Frivolous lawsuits usually result in the defending parties getting their attorneys fees paid for and sometimes punitive damages. You just don't hear about that on the news...
Everyone needs to get their panties out of their crack.
Go read 35 U.S.C. Sections 102a - b.
Just because someone 'has' a patent, doesn't meant it's de facto enforceable. Sure, there'll be a lawsuit, but it shouldn't be hard to laugh it out of court...
It's the same law everywhere if it arises under federal law in a federal court, but if it arises under diversity jurisdiction i.e. sueing under state law in federal court, then the state law applies.
It's probably because the judge there is pro plaintiff or the juries are very sympathetic to plaintiffs.
IANAL, but the plaintiff has some advantages over the defendant which include choice of venue. However, the defendant usually has to only disprove a single element of the plaintiff's claims whereas the plaintiff will have to prove every single element of the plaintiff's claims to prevail.
In a negligence cause of action, the plaintiff will have to prove, 1) duty; 2)breach; 3)causation and 4) damages. If the plaintiff can only prove duty, breach, and damages, but cannot prove causation, the defendant wins. In essence, both sides have to make 4 arguments; 1 for each element. The defendant only has to beat the plaintiff at 1 out of the 4 arguments to win, but the plaintiff has to win ALL 4 arguments. I'm not saying venue doesn't matter, but it's a lesser issue.
It's not the end of the world for parties to travel to Marshall from Dallas occasionally. Sure convenience is nice, but the district judge is not forced by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure to transfer the case.
IANAL, but there's a big distinction between jurisdiction and venue. Jurisdiction is very important, venue, meh... it's there, but it's much less important than venue, especially when the defendant is a corporation rather than a person. See Int'l Shoe. Also, there's a preference for not disturbing the plaintiff's choice of venue. In horse and buggy days, it might have been a big deal, but today, I'd say tough cookies.
As far as all the people saying it's patent trolling, you need to know that there are jurisdictional considerations as to whether it's a patent law case, or merely another type of case the contains a patent law counterclaim. If a party brings a suit on a non patent basis and the defendant's counterclaim asserts a patent law based claim, then this suit is not 'arising under' the patent laws and can only be appealed to the Regional circuit court (i.e. the 5th Cir. in this case) as opposed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The CAFC is the court that matters for patent law. Since it's being appealed to 5th Cir. it's not an 'arising under' the patent law case, so stop whining about patent trolling. Even the summary says it's a product liability case.
While it might affect venue in the future, it's not that this case was specifically about patent trolling and forum shopping.
Are you kidding me? The patent system is what protects a new entrpreneur from big business just stealing the entrepreneur's idea for a fixed duration of time.
Granted big business uses the same protections but so what? If you are a small time inventor that comes up with something unique and worth a lot of money, you definitely want IP protection.
I have to disagree that there is no such thing as 'intellectual property.' There certainly is IP. However, you and I likely agree that the IP laws aren't satisfactory.
IP protection to creators and inventors are important because of the need to balance creation with production. In an ideal world, IP laws would only allow the creators enough protection to produce enough (or sell enough software if you don't consider duplicating software as production) product to recoup the costs of creating the success, the costs of creating previous and future failures and make some damn profit.
Without IP laws preventing a 3rd party from immediately taking a creators idea and producing it, you would have little incentive to create because you couldn't make any money off of it. Not only that, you'd find that the most powerful companies would merely be copy cat manufacturers without RnD budgets that would beat the little guy with their economies of scale.
I think copyright should be until the creator's death, and maybe a +10 years from creator's death for creator's assigns. Not this in perpetuity crap.
I think the patent durations might be a touch too long however, the real issue is the frivolity of many patents, not their durations.
This has me kind of worried, as most local anesthetics (maybe all of them, I'm not a doctor) are based off of cocaine. Ever wonder why it nums your gums? It's because lidoCAINE, novoCAINE, marCAINE, benzoCAINE, etc... are all cocaine derivatives. This would be a terrible thing for a dental patient or anyone else needing a local for health related treatment. It would really stink to need general anesthesia to get a cavity drilled or a toenail removed etc...
Yes definitely consult a lawyer. IANAL, but there are usually statutory limits to the length of non competes and these vary by jurisdiction. Also, the non compete could possibly be linked to the uniform trade secrets statute that many jurisdictions have adopted. A lawyer should be able to fix this up for you for 30 minutes to 120 minutes. Heck I bet you could easily negotiate a flat fee with your lawyer as this isn't that in depth of a research task.
I can't believe how many people think that a private retailer cannot specify what a valid payment would be.
Think of it like a contract.
Retailer: I offer you one iPhone new in box in exchange for the payment of $XXX to be payable by credit card only.
The customer can then accept by promise or performance. Or not accept at all. Regardless of how it's accepted, the idea that the 'offeror is king' is central to contracts under US Law.
Here's another instance of a valid offer,
Retailer: I offer you 1 iPhone new in box in exchange for all of the following: 1) dancing like a chicken for 2 minutes, 2) 5 armpit farts, 3) stating out loud in front of me the sentence "I like to eat bat doodoo and then play with dirty bandaids, 4) 1 double cheeseburger with 1 order of large fries.
I know it's not very realistic, but that's an offer to enter into a binding agreement.
IANAL btw....
I can't get over how many people think Apple should not be entitled to freedom of contract. Apple can do about anything it damn well pleases. If you don't like it, don't buy a stinking iPhone. They don't 'owe' the consumer anything. It's their goal to make as much money as possible. If their tactics for making said money are so egregious, vote with your dollars and go elsewhere. But don't talk about changing the law just because you can't have an iPhone exactly how you want it.
Whether the article was politically motivated has nothing to do with the subject matter...
Those bugs listed ARE scary and our last lines of defense are very scary drugs. That are losing their effectiveness over time. Yes the Pharm companies make a crap ton of money. Yes they can be evil in some of their business practices.
What you have to realize is the development of some of these drugs cost more than the GDP of third world nations and that they have to not only make that money back but they have to put money into their company and their investors pockets. Now imagine that you have 100 such RnD projects going on and only 2 out of those 100 hit every 5 years. Hence the mad mad world of expensive pills until they become generic. When a pill is new the company has to make their money because after that decade of profit they lose their profitability.
It's the same as how VIA will one day be able to make a CPU for sale to the public for 50 USD that will perform the same as a ~1000 USD flagship chip of today.
Health care has to be a business. Period. Politcal motivations or not, those bugs are nasty, those bugs are real, and scarier ones than those are in the future.
Slashdot Mirror
Ummm.... most lawyers DO have malpractice insurance...?
Go read on res judicata and collateral estoppel. This is not that big of news...
Thank god... someone who's passed the USPTO exam perhaps?
Frivolous lawsuits usually result in the defending parties getting their attorneys fees paid for and sometimes punitive damages. You just don't hear about that on the news...
Go read 35 U.S.C. Sections 102a - b.
Just because someone 'has' a patent, doesn't meant it's de facto enforceable. Sure, there'll be a lawsuit, but it shouldn't be hard to laugh it out of court...
It's probably because the judge there is pro plaintiff or the juries are very sympathetic to plaintiffs.
In a negligence cause of action, the plaintiff will have to prove, 1) duty; 2)breach; 3)causation and 4) damages. If the plaintiff can only prove duty, breach, and damages, but cannot prove causation, the defendant wins. In essence, both sides have to make 4 arguments; 1 for each element. The defendant only has to beat the plaintiff at 1 out of the 4 arguments to win, but the plaintiff has to win ALL 4 arguments. I'm not saying venue doesn't matter, but it's a lesser issue.
It's not the end of the world for parties to travel to Marshall from Dallas occasionally. Sure convenience is nice, but the district judge is not forced by the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure to transfer the case.
As far as all the people saying it's patent trolling, you need to know that there are jurisdictional considerations as to whether it's a patent law case, or merely another type of case the contains a patent law counterclaim. If a party brings a suit on a non patent basis and the defendant's counterclaim asserts a patent law based claim, then this suit is not 'arising under' the patent laws and can only be appealed to the Regional circuit court (i.e. the 5th Cir. in this case) as opposed to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit. The CAFC is the court that matters for patent law. Since it's being appealed to 5th Cir. it's not an 'arising under' the patent law case, so stop whining about patent trolling. Even the summary says it's a product liability case.
While it might affect venue in the future, it's not that this case was specifically about patent trolling and forum shopping.
Granted big business uses the same protections but so what? If you are a small time inventor that comes up with something unique and worth a lot of money, you definitely want IP protection.
IP protection to creators and inventors are important because of the need to balance creation with production. In an ideal world, IP laws would only allow the creators enough protection to produce enough (or sell enough software if you don't consider duplicating software as production) product to recoup the costs of creating the success, the costs of creating previous and future failures and make some damn profit.
Without IP laws preventing a 3rd party from immediately taking a creators idea and producing it, you would have little incentive to create because you couldn't make any money off of it. Not only that, you'd find that the most powerful companies would merely be copy cat manufacturers without RnD budgets that would beat the little guy with their economies of scale.
I think copyright should be until the creator's death, and maybe a +10 years from creator's death for creator's assigns. Not this in perpetuity crap.
I think the patent durations might be a touch too long however, the real issue is the frivolity of many patents, not their durations.
This has me kind of worried, as most local anesthetics (maybe all of them, I'm not a doctor) are based off of cocaine. Ever wonder why it nums your gums? It's because lidoCAINE, novoCAINE, marCAINE, benzoCAINE, etc... are all cocaine derivatives. This would be a terrible thing for a dental patient or anyone else needing a local for health related treatment. It would really stink to need general anesthesia to get a cavity drilled or a toenail removed etc...
Yes definitely consult a lawyer. IANAL, but there are usually statutory limits to the length of non competes and these vary by jurisdiction. Also, the non compete could possibly be linked to the uniform trade secrets statute that many jurisdictions have adopted. A lawyer should be able to fix this up for you for 30 minutes to 120 minutes. Heck I bet you could easily negotiate a flat fee with your lawyer as this isn't that in depth of a research task.
I can't believe how many people think that a private retailer cannot specify what a valid payment would be. Think of it like a contract. Retailer: I offer you one iPhone new in box in exchange for the payment of $XXX to be payable by credit card only. The customer can then accept by promise or performance. Or not accept at all. Regardless of how it's accepted, the idea that the 'offeror is king' is central to contracts under US Law. Here's another instance of a valid offer, Retailer: I offer you 1 iPhone new in box in exchange for all of the following: 1) dancing like a chicken for 2 minutes, 2) 5 armpit farts, 3) stating out loud in front of me the sentence "I like to eat bat doodoo and then play with dirty bandaids, 4) 1 double cheeseburger with 1 order of large fries. I know it's not very realistic, but that's an offer to enter into a binding agreement. IANAL btw....
I can't get over how many people think Apple should not be entitled to freedom of contract. Apple can do about anything it damn well pleases. If you don't like it, don't buy a stinking iPhone. They don't 'owe' the consumer anything. It's their goal to make as much money as possible. If their tactics for making said money are so egregious, vote with your dollars and go elsewhere. But don't talk about changing the law just because you can't have an iPhone exactly how you want it.
Whether the article was politically motivated has nothing to do with the subject matter...
Those bugs listed ARE scary and our last lines of defense are very scary drugs. That are losing their effectiveness over time. Yes the Pharm companies make a crap ton of money. Yes they can be evil in some of their business practices.
What you have to realize is the development of some of these drugs cost more than the GDP of third world nations and that they have to not only make that money back but they have to put money into their company and their investors pockets. Now imagine that you have 100 such RnD projects going on and only 2 out of those 100 hit every 5 years. Hence the mad mad world of expensive pills until they become generic. When a pill is new the company has to make their money because after that decade of profit they lose their profitability.
It's the same as how VIA will one day be able to make a CPU for sale to the public for 50 USD that will perform the same as a ~1000 USD flagship chip of today.
Health care has to be a business. Period. Politcal motivations or not, those bugs are nasty, those bugs are real, and scarier ones than those are in the future.