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
Off-topic Discussions | 228 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
corrections hear------>corrections here
Authored by: webster on Tuesday, March 05 2013 @ 11:18 PM EST
como arriva.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Off-topic Discussions
Authored by: ankylosaurus on Tuesday, March 05 2013 @ 11:53 PM EST
For the discussion of matters not related to the main article. Please include
clickable URLs where appropriate.

---
The Dinosaur with a Club at the End of its Tail

[ Reply to This | # ]

News Picks
Authored by: ankylosaurus on Tuesday, March 05 2013 @ 11:54 PM EST
Discussion about items in the news picks on the home page.

---
The Dinosaur with a Club at the End of its Tail

[ Reply to This | # ]

Qualcomm, WLF, Ericsson, and More Comments Opposing the FTC's Google/Motorola Agreement ~pj
Authored by: vadim on Wednesday, March 06 2013 @ 03:00 AM EST
But if one assumes that patents are BAD and should be abolished,
than maybe the FTC decision is step in good direction?

[ Reply to This | # ]

Petitioning for Equitable Relief
Authored by: macliam on Wednesday, March 06 2013 @ 04:23 AM EST

I have so far only scanned these lengthy briefs. Nevertheless the question on my mind was addressed on pages 10 to 12 of the Washington Legal Foundation Brief:

Of course, the fact that Motorola and Google have a constitutional right to seek injunctive relief says nothing about whether they are entitled to obtain such relief. The Supreme Court has made clear that injunctive relief is never granted as a matter of course to prevailing plaintiffs in patent infringement litigation. Instead, the Court has held that normal rules of equity practice apply “with equal force” to patent infringement lawsuits and that the prevailing plaintiffs in such suits must satisfy the rigorous “four-factor test before a court may grant [injunctive] relief.” eBay Inc. v. MercExchange, L.L.C., 547 U.S. 388, 391 (2006). The facts underlying the patent infringement litigation filed by Motorola – in particular, its agreement to license its SEPs on FRAND terms – might well cause a court to conclude that Motorola could not meet the four- factor test and thus is not entitled to injunctive relief. After all, a company that makes a FRAND commitment might well have difficulty demonstrating that an award of damages (in the form of a retroactive licensing fee) could not adequately compensate it for its injuries (one of the showings required under the four-factor test). But a finding that Motorola and Google are not entitled to injunctive relief is a far cry from a finding that they have waived their constitutional rights to petition the courts for such relief.

My understanding (correct or not) is that Equity is a body of law that developed in medieval England and was further developed in the 17th and 18th centuries. Those who believed that outcomes determined at common law were unjust, or who believed that remedies obtainable at common law were insufficient to remedy injustices, could petition the Monarch, and the matter would be considered by the Court of Chancery, presided over by the Lord Chancellor, and equitable relief could be accorded on a case-by-case basis. An injunction is a form of equitable relief, as are estoppel and specific performance. But, as I understand it, entitlement to equitable relief should not be precluded by categorical requirements (e.g., "holders of FRAND patents are not entitled to injunctions", or "courts will issue permanent injunctions against patent infringement absent exceptional circumstances"). And entitlement to any form of equitable relief should be determined on a case-by-case basis in accordance with the principles of Equity, as described in the Maxims of Equity. This, as I understand the matter, is the basis on which the Supreme Court determined eBay v. MercExchange. It therefore seems odd that an executive body could consider that it could declare or enforce a categorical ruling that holders of FRAND patents are, for that reason alone absent special circumstances, not entitled to petition the courts for any form of equitable relief. Determining entitlement to equitable relief is surely the prerogative of courts "sitting in Equity".

[ Reply to This | # ]

EU fines Microsoft over $730 million
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, March 06 2013 @ 06:34 AM EST
EU fines Microsoft over $730 million for failing to include browser ballot in Windows 7 SP1

[ Reply to This | # ]

Qualcomm, WLF, Ericsson, and More Comments Opposing the FTC's Google/Motorola Agreement ~pj
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, March 06 2013 @ 08:01 AM EST
After reading the paragraph about the FTC statuatory authority
I had to ask myself why hasn't the FTC thrown M$ into the
dumpster yet? As far as I can tell all of M$ business
behaviours have fallen to those categories that the FTC
should be cracking down on.

[ Reply to This | # ]

Qualcomm, WLF, Ericsson, and More Comments Opposing the FTC's Google/Motorola Agreement ~pj
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, March 06 2013 @ 08:44 AM EST
GI want a "Donate with BTC" button on Groklaw.

[ Reply to This | # ]

This Has Open A Can Of Worms...
Authored by: Anonymous on Wednesday, March 06 2013 @ 01:34 PM EST

Google has smashed the Apple and Microsoft duopoly and this has open a can of worms..... And that's why Apple and Microsoft is fighting to maintained the status quo, which is causing this massive blow back

[ Reply to This | # ]

"Intellectual Property" pitfall
Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, March 07 2013 @ 10:31 AM EST
The term "property" should not be applied to patents because
it is a bad analogy. While I agree that patents,
copyrights, and trademarks should not be lumped together
because they are very different concepts, that is not the
main problem with the term "intellectual property" - the
main problem is that "property" is a bad term for any of
these things. They are all essentially negative in
character in that they only allow their owners to restrict
the actions of others. They don't in themselves provide
anything positive.

So when the discussion the current topic gets framed as an
issue of "property rights", it makes it seem like the patent
holders are having a possession unfairly taken from them,
which I don't think is valid. The real measure (which is
not achieved by this ruling) ought to be a declaration that
"standards-essential patents" are intrinsically unfair and
cannot exist. I don't care whether Google or Microsoft is
the patent holder, the point is that patents cannot be a
mandatory part of any legitimately open standard.

This is somewhat like the debate over ending slavery in the
United States. It was claimed that slaves could not be
freed because that would be a violation of the
constitutionally-guaranteed property rights of the
slaveholders, who after all had invested great amounts of
money in this "property".

[ 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 ) 		Site layout based on Woodlands theme by Bryan Bell.
Groklaw logo by John Crowley.
News Picks logo by Ted Thompson.
Powered By GeekLog
Created this page in 0.04 seconds