3 ms·

Is there now any way that Judge Wright might turn his eye (and hopefully his hammer) on patent trolling? The arguments he makes against Prenda's process in gene

by sudhirj 14y ago

Is there now any way that Judge Wright might turn his eye (and hopefully his hammer) on patent trolling? The arguments he makes against Prenda's process in general - not the illegal parts, but the intent and procedure - is pretty much what the patent trolling industry does. If he sees something that he pass commentary on in a legal capacity, then I'm sure courts can and should take note that they're being played in the patent game too.

sudhirj 14y ago
> I. INTRODUCTION > Plaintiffs1 have outmaneuvered the legal system. They’ve discovered the > nexus of antiquated copyright laws, paralyzing social stigma, and unaffordable > defense costs. And they exploit this anomaly by accusing individuals of illegally > downloading a single pornographic video. Then they offer to settle—for a sum calculated to be > > just below the cost of a bare-bones defense. For these individuals, > resistance is futile; most reluctantly pay rather than have their names associated with > illegally downloading porn. So now, copyright laws originally designed to > compensate starving artists allow, starving attorneys in this electronic-media era to > plunder the citizenry. > Plaintiffs do have a right to assert their intellectual-property rights, so long as > they do it right. But Plaintiffs’ filing of cases using the same boilerplate complaint > against dozens of defendants raised the Court’s alert. It was when the Court realized > Plaintiffs engaged their cloak of shell companies and fraud that the Court went to > battlestations. Right at the top. Looks exactly like a writeup about patent trolling except for the porn part.
- chc 14y ago
  It looks exactly like a writeup about patent trolling except it doesn't have anything at all to do with patents.
rst 14y ago
A judge is not a free agent; they can only rule on the cases they're assigned. Moreover, what got this judge's goat was specifically "the illegal parts" of what Prenda was doing, most notably repeatedly lying in court. It wasn't the tangled ownership structure (a feature they share with some of the trolls in the news, like, say, Lodsys), but specific lies they told about it. (The reason the ownership mattered in the Prenda case is that the lawyers and the owners were one and the same, which is against some court rules. Whoever owns Lodsys, it's pretty clearly not the attorneys representing them in court. And the lies about the ownership structure were not necessarily the most extravagant or significant --- Judge Wright also has a lot to say about misrepresentations of evidence, etc.)

by sudhirj 14y ago

sudhirj 14y ago

> I. INTRODUCTION > Plaintiffs1 have outmaneuvered the legal system. They’ve discovered the > nexus of antiquated copyright laws, paralyzing social stigma, and unaffordable > defense costs. And they exploit this anomaly by accusing individuals of illegally > downloading a single pornographic video. Then they offer to settle—for a sum calculated to be > > just below the cost of a bare-bones defense. For these individuals, > resistance is futile; most reluctantly pay rather than have their names associated with > illegally downloading porn. So now, copyright laws originally designed to > compensate starving artists allow, starving attorneys in this electronic-media era to > plunder the citizenry. > Plaintiffs do have a right to assert their intellectual-property rights, so long as > they do it right. But Plaintiffs’ filing of cases using the same boilerplate complaint > against dozens of defendants raised the Court’s alert. It was when the Court realized > Plaintiffs engaged their cloak of shell companies and fraud that the Court went to > battlestations. Right at the top. Looks exactly like a writeup about patent trolling except for the porn part.

chc 14y ago
It looks exactly like a writeup about patent trolling except it doesn't have anything at all to do with patents.

rst 14y ago

A judge is not a free agent; they can only rule on the cases they're assigned. Moreover, what got this judge's goat was specifically "the illegal parts" of what Prenda was doing, most notably repeatedly lying in court. It wasn't the tangled ownership structure (a feature they share with some of the trolls in the news, like, say, Lodsys), but specific lies they told about it. (The reason the ownership mattered in the Prenda case is that the lawyers and the owners were one and the same, which is against some court rules. Whoever owns Lodsys, it's pretty clearly not the attorneys representing them in court. And the lies about the ownership structure were not necessarily the most extravagant or significant --- Judge Wright also has a lot to say about misrepresentations of evidence, etc.)