| I don't know, but what I do know is that if a jury foreman showed the kind of
behaviour we have seen, here in the UK he would be dragged back into court and
sentenced by the judge for contempt. But I noticed too, quite early in the SCO
nonsense, that they and their schysters BSF were behaving in court in a way
which would have them jailed for contempt if they did it in the UK. I think
that in some ways, US judges are far too tolerant of bad behaviour. I expect
that it is like that so they don't give too many losers grounds for
appeal. What may be relevant here in the UK is that the courts have rejected
software patents, however that leaves design patents and trade dress, or the
equivalent, which we rarely hear mentioned here. I think that such things are
not enforced much here, except for obvious copying or imitation of company logos
and such like, for example a pear with a bite out of it would be pushing things
somewhat if it was on a computer or phone, but almost certainly not if it was on
the packaging for fruit or something else in a radically different field. The
UK, with several different legal systems, is far from perfect, but it is a place
where few people bring completely nonsensical cases to court. Only a small
minority of people here seem to think that they need to sue someone every time
they feel they have been wronged. Far more disputes than we will ever get to
hear about were settled by negotiation. So with that background, it will be
very interesting to see how Apple and Samsung turns out. What I do know is that
it should be much quicker than in the US, and the legal bills will be much
smaller, unless something goes very badly wrong. [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
|
