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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 04 2012 @ 02:21 PM EDT |
He did cause the mess, but don't attribute it to laziness or stupidity, because
clearly Judge Alsup is neither.
I think the simple truth is that its a complex technical subject with
far-reaching (but non-obvious) repercussions. He didn't know what the status
quo was in legal precedents. He didn't know whether SSO or APIs should be
copyrightable or not. It was the lawyer's jobs from both sides, to try and
convince him one way or the other.
Unfortunately, he put off the decision until after the jury trial -- again
probably for reasons that seemed good at the time, but in retrospect it has led
us into this weird situation where the jury is being instructed to believe
really weird things that are pretty prejudicial to Google, because that's the
only way he could get their ruling before making his decision.
Even technical experts here on this site -- including professional programmers
with 20 years or more experience -- have not been able to agree on a clear
definition of what an API is. And none of us have much experience with SSO of
copyrightable works. Mix the two together, and the result is a mystery cocktail
that nobody (not the Judge, not the lawyers for either side, not even their
expert witnesses) has been able to clearly articulate. The best we have is
analogies and "conceptual overlap".
So how is a jury of non-programmers and non-lawyers supposed to make sense of
this? Alsup's instructions to them were complex enough that if I were on that
jury, i don't think I could figure out how to follow them all simultaneously.
And forcing them to assume Google did something wrong when that hasn't even been
determined yet, seems prejudicial in the extreme.
I think the plan to head off the need for another jury trial in the event of an
appeal, has probably failed at this point. None of the "factual"
findings of this jury are going to be of any use after it is appealed. And
doing the copyright junk first, has probably prejudiced this jury against Google
for the patents phase, so that might have to be re-done too.[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 04 2012 @ 02:29 PM EDT |
It took years for SCO v. Novell to get in front of a jury,
largely because the judge in that case put efficiency on the
back burner to trying to get every single question of law
that could conceivably be argued decided before holding an
actual trial.
I support what Judge Alsup has done here. He's forced the
parties to streamline the trial, lead with the important
stuff, and have a real case that could be decided rather
than letting the case drag on indefinitely.
This is the one negative outcome from what's otherwise (IMO)
a model of how I'd like to see judges manage cases. There's
one major issue of law. The judge knows if he decides it
first, there will immediately be LONG delay while the
appeals process for that ruling plays out (one side or the
other will immediately appeal), and it derails any hope for
a speedy trial.
And it might not matter. If the jury rules for Google EVEN
IF API's are copyrightable (a verdict we may well still
see), we've gained MONTHS, maybe YEARS in how this process
plays out. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, May 04 2012 @ 03:03 PM EDT |
I tend to agree with the statement "The judge caused this."
It appears with the best of motives and better judgement
than I can offer. I still hope for the best. However if I
put my self in the jury's shoes and look at the instructions
my first issue is trying to figure out if the instructions
are telling me black is white.
Are these "speculative execution" jury instructions going to
become an example for law scholars as an approach to achieve
a hung jury?
[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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