On Thu, Feb 24, 2005 at 10:26:53PM -0800, Sean Kellogg wrote: > On Thursday 24 February 2005 10:08 pm, Andrew Suffield wrote: > > That's always a joke. These things are meaningless to big > > corporations; patent penalties are just a slap on the wrist to > > them. Their only significant application is when big corporations with > > big mobs of lawyers go after little guys. > > I don't believe that Microsoft's $500,000,000 judgment in the Eola case was a > slap on the wrist. I do. That barely scratched their "get-out-of-court-free" cash fund, which they stoked up precisely so they can effectively ignore such judgements; it numbers in the tens of billions in liquid capital. It certainly didn't hurt their position any. > Find me a case where the "big corporation" goes after the "little > guys" for any sizable money damages. RIAA, for one. It's often used as a form of lawyer terrorism; they don't want money, they want to scare people. > I'll > preface it now, as I will again when I report on what she says, this is not > legal advice and should not be construed as such, I am not a lawyer yet and > she is not acting as any sort of legal counsel to this list, Debian, or any > poor developer who may cross paths with this e-mail while doing a google > search on '$500,000,000' + 'treble'. > > *sigh* > I hate having to write that all the time... We hate reading it, too. -- .''`. ** Debian GNU/Linux ** | Andrew Suffield : :' : http://www.debian.org/ | `. `' | `- -><- |
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