Jury: Newegg infringes Spangenberg patent, must pay $2.3 million
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[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=25756113#p25756113:35c1akvu said:
A comment of broader significance than you might have meant it. It seems attorneys on both sides, in criminal cases included, often seek the most simpleminded or at least ignorant jurors to make it a contest only over which side can out-manipulate the jury. "Objective" jurors has become an excuse.
The rules for peremptory challenges need reform.
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Just jaw-droppingly stupid. That is *the* Diffie of Diffie-Hellman, and they still lost the case.
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I believe those of you blaming the jury are missing some key points:
• Jury instructions will make clear that patents are presumed to be valid and that it takes clear and convincing evidence to prove otherwise.
• The 5,412,730 patent went through a USPTO re-examination requested by TD Ameritrade after reviewing "150 additional prior art documents not considered during the original patent examination." (http://gametimeip.com/2011/10/06/the-pa ... onary-tale) and confirmed patentability of all original claims, and added several new claims.
• The prior art "Cryptography and Data Security" textbook covered (among other things) the basics of block cipher encryption that was not new (DES from IBM in the early 1970's), but the 5,412,730 patent described a method for changing the keys and a synchronized way of generating them after every predetermined number of blocks using pseudo-random number generators. One can argue that this is not a major breakthrough (though it increases security by requiring each group of blocks to be separately cracked for decryption), but it is the kind of incremental improvement typical of many patents.
• The timeline regarding RC4 and Lotus Notes had the product shown at a trade show and claimed to be offered for sale but not actually sold until later. Such a claim may not be clear and convincing to a jury without other evidence (Diffie's testimony notwithstanding).
• The defense bringing up public key encryption simply confused matters because the public key aspect has only to do with a method for securely exchanging (sharing) keys, not for how the data is encrypted once one has keys. While there is no question that it was key (pun intended) to secure Internet commerce and transactions, it is what is done with those keys and encryption that is relevant with regards to the patent.
• RC4 uses a pseudo-random generation algorithm (PRGA) making it sound similar to the pseudo-random number generator in the patent (more about this below).
• As another commenter in this thread noted, the PRGA of the stream cipher approach of RC4 could be considered to be a degenerate case of the pseudo-random number of the block cipher approach described in the patent with block size of 1 byte (however, keep reading below).
What apparently was not brought up by the defense was that the stream cipher approach of RC4 was not new and that Linear Feedback Shift Registers (LFSR) were invented and used in the 1960's as pseudo-random number generators for stream ciphers. Only the specific initialization and keystream generation were at first kept proprietary in RC4. The defense could have drawn two parallel timelines for stream ciphers leading to RC4 and for block ciphers leading to the patent to show that the novelty of the patent was not new for stream ciphers (nor for RC4). They could have had the plaintiff's expert witness even confirm this (unless he was incompetent or a liar). Though this would not have influenced the jury to invalidate the patent, it could have led to the jury returning a verdict of non-infringement that would apply to anyone using RC4 (though that would not put an end to other lawsuits since the patent could still be asserted).
I think the defense was so pre-occupied at trying to invalidate the patent that they missed the much easier to demonstrate non-infringement argument for anyone using RC4 or any other stream cipher, for that matter.
Personally, I believe that the lawsuit should have been terminated in summary judgment on the basis of the block cipher vs. stream cipher distinction noted above. If there is a problem with the Eastern District of Texas, it is this propensity to not declare summary judgments and to let most cases go to jury trials.
• Jury instructions will make clear that patents are presumed to be valid and that it takes clear and convincing evidence to prove otherwise.
• The 5,412,730 patent went through a USPTO re-examination requested by TD Ameritrade after reviewing "150 additional prior art documents not considered during the original patent examination." (http://gametimeip.com/2011/10/06/the-pa ... onary-tale) and confirmed patentability of all original claims, and added several new claims.
• The prior art "Cryptography and Data Security" textbook covered (among other things) the basics of block cipher encryption that was not new (DES from IBM in the early 1970's), but the 5,412,730 patent described a method for changing the keys and a synchronized way of generating them after every predetermined number of blocks using pseudo-random number generators. One can argue that this is not a major breakthrough (though it increases security by requiring each group of blocks to be separately cracked for decryption), but it is the kind of incremental improvement typical of many patents.
• The timeline regarding RC4 and Lotus Notes had the product shown at a trade show and claimed to be offered for sale but not actually sold until later. Such a claim may not be clear and convincing to a jury without other evidence (Diffie's testimony notwithstanding).
• The defense bringing up public key encryption simply confused matters because the public key aspect has only to do with a method for securely exchanging (sharing) keys, not for how the data is encrypted once one has keys. While there is no question that it was key (pun intended) to secure Internet commerce and transactions, it is what is done with those keys and encryption that is relevant with regards to the patent.
• RC4 uses a pseudo-random generation algorithm (PRGA) making it sound similar to the pseudo-random number generator in the patent (more about this below).
• As another commenter in this thread noted, the PRGA of the stream cipher approach of RC4 could be considered to be a degenerate case of the pseudo-random number of the block cipher approach described in the patent with block size of 1 byte (however, keep reading below).
What apparently was not brought up by the defense was that the stream cipher approach of RC4 was not new and that Linear Feedback Shift Registers (LFSR) were invented and used in the 1960's as pseudo-random number generators for stream ciphers. Only the specific initialization and keystream generation were at first kept proprietary in RC4. The defense could have drawn two parallel timelines for stream ciphers leading to RC4 and for block ciphers leading to the patent to show that the novelty of the patent was not new for stream ciphers (nor for RC4). They could have had the plaintiff's expert witness even confirm this (unless he was incompetent or a liar). Though this would not have influenced the jury to invalidate the patent, it could have led to the jury returning a verdict of non-infringement that would apply to anyone using RC4 (though that would not put an end to other lawsuits since the patent could still be asserted).
I think the defense was so pre-occupied at trying to invalidate the patent that they missed the much easier to demonstrate non-infringement argument for anyone using RC4 or any other stream cipher, for that matter.
Personally, I believe that the lawsuit should have been terminated in summary judgment on the basis of the block cipher vs. stream cipher distinction noted above. If there is a problem with the Eastern District of Texas, it is this propensity to not declare summary judgments and to let most cases go to jury trials.
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1) I do not think the jury is to blame. They are chosen specifically for their ignorance of the subject matter. And closely guided in their choice. What happens is no surprise, and not related to the persons, but to the system.
2) Please note that the US is the only country using a jury for patent case. Maybe there is a reason why everybody else is not ...
3) Elsewhere, patent cases are more and more centralised by competent courts. For example in France, patent infringement matters where judged regionally in the past, before 1968, (quite similar feeling than "East Texas"), then centralised in region head capitals, and are now centralised in Paris (2008).
4) As the first trial is troll rubber stamp, that means the appeal will be the first time the case is really considered, meaning a quality of the examination of the case and of the patent trial as a whole.
5) And, yes, let's not forget that the first question is why the patent was delivered at the beginning.
2) Please note that the US is the only country using a jury for patent case. Maybe there is a reason why everybody else is not ...
3) Elsewhere, patent cases are more and more centralised by competent courts. For example in France, patent infringement matters where judged regionally in the past, before 1968, (quite similar feeling than "East Texas"), then centralised in region head capitals, and are now centralised in Paris (2008).
4) As the first trial is troll rubber stamp, that means the appeal will be the first time the case is really considered, meaning a quality of the examination of the case and of the patent trial as a whole.
5) And, yes, let's not forget that the first question is why the patent was delivered at the beginning.
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Well for them the subject matter is abracadabra, they don't know who Diffie is and the other side had an expert as well; who happened to say something completely different.[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=25761191#p25761191:139wnjgb said:
If you can't understand the papers themselves all you have to go on is which witness looked/sounded more reliable of confident. Which is exactly what is wrong with justice in the US.
The right verdict in this case should not be based on who is the more reliable witness; it's in black on white in the papers. And its idiocy to let someone that cannot read and understand those papers decide the matter.
Also I wonder: were the actual articles and presentations entered into evidence? And therefore could a juror with a grasp of math have taken these documents read them and based his conclusions on that instead of relying in the testimony of the expert witnesses?
What if one of the jurors actually is familiar with cryptography and knows that an expert is misrepresenting something, can he share his personal knowledge, not brought in by either party to the deliberations?
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I realize I speak with hindsight which is always a help, but when I read that Newegg was not pushing on the damages amount, I wondered. I thought, well, they are in the room and so may well have a far better read than I do even though the articles were very good. What made me worry was that although to our kind, Whitfield Diffie is a legend, this is not universal. I was really wound up to see that he had been called as a witness. But I kept wondering about people from a culture where computers are not that big a deal, nevermind the development of cryptography. Would they see the legend or think he was some old guy with a haircut they didn't care for?
That concern came before I knew how strongly that jurisdiction leaned in favor of trolls, sorry, patent holders. I litigated for about 25 years and the situation gave me a bad feeling. I was usually playing hard for a win, though. My clients couldn't afford a longer range strategy of losing at trial, then winning the appeal.
This is a nice set up for a strong appeal. Worked for these guys before. May well work again.
That concern came before I knew how strongly that jurisdiction leaned in favor of trolls, sorry, patent holders. I litigated for about 25 years and the situation gave me a bad feeling. I was usually playing hard for a win, though. My clients couldn't afford a longer range strategy of losing at trial, then winning the appeal.
This is a nice set up for a strong appeal. Worked for these guys before. May well work again.
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Ah. I'm just guessing here, given what I know about CIPs: The claims were probably different, but still supported by the original application (after a reexam and a trial, the priority date of the claims should not have been an issue since it's usually straightforward to locate support for claims in the spec). To find out exactly what was added in the CIP you would have to get a hold of the parent application--I'm guessing it was a minor change since the CIP is fairly short. Unfortunately it's so old that it's not available online. It's probably in the court documents for this case though.[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=25759695#p25759695:1xhaj87d said:
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If you made your point then in a way you certainly didn't intend to[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=25763815#p25763815:3gl4exog said:
To explain, using the IQ is completely useless when judging intelligence across the whole sample size. Why? Because even if people suddenly got ten times more intelligent across the bank, the average IQ wouldn't change at all because it's defined that the median of all samples is 100 and we have a sd of 15. Hence a population of Einstein's will have exactly the same IQ (and distribution curve) as anyone else. Also I actually looked up some research before posting the intuitively logical "jury members are all idiots" and lo and behold surprisingly their education level is on average higher than that of the total population. Found that one surprising too.
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[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=25764345#p25764345:380u7ezk said:Voo42[/url]":380u7ezk]If you made your point then in a way you certainly didn't intend to[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=25763815#p25763815:380u7ezk said:
Also I actually looked up some research before posting the intuitively logical "jury members are all idiots" and lo and behold surprisingly their education level is on average higher than that of the total population. Found that one surprising too.
Unfortunately intelligence says nothing about their ability to understand the subject matter. What is needed is people with expertise in the field of the patent on a jury. Sadly I fear those are most likely to be eliminated from the pool.
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True, but it's very dependent on the size of the jury pool in the district where you're called, and how many potential jurors are really available to be empaneled. I was called to be a juror three times in one year a while back, and ended up sitting on 2 juries.[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=25760817#p25760817:1ewuqwz5 said:
Also, many overlapping jurisdictions don't interact with each other regarding jury selection, so even if you're excused from serving on a county court jury, you could still be called to sit for a grand jury, or a federal district jury.
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Yeah. My call to jury duty was grand jury 5 years ago in Albany County, and 2 months ago i got a survey i had to fill out for federal jury duty that would be on record for 5 years. Thats why i said normally.[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=25764691#p25764691:2s8z8585 said:
and i dont think being excused counts towards jury duty, but were the 2 juries you were on at the same level?
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[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=25763727#p25763727:3uqxnapj said:
Are you really asserting that all three of those guys won based on their physical attractiveness?
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Appeal.
How about only being able to file suit in the district where you have been headquartered for 5 years.
How about only being able to file suit in the district where you have been headquartered for 5 years.
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Yep, in front of the same judge, as a matter of fact. I was actually empaneled for all three, but one was declared a mistrial in the middle of voir dire. After that one, I talked to the clerk of courts, and he explained that the pool of eligible jurors in the county was pretty small, so it was pretty common to get called for jury duty every couple of years (though even he was surprised at 3 notices in a twelve-month span). The big lesson I learned from that experience was to avoid living in a county with a large college and no large businesses to offset the student/faculty population.[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=25764727#p25764727:2pyun92g said:
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Honestly, the more I read about the US justice system, the more I realize I'd never start a tech company over there. Here, in Europe, software gets the protection it needs and deserves: copyright. Patent Office employees are highly trained engineers (their title is patent engineer), no invention -> no patent. business models and software -> no patent.
I am starting to wonder if I should set up a patent troll defense company. It would work like this:
Small US company builds a software and wants to sell it through any of the now popular app stores but is a fraid of getting sued to the stoneage if big nasty patent troll comes lurking.
I buy the software, sell the software on the store but give 95% of the revenues to the small US company.
Patent troll comes lurking, threatens me to sue. I give the patent troll the middle finger since the patent is not valid in my juristiction.
Thoughts?
I am starting to wonder if I should set up a patent troll defense company. It would work like this:
Small US company builds a software and wants to sell it through any of the now popular app stores but is a fraid of getting sued to the stoneage if big nasty patent troll comes lurking.
I buy the software, sell the software on the store but give 95% of the revenues to the small US company.
Patent troll comes lurking, threatens me to sue. I give the patent troll the middle finger since the patent is not valid in my juristiction.
Thoughts?
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I think that point there is that Newegg defended the wrong part of the suit... The GCHQ issue should have been attacked more thoroughly, instead Diffie reinforced that he receives a great deal of recognition for public key encryption, even though someone else invented it first, secretly. That doesn't reduce his accomplishments, but it does seem to reinforce TQP's position that Lotus Notes + RC4 may be relevant, but wasn't published before Michael Jones received his patent, and so cannot be used to invalidate his patent.[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=25764025#p25764025:2ypoanl2 said:
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[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=25760157#p25760157:34fytlqn said:
I wouldn't care to speculate on this because I take it from this view, the jury starts from a place of ignorance about the technology and the law. This is by design, neither side would let jurors who are knowledgeable on patent law or technology stay on a jury. From that starting point, both sides have to build a case. The jury hears several days (sometimes weeks) of testimony from experts, is shown exhibits and hears the arguments from counsel on both sides. Without actually having access to the transcripts (which usually are not readily available for awhile) I can't say if the jury ruled reasonably or unreasonably. But I do know you cannot look at a case from our perspective outside the courtroom and properly judge how the jury behaved. The jury is only allowed to consider the case built inside the court room, and then the judge gives them instructions on how to apply the law and how to make sense of what they've been told.
I think I've mentioned I'd like to see this patent quashed on appeal, but that isn't the same as saying the jury got it wrong. We don't know the full story that the jury was presented and without knowing that anyone insulting the jury is actually speaking from ignorance.
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[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=25758179#p25758179:1mmudc5t said:
They don't have to get out of jury duty... anyone that demonstrated a technical understanding of software patents likely wouldn't make it past the jury selection process.
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You are operating under the assumption that dumb is below average. But, as George Carlin said, think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that. If we go with the assumption that anybody less than one standard deviation above median is dumb, then 84% of the population is dumb.[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=25763749#p25763749:2x4y6tue said:
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[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=25760063#p25760063:1s46g9sr said:
Consequently, arguments based on analogies to real property are not persuasive.
When the law creates a monopoly like design patents, the first question to ask is 'why?', and then tailor the monopoly in order to serve those ends. In the case of patents, one aspect of that tailoring is to give them a limited lifetime, which is just one way that they differ from real property.
The purpose of patents is to encourage useful innovation. A "use it or loose it" clause may be superficially appealing because it would seem to counteract the 'ambush' style of trolling. If so, it would be consistent with the above goal, because ambush trolls interfere with useful innovation.
While I am sympathetic to the intent, I think any such rule would either be easily circumvented or create a whole new arena for legal wrangling - for example, could a large company use the rule to effectively force a small practicing entity to license its patents for a pittance?
The real problem in this case seems to be that the jury was unable or unwilling to see that the patent was not actually infringed, regardless of how its holder acted and of whether it was actually a valid patent in the first place.
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[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=25766461#p25766461:23jjmr8k said:
Stupidity is not lack of intelligence. Stupidity is the staunch refusal to use what intelligence you have (even if it's a lot) and pursue a line of thinking that is not supported by logic, evidence, reason or what is smack in front of your face.
Even smart people can act stupid when they let their emotions get the best of their reason. Logic is a soft, calm whispering voice while stupidity is a shrill howler monkey that drowns out all reasonable thought.
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Yeah, I don't subscribe that bullshit.[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=25766461#p25766461:3i7feb9s said:
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They're all missing an just as important fact as well: Intelligence isn't a scalar, but a vector. Or for less math-inclined people: Just because someone is brilliant at something, doesn't mean they aren't incompetent in others.[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=25766497#p25766497:1a496aha said:
That alone makes all those intelligent tests worthless (nothing to say of all the other problems with them) - even worse most people don't understand what intelligence tests measure and how the scaling works either.. as nicely demonstrated in this very thread already.
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[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=25766591#p25766591:1ehigmgl said:
I find the "us vs them" dynamic more interesting than the tools used to wage the battle.
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You'd be sued into the stone age since you would be selling to US customers and the US courts will claim jurisdiction because of a presence in the US through the US version of the store.[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=25765499#p25765499:dk4fcdm0 said:
The only way this will get rectified is if large software companies start castrating their US products and release full functional products in countries with sane patent law. The US will fall behind in development and congress will be forced to act. Unfortunately large software companies invested billion sin acquiring patents and now love to throw them at eachother.
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[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=25764009#p25764009:163mq5xw said:
Peremptory challenges need to be totally eliminated. The idea that the ability to strike jurors "because" somehow improves objectivity is ludicrous. There already is a system in place to strike jurors "for cause" when a demonstrable bias is presented to the judge. Tossing out jurors just because you don't think they'll buy what you're shoveling in no way improves justice.
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[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=25756213#p25756213:1c7bzd89 said:
You mean Seattle, WA, a city that routinely ranks as one of these smartest cities in the country? You think the outcome would be the same as East Texas? http://www.seattle.gov/economicdevelopm ... nkings.htm
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[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=25767025#p25767025:vrsmgwg5 said:
They can claim jurisdiction all they want, it will not make it so. A US company that wants to sue a European one, say Swedish, can not do so in Texas just because the reseller (let us assume Apple) is in the US. Only if the company in question has a US subsidiary can they sue in the US. Even if some of your countrymen (especially the Texans by the looks of it) think that US law applies globally, it just doesn't.
What they could do in the worst case would be to force you to pull the app from the US store, but that would be all.
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[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=25767821#p25767821:1w3pzirv said:
US law applies to anyone selling anything in this country. By being an international entity you would make the lawsuit more complicated, but you wouldn't be shielded from the law.
In your scenario, I would sue the provider of the app store selling the product for patent infringement. Depending on their knowledge of your scheme, they may be monetarily liable, but at minimum I can shut down your distribution.
I would also sue the client receiving 95% of the royalties as an alter-ego of the foreign entity. As a recipient of such a large share of the money, this wouldn't be too hard. They would be monetarily liable.
Finally, I would sue the foreign entity. By doing business in the US the courts have jurisdiction over the foreign entity. If the foreign company chose not to appear, I would take your default and then use the collections process to garnish any assets you have here in the US. This would include bank accounts, accounts payable from credit card providers, accounts payable from the app stores. Finally, I would use the international treaties set up between nations to recover your foreign assets (this last one takes forever (years), but it works)
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[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=25766347#p25766347:2vsufsq9 said:
This never ending discussion about how stupid people are is starting to sound a lot like bigotry.
Anacrophobic hit the nail on the head though, lawyers don't generally want people on the jury who are knowledgeable on the subject matter. They instead prefer to educate the jury on the issues (which is the whole point of the trial). The last thing they want is some software expert to go into the jury room and say "all of that testimony is wrong, let me tell you how it really works."
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[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=25768021#p25768021:3dpdjx1a said:
US law applies to anyone selling anything in this country. By being an international entity you would make the lawsuit more complicated, but you wouldn't be shielded from the law.
In your scenario, I would sue the provider of the app store selling the product for patent infringement. Depending on their knowledge of your scheme, they may be monetarily liable, but at minimum I can shut down your distribution.
I would also sue the client receiving 95% of the royalties as an alter-ego of the foreign entity. As a recipient of such a large share of the money, this wouldn't be too hard. They would be monetarily liable.
Finally, I would sue the foreign entity. By doing business in the US the courts have jurisdiction over the foreign entity. If the foreign company chose not to appear, I would take your default and then use the collections process to garnish any assets you have here in the US. This would include bank accounts, accounts payable from credit card providers, accounts payable from the app stores. Finally, I would use the international treaties set up between nations to recover your foreign assets (this last one takes forever (years), but it works)[/quote]
As I said, you could shut down the US-store selling part. agreed. This could be a small or large problem depending on the nature of the application.
However, if the company doesn't have any US accounts, any credit cards and so an in the US, what is there to collect? How many European companies do you hear about getting sued? There is a reason for this. How come we do not hear about any small indy developer in Europe that gets the attention of the patent trolls? I assure you there are thousands of indy developers on this side of the atlantic. The only ones you hear about are the multinationals but they fall under all jurisdictions and have the resources to deal with it.
I do not know how many small companies there are here compared to there but you'd think that at least some of them would end up being sued, no?
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[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=25765511#p25765511:srb30gz0 said:
IANAL, but for what it's worth...
NewEgg pretty much expected to lose the first battle, and were thinking ahead to the appeals stages.
Since East Texas juries are notorious for their pro-patentee bias (whether for cultural reasons, or because they receive biased guidance from the court, or both, doesn't matter). Losing the initial judgement was part of the plan, like losing a few pawns or a knight to gain a strong position in a chess opening. This was never going to be a "fool's mate".
As I understand it (and I could be mistaken) :
In the appeals process it is generally rather difficult to introduce "new" evidence and perhaps even new arguments for consideration -- the court of appeals is only going to consider whether there was some "error" (on the court's part) in what facts or evidence were accepted or rejected for consideration, how the evidence and arguments were weighed and evaluated, and whether the law was applied correctly.
Therefore, one of NewEgg's primary goals in this exercise would have been to make quite sure that all those really important facts were part of the official court record , and therefore available to them in making their arguments to the court of appeals.
It would have been wonderful if the jurors had appreciated the stature of witnesses like Diffie and Rivest, and Ozzie and Eldridge, and whoever else, and downright fantastic if those jurors had appreciated the significance of those subject authorities' testimony on the nitty-gritty of how their work, and the timeline of events, affected the validity and applicability of the Jones/TQP patent. That's not the way it went -- and no one is terribly surprised.
But the relevant evidence is now officially on the record; the opposing forces have established their positions and the opening shots have been fired -- the skirmishing is over, now the real battle begins -- and NewEgg has ensured it has the ammunition it will need.
.
edit: formatting, clarity
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I'm sorry to hear this news, but I will be shopping at New Egg this holiday season and beyond purely on principle.
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Not sure if anyone posted this yet. From the Wikipedia page on Marshall, TX, the location of the trial:
"An unusual number of patent lawsuits are being filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas which includes Marshall, Tyler, and Texarkana. Marshall has a reputation for plaintiff-friendly juries for the 5% of patent lawsuits that reach trial, resulting in 78% plaintiff wins."
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall,_Texas)
"An unusual number of patent lawsuits are being filed in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas which includes Marshall, Tyler, and Texarkana. Marshall has a reputation for plaintiff-friendly juries for the 5% of patent lawsuits that reach trial, resulting in 78% plaintiff wins."
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshall,_Texas)
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Isn't it a bit weird that they can get away with this?[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=25770871#p25770871:dt91zusu said:
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I don't know what I am talking about, but I am given to believe this is bad so I am going to rage about something I myself do not even see clearly. - 99% of Ars Technica members
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[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=25777673#p25777673:g0oy62tc said:
I disagree with 99% of other posters, so clearly they must all be wrong. - The other 1%
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But that IS the problem. When jurors have no f-kcing idea what they're jury-ing about, this is exactly the type of result you can get. The likelihood of them evening knowing what Diffie-Hellman is, let alone the man's own significance, is practically zero.[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=25764025#p25764025:1sg6qyq8 said:
There is another problem here too. Picking a jury for a murder is easy, and you don't need a lawyer to examine the facts and make a guilty/not guilty proclamation. This goes for theft, arson, rape, and most "natural" crimes, or in other words crimes of a person(s)-on-person(s) quality that can be committed by animals in their natural state, given the tools/opportunity. Technology needs to be juried by people who understand technology and know what the fskc is being discussed. If at any time a juror doesn't understand the discussion, they simply are not qualified to decide guilt. Even the judge should understand comprehensively, and we've seen how cases go when the judge understands (typically this sh0t is thrown the hell out), and when a judge is a hick who couldn't figure out how 1+1 can possibly equal 10, then they've no business presiding a case. Presiding a case when both complex technology and convoluted law is involved relies on their ability to both instruct the jury to the law (it is NEVER as simple as "did he copy"), or indeed to shut down the defense/plaintiff if they start throwing bullshit around.
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[url=http://meincmagazine.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=25756087#p25756087:2vswgvde said:
I'm not so sure about that. Given the lopsidedness of patent laws protecting bad patents not to mention that a trial by jury means that you are pretty much guaranteed to get a group of people who don't know anything about software or patent law. So, the patent is presumed valid unless arguments can be given to show otherwise compounded by the fact that things that are so obvious to us "techies" seem fantastically complex to those who are doctors, or lawyers, or farmers, etc ....
Think about it this way; pretend you are being taught a field that you've never studied before, only really heard of, used in passing if at all, and have a few days to become an expert on it. Now, pretend that you have two teachers teaching their very skewed version of this topic who are vigorously trying to disprove one another while teaching you. Now pretend teacher A has a legal document saying he/she is right and teacher B is trying to prove that legal document is wrong all while trying to teach you about this complex subject that you don't know anything about. See where this can get a bit overwhelming?
Bottom line: the patent system is leagues beyond broken.
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