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| Authored by: rsteinmetz70112 on Saturday, September 29 2012 @ 06:30 PM EDT |
The concept that a FRAND pledge without any offer of compensation from those
taking advantage of the pledge is a contract is pretty far fetched.
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Rsteinmetz - IANAL therefore my opinions are illegal.
"I could be wrong now, but I don't think so."
Randy Newman - The Title Theme from Monk
[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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| Authored by: Ian Al on Sunday, September 30 2012 @ 04:27 AM EDT |
The US Government pointed out in Microsoft v. AT&T that the United States
law governs domestically but does not rule the world.
The German court
has issued an injunction for the violation of patents under German law, in
Germany. Whatever contract dispute the United States court is considering within
their jurisdiction is irrelevant to what the German court is considering within
its jurisdiction.
The US Government has decreed that:
“Foreign conduct is [generally] the domain of foreign law,” and...
foreign law “may embody different policy judgments about the relative rights of
inventors, competitors, and the public in patented
inventions.”
Even if there were a FRAND licence agreement for a
contract for patent licence in the jurisdiction of Germany, the US Government
says that it is for consideration by the German courts under German law. The US
Government could not be clearer. It is not a patent, FRAND or contract issue: it
is an issue of law and jurisdiction in the respective countries and US
agreements on international law made by the US Government with the other
countries of most of the world.
I suspect that folk are remembering
when the bankruptcy judge stayed arbitration in Europe between SCO and Suse. The
judge determined that Suse was an American run company exercising an arbitration
agreement according to a US trade entity registered and with its articles of
association under US law. The judge could not order the arbitrators to stop, but
they could instruct an American company to carry out a halt to their activities
in support.
If Suse had not been deemed to be run by Novell executives
and had a completely independent management structure, they might have got away
with it even though the association was incorporated in the 'States. The courts
in the 'States would have been restricted to ruling on the entitlements of the
partners under US law and the contracted terms.
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Regards
Ian Al
Software Patents: It's the disclosed functions in the patent, stupid! [ Reply to This | Parent | # ]
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