GOOD NEWS The end of Google?

[KNERD]

U.S. District Judge Alan Albright of the Western District of Texas has ordered Googleto post a $20 million bond to cover a jury verdict in a patent case amid appeal, ruling that the company's lawyers haven't put forward enough evidence that the global tech titan — currently worth well over $1 trillion — will remain solvent for the next year.

The story is behind a paywall, maybe @wardmundy will have access to such a resource?

Albright Orders Google To Put Up $20M Bond Amid Appeal - Law360

U.S. District Judge Alan Albright of the Western District of Texas has ordered Google to post a $20 million bond to cover a jury verdict in a patent case amid appeal, ruling that the company's lawyers haven't put forward enough evidence that the global tech titan — currently worth well over $1...

www.law360.com

 

[dicko]

quote the case reference, the arguments for and against, can't be behind a paywall

 

[wardmundy]

Judge Albright of Waco has been the patent trolls go-to-guy, but his reign is coming to an end thankfully.

Judge Alan Albright Archives - IPWatchdog.com | Patents & Intellectual Property Law

ipwatchdog.com

 

[krzykat]

That is just horrible. The fact that one justice can upset an entire legal community. Without him - they need to rethink their strategies and whether to even file suit? That's just wrong. Anytime someone counts on a specific justice being the only way to the merits of a case is just bad business. What ever happened to fighting a case based upon caselaw and the merits of the case? Wow - will be glad when he gets no more of these cases.

 

[wardmundy]

I'm reminded of the old Richard Pryor line: "They said you'd get justice down at the courthouse. And, sure enough, when I got down there, it was JUST US."

 

[KNERD]

I have always though the idea of software patents is wrong. I mean, come on, there are various ways to write code to do the same thing/accomplish the same goal.

Like cleaning a sidewalk for example. You can sweep it, use a leaf blower, or pressure wash it. Imagine someone claiming a patent on cleaning it.

 

[krzykat]

I have always though the idea of software patents is wrong. I mean, come on, there are various ways to write code to do the same thing/accomplish the same goal.

Like cleaning a sidewalk for example. You can sweep it, use a leaf blower, or pressure wash it. Imagine someone claiming a patent on cleaning it.

Yeah, what was it? I think recording voicemail or playing music on hold or something really just common sense that someone got a patent on it and was going after everyone. Soooo stupid. I understand some things, Like if I create a way to turn water into hydrogen and oxygen to use in a car, OF COURSE a patent should be issued, but because I said - I want to patent bottling water and nobody else can sell bottled water? That's just stupid.

 

[wardmundy]

A Brief History Lesson.

Back in the late 1980's, there was a communications software program called Crosstalk XVI developed by a company in Atlanta. It sold for about $129 as I recall. Didn't take long for a whiz kid in Tallahassee to develop a perfect clone called Mirror that sold for $29. Guess which one I recommended the federal courts purchase for their PCs? In fact, it became part of the default build for the 30,000+ PCs in the federal courts together with WordPerfect, Lotus 1-2-3, and dBASE III.

This was in the days before software patents, and the Crosstalk folks subsequently sued the Mirror developer claiming look-and-feel copyright infringement. The case was ultimately settled when Mirror agreed to slightly change its user interface. Little did the Crosstalk lawyers know that the Atlanta-based U.S. District Judge that heard the case had Mirror sitting on his desktop PC. He went on to become chair of the judiciary's national Automation Committee and a member of the Judicial Conference of the United States. Techie judges were few and far between.

See page 6 for more: https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/63485.63487

 

[krzykat]

Wow - we were close to crossing paths. I was the IT Director for SAO in Florida doing much the same. Much smaller than 30K PC's though. I also took another look-a-like to people's desktops in DR DOS, my employees even starting calling me Dr. DOS - LOL.

 

[Tonyclewis]

That is just horrible. The fact that one justice can upset an entire legal community. Without him - they need to rethink their strategies and whether to even file suit? That's just wrong. Anytime someone counts on a specific justice being the only way to the merits of a case is just bad business. What ever happened to fighting a case based upon caselaw and the merits of the case? Wow - will be glad when he gets no more of these cases.

OMG your causing me flashbacks of that nightmare. We (Schmooze Com) were one of the defendants that was sued for visual voicemail patent because we wrote into FreePBX ARI/UCP system the ability to view your voicemails and pick which one you wanted it listen to. 2 plus years of fighting that patent and large 6 figure lawyer bills to finally get them to settle. If memory serves me right they were suing us for large 7 figure number. (Like 20M for a company with 20 off people). The joys of building open source software and giving it away for free and still had to defend a baseless lawsuit. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_voicemail

 

[krzykat]

OMG your causing me flashbacks of that nightmare. We (Schmooze Com) were one of the defendants that was sued for visual voicemail patent because we wrote into FreePBX ARI/UCP system the ability to view your voicemails and pick which one you wanted it listen to. 2 plus years of fighting that patent and large 6 figure lawyer bills to finally get them to settle. If memory serves me right they were suing us for large 7 figure number. (Like 20M for a company with 20 off people). The joys of building open source software and giving it away for free and still had to defend a baseless lawsuit. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_voicemail

Yeah, so sorry about that. I don't remember which part, but I know we did something back before 2000 that predated a phone pattent - don't remember which - but think it had something to do with music on hold or something that was just so stupid, who would pattent it. When people found out we had it before that, they were asking us to show that these clowns didn't invent it.