isn't indicative of whether the court read the brief. Like I said, I haven't filed stuff in small claims court (and indeed the procedures are not the same in every state), but in the courts I have been in, this experiment wouldn't prove anything.
I am sad to report that the chicken article [pdf] has been classified as inauthentic. But maybe the program just doesn't understand papers written in Chicken [gif].
What is the duration in other countries?
Twenty years. (btw, that's twenty years from the filing of the patent application, not from issuance of the patent.)
That's the minimum patent term required under the WTO TRIPs agreement.
look here:
http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/com/speeches/wipo 26mar2002.htm
and search for TRIPs.
that's because you've been trained by other sites to assume you need a separate symbol search option.
you can type in the name of a company in the same spot you would type in a ticker symbol. That's why, below that box, it offers the tip, 'e.g. "Google", "Cars", "AAPL"'. Indeed, you can just type in the type of company ("Cars") -- try "search engine," for example, and you get links to listings for 50+ companies that (presumably) all have search engines.
unless, of course, you consider the real time quotes.
search for a ticker symbol. right above the chart, you'll see a line that starts "Real-Time ECN:" that is a real-time quote.
none of those stakeholders have wagered a dime on this litigation. nor have they had their employees' lives disrupted by the litigation.
are these "stakeholders" willing to fund the attorney costs that blocking such a settlement would entail?
At least in XP Professional, if you right-click in the taskbar and then choose "Customize" in the "Notification area" section, you can set any tray icon to "Always hide" to make it disappear.
weather Niagara Falls, Ontario works just fine. What did you use as your search?
lynx, perhaps?
The article does indeed say the "cases" are sealed. If they are talking about US cases, that's simply incorrect reporting. Patent "cases" don't get sealed in the US. Documents, though, may be. In many cases, so many documents are filed under seal that it's difficult to get a clear understanding of what is going on in the case.
Plus, this is about patents, which should be public anyway, right?
Patents are public. But that doesn't mean everything in a patent case is public. Again, using the examle of suing Microsoft... if I say M$ is infringing my patent, I of course have to publicly identify my patent. But what is infringing? Perhaps I say feature X in XP is the so-called "accused product." At some point in time, I need to offer evidence of that allegation. I do that, probably, by offering into evidence, among other things, XP source code. And that evidence, and discussions about that evidence, likely end up filed under seal.
It's fairly common for some documents in a patent case to be filed under seal. For example, if I sue Microsoft, and allege that certain code in XP infringes, I might need to put into evidence some of the source code. Microsoft, in that situation, likely would insist that such filings be submitted under seal, to protect trade secrets. A court likely would allow this.