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IMO this is less about IP laws and more about the incorrect incentive structure of frivolous litigation. The penalties incurred by Match for filing this lawsuit

by darawk 5y ago

IMO this is less about IP laws and more about the incorrect incentive structure of frivolous litigation. The penalties incurred by Match for filing this lawsuit (assuming the court agrees with the interpretation in this post) should be not only that they have to cover the defendant's legal expenses, but they should have to pay 10x that in punitive damages on top of it.

kolbe 5y ago
There are a lot of legal problems like this. Like, all fines should be n*damage/probability_of_getting_caught where n is like a punishment coefficient. But law is weird. It tends to only be n*damages, and it’s hard to get everyone on board with the notion that justice should be asymmetrically applied based on things like company size or probability of getting caught. Edit: I just learned you can use escape characters in HN text boxes
- bruce511 5y ago
  Yes, this exactly. Fundamentally in most legal situations, there is a huge asymetary between the litigants. Even in criminal cases you typically have a well funded, well schooled, prosecutor versus a law-ignorant and unfunded defendant. Perhaps part of the role of the judge is to understand, and correct for, this imbalance - but I'm not sure how effective that is. But back to the point, rules on legal costs, punitive fees and so on, all fall down when "the boot is on the other foot." There is no way for the small guy to take a big guy to court if legal costs are always paid by the loser, never mind punitive damages. Equally while it's popular to default to evil-corp (with good reason) it's also important for big-Corp to have, and be able to defend, their intellectual property. Writing rules that allow for fairness under all these conditions, inside a system that incentives combatents (lawyers) to maximise personal profitability, is, well, tricky.
  - darawk 5y ago
    > But back to the point, rules on legal costs, punitive fees and so on, all fall down when "the boot is on the other foot." There is no way for the small guy to take a big guy to court if legal costs are always paid by the loser, never mind punitive damages. It's a good point, but I think you can solve that by just giving the judge discretion to scale the punishment appropriately. > Equally while it's popular to default to evil-corp (with good reason) it's also important for big-Corp to have, and be able to defend, their intellectual property. This is true as well, and I think if its a good faith disagreement on the law, the other side should pay the legal fees of the winner, but no more than that. But this case seems like bad faith, and I think we should be more aggressive about punishing that.
    - bruce511 5y ago
      I agree with your points in concept, but I feel it falls down on implementation. Relying on a judge to apply rules based on their whim seems prone to failure. Judges are people with all the baggage they bring. There's a reason patent owners like East Texas. Good Faith is also a nebulous measure. On the face of it Match has a reasonable good-faith argument to complain about Muzmatch in the same space. They may win, they may lose, but either way both sides are spending million(s) on this. By your logic Muzmatch would stand to lose a few million if they lose the case. That may be existential for them, and vacation budget for Match. And we're back to asymetary.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
whimsicalism 5y ago
In high school debate, people can initiate arguments about the "rules" of the debate and argue that their opponent broke them in some way (like not staying within the topic) and thus should lose. A big problem cropped up where this style of argument was essentially a "no-risk" proposition - because the issue was orthogonal to the actual content of the debate, teams could without risk argue that their opponent had broken the rules - if they convinced the judge, they won the debate, if they failed to, the debate just continued as usual. Eventually, to deter the ever-growing proliferation of these objections, people started arguing that anyone who initiates one of these "rule violation accusations" should lose the debate if they fail to prove their claim. I'm wondering if a similar penalty could become commonplace (perhaps by default/presumption) in US courts.
- saagarjha 5y ago
  Ah, high school debate. Are they still doing they thing where they throw bad arguments at you and then if you just refuse to engage with the stupid ones or don’t talk as fast as them claim they “win” because you didn’t address their points?
  - whimsicalism 5y ago
    Yes, the adage a "dropped argument is a true argument" remains true for many (but not all) forms of high school debate. That said, there is wiggle room in that an exceptionally stupid argument is not considered to need much response, but it should be touched on.
  - Der_Einzige 5y ago
    They do all of that, while speed reading their arguments at you! Btw, for former debaters, OP of this thread is talking about topicality, theory/framework (which makes the gamework!), and reverse voting issues (RVIs)
  - danuker 5y ago
    I suspect the idea is to address stupid arguments by fixing the ignorance creating them. Communication is an easy way to improve. Still, it could be that the stupid arguments are malicious. In that case, perhaps one could prove it.

by darawk 5y ago

kolbe 5y ago

There are a lot of legal problems like this. Like, all fines should be n*damage/probability_of_getting_caught where n is like a punishment coefficient. But law is weird. It tends to only be n*damages, and it’s hard to get everyone on board with the notion that justice should be asymmetrically applied based on things like company size or probability of getting caught. Edit: I just learned you can use escape characters in HN text boxes

bruce511 5y ago
Yes, this exactly. Fundamentally in most legal situations, there is a huge asymetary between the litigants. Even in criminal cases you typically have a well funded, well schooled, prosecutor versus a law-ignorant and unfunded defendant. Perhaps part of the role of the judge is to understand, and correct for, this imbalance - but I'm not sure how effective that is. But back to the point, rules on legal costs, punitive fees and so on, all fall down when "the boot is on the other foot." There is no way for the small guy to take a big guy to court if legal costs are always paid by the loser, never mind punitive damages. Equally while it's popular to default to evil-corp (with good reason) it's also important for big-Corp to have, and be able to defend, their intellectual property. Writing rules that allow for fairness under all these conditions, inside a system that incentives combatents (lawyers) to maximise personal profitability, is, well, tricky.
- darawk 5y ago
  > But back to the point, rules on legal costs, punitive fees and so on, all fall down when "the boot is on the other foot." There is no way for the small guy to take a big guy to court if legal costs are always paid by the loser, never mind punitive damages. It's a good point, but I think you can solve that by just giving the judge discretion to scale the punishment appropriately. > Equally while it's popular to default to evil-corp (with good reason) it's also important for big-Corp to have, and be able to defend, their intellectual property. This is true as well, and I think if its a good faith disagreement on the law, the other side should pay the legal fees of the winner, but no more than that. But this case seems like bad faith, and I think we should be more aggressive about punishing that.
  - bruce511 5y ago
    I agree with your points in concept, but I feel it falls down on implementation. Relying on a judge to apply rules based on their whim seems prone to failure. Judges are people with all the baggage they bring. There's a reason patent owners like East Texas. Good Faith is also a nebulous measure. On the face of it Match has a reasonable good-faith argument to complain about Muzmatch in the same space. They may win, they may lose, but either way both sides are spending million(s) on this. By your logic Muzmatch would stand to lose a few million if they lose the case. That may be existential for them, and vacation budget for Match. And we're back to asymetary.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

whimsicalism 5y ago

In high school debate, people can initiate arguments about the "rules" of the debate and argue that their opponent broke them in some way (like not staying within the topic) and thus should lose. A big problem cropped up where this style of argument was essentially a "no-risk" proposition - because the issue was orthogonal to the actual content of the debate, teams could without risk argue that their opponent had broken the rules - if they convinced the judge, they won the debate, if they failed to, the debate just continued as usual. Eventually, to deter the ever-growing proliferation of these objections, people started arguing that anyone who initiates one of these "rule violation accusations" should lose the debate if they fail to prove their claim. I'm wondering if a similar penalty could become commonplace (perhaps by default/presumption) in US courts.

saagarjha 5y ago
Ah, high school debate. Are they still doing they thing where they throw bad arguments at you and then if you just refuse to engage with the stupid ones or don’t talk as fast as them claim they “win” because you didn’t address their points?
- whimsicalism 5y ago
  Yes, the adage a "dropped argument is a true argument" remains true for many (but not all) forms of high school debate. That said, there is wiggle room in that an exceptionally stupid argument is not considered to need much response, but it should be touched on.
- Der_Einzige 5y ago
  They do all of that, while speed reading their arguments at you! Btw, for former debaters, OP of this thread is talking about topicality, theory/framework (which makes the gamework!), and reverse voting issues (RVIs)
- danuker 5y ago
  I suspect the idea is to address stupid arguments by fixing the ignorance creating them. Communication is an easy way to improve. Still, it could be that the stupid arguments are malicious. In that case, perhaps one could prove it.