Re: mplayer, the time has come
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. And like I said, the issue here is NOT penalties, its
equitable injunction. Debian and others would be barred from using the
patent. Find me a case where the "big corporation" goes after the "little
guys" for any sizable money damages.
In the mean time, I figure I have access to some of the United State's
brightest legal minds on the issue of patents (yes, I understand the irony
here... believe me when I say that my fellow patent students got a very
different experience than most as my professor and I yelled at eachother
about the merits of software patents) at my finger tips... so I've bounced a
question over to her as to this treble damage issue. We'll see if she has
anything to say about what it means to "willfully" violate a patent. 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...
-Sean
--
Sean Kellogg
2nd Year - University of Washington School of Law
GPSS Senator - Student Bar Association
Editor-at-Large - National ACS Blog [http://www.acsblog.org]
c: 206.498.8207 e: skellogg@u.washington.edu
So, let go
...Jump in
...Oh well, what you waiting for?
...it's all right
...'Cause there's beauty in the breakdown
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