decoration decoration
Stories

GROKLAW
When you want to know more...
decoration
For layout only
Home
Archives
Site Map
Search
About Groklaw
Awards
Legal Research
Timelines
ApplevSamsung
ApplevSamsung p.2
ArchiveExplorer
Autozone
Bilski
Cases
Cast: Lawyers
Comes v. MS
Contracts/Documents
Courts
DRM
Gordon v MS
GPL
Grokdoc
HTML How To
IPI v RH
IV v. Google
Legal Docs
Lodsys
MS Litigations
MSvB&N
News Picks
Novell v. MS
Novell-MS Deal
ODF/OOXML
OOXML Appeals
OraclevGoogle
Patents
ProjectMonterey
Psystar
Quote Database
Red Hat v SCO
Salus Book
SCEA v Hotz
SCO Appeals
SCO Bankruptcy
SCO Financials
SCO Overview
SCO v IBM
SCO v Novell
SCO:Soup2Nuts
SCOsource
Sean Daly
Software Patents
Switch to Linux
Transcripts
Unix Books

Gear

Groklaw Gear

Click here to send an email to the editor of this weblog.


You won't find me on Facebook


Donate

Donate Paypal


No Legal Advice

The information on Groklaw is not intended to constitute legal advice. While Mark is a lawyer and he has asked other lawyers and law students to contribute articles, all of these articles are offered to help educate, not to provide specific legal advice. They are not your lawyers.

Here's Groklaw's comments policy.


What's New

STORIES
No new stories

COMMENTS last 48 hrs
No new comments


Sponsors

Hosting:
hosted by ibiblio

On servers donated to ibiblio by AMD.

Webmaster
Has Germany responded to this at all? | 226 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Corrections thread ...
Authored by: nsomos on Monday, October 29 2012 @ 12:05 PM EDT
Please post corrections here.
It may be helpful to summarize the correction in the posts title.
Before offering a correction to a PDF, check against the original,
as errors in the originals are not corrected here.

Thanks

[ Reply to This | # ]

It's time to outlaw patents
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, October 29 2012 @ 12:46 PM EDT
except the standard essentials ones.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Off Topic
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, October 29 2012 @ 01:10 PM EDT
There is no or only little correlation with the article. You have been warned.

/G

[ Reply to This | # ]

Comes docs here
Authored by: SpaceLifeForm on Monday, October 29 2012 @ 01:18 PM EDT


---

You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.

[ Reply to This | # ]

News Picks commentary here
Authored by: SpaceLifeForm on Monday, October 29 2012 @ 01:20 PM EDT


---

You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Judge not expert on [world] law?
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, October 29 2012 @ 02:14 PM EDT
It's not an issue where this judge isn't an expert on
international, or German, or such laws, it's that the rest of
the world is not expert on the (apparently questionable if not
nearly insane) thought processes going on in this judge's
mind.

[ Reply to This | # ]

What a strange case :/
Authored by: SilverWave on Monday, October 29 2012 @ 03:14 PM EDT
What is this Judge thinking?

---
RMS: The 4 Freedoms
0 run the program for any purpose
1 study the source code and change it
2 make copies and distribute them
3 publish modified versions

[ Reply to This | # ]

Why the judge is insisting on following his own rules instead of letting the normal process
Authored by: Yossarian on Monday, October 29 2012 @ 03:55 PM EDT
The short answer is "Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts
absolutely". The courts in the US control more and more of
economic activities. The method where litigation is more
beneficial than negotiations increases the courts' power while
damaging the economy. (Good for lawyers, bad for Engineers.)

Such actions, by judges who will never have to face election,
reminds me an old saying from before the American Revolution:
"No taxation without representation!"

[ Reply to This | # ]

Has Germany responded to this at all?
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, October 29 2012 @ 04:43 PM EDT
I can't imagine they are pleased with US courts dictating what happens in their
country? Has there been any response there to this, official or unnoficial?

[ Reply to This | # ]

Wish I could be in Seattle
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, October 29 2012 @ 05:12 PM EDT

This one looks interesting.

Unfortunately I live so far north that we already have two inches of snow.

Wayne
http://madhatter.ca

[ Reply to This | # ]

Joint Filing and Judge's Order Give Us Peek At What to Expect at MS v. Motorola Nov. 13 RAND Trial in Seattle ~pj
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, October 29 2012 @ 05:36 PM EDT
In Washington State, M$ can do no wrong.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Joint Filing and Judge's Order Give Us Peek At What to Expect at MS v. Motorola Nov. 13 RAND Trial in Seattle ~pj
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, October 29 2012 @ 06:06 PM EDT
"But his position is that the parties are deadlocked, but my view is that
if he stepped out of the middle of the dispute, Microsoft would likely negotiate
in good faith."

M$ negotiate in good faith? Really? When pigs fly perhaps,
but I would doubt it even then.

[ Reply to This | # ]

He does "get it", he's just gone renegade
Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, October 29 2012 @ 07:36 PM EDT
In other words, at the end of the case, the parties could return to the bargaining table precisely where they started

He realises the fundamental futility of the case before him, but instead of throwing it out as it clearly cannot go anywhere according to logic, he decides that the best approach to make the case productive is to interpret law in such a way as he can create a contract where none existed, and against the will of the parties to the contract.

Presumably he will write the contract and issue a court order that it be signed. Maybe he'll sign it himself and issue an order that he is able to act on Motorola's behalf.

The world is a much simpler place when our realise that an agreement can be arbitrarily created and imposed upon a situation regardless of the intent of the people involved.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Off Topic Thread -- that everyone can see
Authored by: artp on Monday, October 29 2012 @ 11:49 PM EDT
Please post extraneous information here. Violators will be
made intraneous. Whatever that is.

---
Userfriendly on WGA server outage:
When you're chained to an oar you don't think you should go down when the galley
sinks ?

[ Reply to This | # ]

Raising the standards
Authored by: Ian Al on Tuesday, October 30 2012 @ 05:58 AM EDT
What is the legal definition of a standard? It is not limited to documents issued by standards bodies and professional bodies.

Where an individual company holds a legally defined monopoly on a de facto industry standard, even when is is a trade secret, protected by a non-FRAND patent or the company does not want to licence it, The courts can, and do, fine companies vast sums of money and direct them to agree peppercorn royalties for the use of the patents and trade secrets.

Microsoft may not have many of its standards published by international standards bodies, but it does have a very large portfolio of de facto IT standards, some of which it licenses at exorbitant rates (e.g. the FAT standard) and some of which it refuses to licence to stifle competition (e.g. SAMBA).

Microsoft may think that they have come up with a very beneficial new US global law in this case, but look what happened in Reports on the Issues at the EU v. MS Hearings, when the spiked boot was on the other foot.

The judge is making a huge legal error that I would expect to generate an amicus curiae brief from the United States saying that, as a principle of general application, courts should assume that legislators take account of the legitimate sovereign interests of other nations when they write American laws. Foreign conduct is [generally] the domain of foreign law and foreign law may embody different policy judgments about the relative rights of competitors, and the public.

However, if Microsoft prevail, they have much more to lose than a few standard essential patent royalty streams. The EU, China and the rest of Asia, and South America might decide that peppercorn royalties for Microsoft de facto standards might not be legal, but is an excellent idea, especially if it can be enforced using global antitrust legislation.

I have seen no signs that the judge in this case is offering to acquire antitrust jurisdiction on behalf of the European Union. Let the EU draw inspiration from this new US global law and raise a few more IT standards with the Microsoft Corporation.

---
Regards
Ian Al
Software Patents: It's the disclosed functions in the patent, stupid!

[ Reply to This | # ]

How is the weather treating you PJ?
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, October 30 2012 @ 08:22 AM EDT
Are you affected by it?

[ Reply to This | # ]

As the world turns
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, October 30 2012 @ 12:05 PM EDT
the rest of the world see's what the USA is now doing and will
not only ignore bad rulings , but may actually reverse others
and will move to curtail these trade war actions.

That's all it is a once great nation trying desperately to
hold on as it plummets off the debt cliff.

Have a great holloween don't let the debt bug bite...!!!!
Nothing like a welcher i say.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Judge's previous history?
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, October 30 2012 @ 02:52 PM EDT
what is his previous history? Was he originally employed by a firm that did
Microsoft's legal affairs?

[ Reply to This | # ]

Don't think the judge is being particularly unfair
Authored by: Anonymous on Tuesday, October 30 2012 @ 08:05 PM EDT
Nothing there really seems *that* unreasonable. It does look like it might be
headed towards a fairly terrible outcome, but I'm not really convinced that's
necessarily because of the judge - he hasn't exactly been handed an easy
situation here. Hopefully he agrees that yes, it's reasonable for a RAND
negotiation to include some degree of cross licensing at least though.

Both parties are blatantly unreasonable and are not negotiating - MS is asking
for ridiculously low rates and Motorola ridiculously high (yes, they're not that
dissimilar to the rumoured android tax numbers, but do you think those aren't
ridiculously high?). They're both unwilling to compromise - Motorola because
this is really their only play to try to force a cross licensing agreement and
avoid the android tax since some of these patents are actually sticking (how?!)
and Microsoft because well... it's Microsoft, why miss a chance to get paid for
someone else's work?

Would they negotiate in good faith if he stepped out of the way... that seems
unlikely? The stakes are way too high and besides... it's Microsoft.

The one area I strongly disagree on though is that MS are free to pursue
injunctions while Motorola is barred from doing so. That's a really ugly
situation and simply reverses the problem the restraining order was intended to
solve - that should have applied to both parties or not at all.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Groklaw © Copyright 2003-2013 Pamela Jones.
All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners.
Comments are owned by the individual posters.

PJ's articles are licensed under a Creative Commons License. ( Details )