Judge Makes Lawyers Pay For Frivolous Patent Suit

Gallenod writes "The Denver Post is reporting that the U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld the decision of a Federal judge who threw out and reversed a jury decision in favor of a patent infringement claim and ordered the plaintiff's lawyers to pay the defendants' court costs. U.S. District Senior Judge Richard P. Matsch sanctioned the plaintiff's attorneys for 'cavalier and abusive' misconduct and for having a 'what can I get away with?' attitude during a 13-day patent infringement trial in Denver. With the Appeals Court in agreement, could this case be the 'shot heard round the world' in the revolution against patent trolls?"

Refreshing but...

[pwnies (1034518)]

...if dumb lawsuits slowly disappear, where will I get my humor from on /.?

Re:

[teknopurge (199509)]

in soviet russia.....

humor gets YOU!

You forgot me!

[Weaselmancer (533834)]

...you insensitive clod!

Wow.

[SatanicPuppy (611928)]

I never thought this one would stand up to appeal...The judge threw out the jury verdict and then made the plaintiff pay the court costs. Read that again: he threw out the jury verdict.

And the appeals court backed him up! Holy crap! I guess that's one way to deal with stupid juries and slick lawyers...Get some decent judges who aren't willing to put up with the crap.

Re:Wow.

[DragonWriter (970822)]

If he dismisses the case before it goes to the jury he can be certain that it will be appealed. If he lets the jury come back with a verdict in favor of the plaintiff it likely ends there. When this goes wrong and the jury returns an obviously stupid verdict the judge overrules it knowing that there will be an appeal but the defendant is no worse off than if the case had been dismissed before the jury verdict.

IIRC, the important difference that this glosses over is that if the judge enters a decision prior to the verdict (a judgement as a matter of law), rather than overturning the jury verdict, if there is an appeal and the judge's decision is thrown out on appeal, it can require a empaneling a new jury and trying the case again. Whereas, if the jury returns a verdict and the judge enters a JNOV and that is appealed, the original jury verdict still exists and can be entered (or modified less radically.)

Re:

[phliar (87116)]

Jury is an outrageous abuse of both democracy and legal system. It is basically a competition between lawyers who will manipulate better the ignorant randomly selected civilians.

Only because some citizens do everything possible to not get on a jury. As the old joke goes, juries are made up of people too stupid to get out of jury duty. (How many times have you done your civic duty and served on a jury?)

If we picked our government at random from the citizens things wouldn't be as fucked up as they are tod

Common sense?

[TitusC3v5 (608284)]

Is that you? We've missed you!

No impact on patents

[EmbeddedJanitor (597831)]

Frivolous cases, of all kinds, are often struck down with costs. No reason to think this will have any significant impact on patents, any more than on other laws.

Re:No impact on patents

[MightyMartian (840721)]

Indeed. I don't see why this is all that revolutionary. It was a patent infringement trial, which gets our attention, but it simply appears to be a judge who felt that the jury was out to lunch and that the plaintiff's lawyers were playing games and wasting the court's time. In short, they pissed off a judge even after being given instructions, and he's responded.

Re:No impact on patents

[pete-classic (75983)]

I see you didn't make it to the seventh paragraph of the article:

"In 42 years of litigation, I've never seen a judge set aside a verdict, then award fees to opposing counsel," said local attorney Robert Miller, of Perkins Coie LLP. "There are times when a verdict is set aside, and times when lawyers are sanctioned. But I've never heard of them happening in one case.

-Peter

Re:No impact on patents

[DrEldarion (114072)]

It's significant because typically the lawyers aren't the ones paying the opposing team's costs. Usually, the lawyers always win every trial, because they get paid no matter what. If you punish the lawyers themselves for going ahead with cases they know are frivolous, then you'll start to see far, far fewer lawyers taking frivolous cases.

Re:Loser pays is pad policy

[DaveV1.0 (203135)]

Apparently you have never heard of torts and contingency fee based lawsuits. In fact, the lawyer would jump at that case and do it on a contingency basis because it would be so easy to get at least a settlement.

The fun part for the lawyer would be when he started running commercials stating anyone who was injured by glass in MegaFoodCorp's products should call him to see about joining a class action lawsuit. Hell, just the thought of commercials like that would have MegaFoodCorp shitting their pants and offering high 6 figure settlements. After all, look what happened to Wendy's after the "finger in the chili". They were hurt badly, with sales down for months. And, no one was hurt in that one.

It would go more like this:

Average Joe: I want to sue MegaFoodCorp.
Lawyer: Why?
Average Joe: There was glass in the food I bought from them. It severally cut my throat and stomach, I had to be rushed to hospital for surgery. I missed 3 weeks of work and lost my job. Now I have $80,000 hospital bill that I can't pay. Also since I lost my job my house is in forclosure and my wife left me.
Lawyer: I will take 30% of what we get. *calls MegaFood*
Lawyer: Hi, we are suing you. We have evidence of glass contamination resulting in injury. We will be running commercials nationally to find other victims.
MegaFood Lawyer: We will give you 600,000 shut up, never speak of this again, and go away.
Lawyer: ChaChing!

Re:

[king-manic (409855)]

Insightful my ass: The lose pays system exists in Canada and it has not become a system where only the rich can use the system. There exists programs like Legal-aid which defuse costs to those unable to pay. If you lose a civil suit and must pay costs, the judge has some leeway as to how much can be charged to a person losing a suit. It works in Canada why the hell wouldn't it work in the US? the only losers are Lawyers who would pursue frivolous lawsuits.

Law is a slow beast to change, by design

[newgalactic (840363)]

Law is a slow beast to change, by design. Technology will advance much faster then Law. As a result, we'll continue to see issues like the one we face with "patent infringement". But, Law does eventually change to correct itself. I'm relieved to see that things are working as they should.

Did I miss something?

[jmichaelg (148257)]

Reading the article (gasp!) left me with the impression that the Judge was ticked off because of the attorney's behavior and method of prosecuting their case and not that the Judge thought the patents were bogus. It's as if the plaintiff is getting nailed because it hired a pair of SOB's to press its case.

Perhaps there's a clearer report out there?

Re:Did I miss something?

[esocid (946821)]

Reading the article (gasp!) left me with the impression that the Judge was ticked off because of the attorney's behavior and method of prosecuting their case and not that the Judge thought the patents were bogus. It's as if the plaintiff is getting nailed because it hired a pair of SOB's to press its case.

I believe that is partially the point. They wasted the court's time by pursuing a case that was baseless and had no grounds by simply trying to litigate the other company out of existence. The prosecuting lawyers acting like arrogant fools trying to make a buck in the world of patent trolling. But just for fun here is another link to the story [abajournal.com] and the judge's ruling (PDF) [amlaw.com].

Re:

[Zontar_Thing_From_Ve (949321)]

Reading the article (gasp!) left me with the impression that the Judge was ticked off because of the attorney's behavior and method of prosecuting their case and not that the Judge thought the patents were bogus. It's as if the plaintiff is getting nailed because it hired a pair of SOB's to press its case.

I read the same article. That's not how I read it. There were apparently 2 problems.
1) The lawsuit was frivolous and that caused the judge to set aside the jury verdict. The jury blew it, but they us

Separate the Patent from the Lawyers

[CajunArson (465943)]

The article notes that the technology here is for guiding scalpels to do precision work on brain tumors, so the subject matter is highly technical in nature. I'd like to see what the actual patents involved are before making a judgment. This case might have come down to the (apparently off the wall) behavior of the lawyers, even if the plaintiff may have had a legitimate case.
    One thing you have to remember is that (with rare exceptions) the court is only going to go with the arguments that each side presents. It is not the judge's or jury's job to go out and collect evidence and make up a decision, it is instead their job to decide the case based on the evidence actually submitted and arguments actually made by opposing parties (this is called the "adversarial system"). Even if the plaintiff may have had a case, if these lawyers went out and did a completely shitty job of presenting it, presented no real evidence, and made no real legal arguments, then they can and will lose the case. The extra sanctions here are quite unusual, and go beyond the negative consequences of just not doing a good job of lawyering. I think that these "respected litigators" were probably ignoring the judge's instructions and committing other infractions that REALLY pissed the judge off. On appeal, the court does NOT hear new facts, so the appeals court went with the factual record and judgment of the District Court judge on this one.

Judge Matsch in the news

[kalpol (714519)]

Judge Matsch was the presiding judge at Timothy McVeigh's trial, if anyone remembers.

Judge Make Lawyers Pay For Frivolous Patent Suit

[sm62704 (957197)]

Me make fun of illiterate editors

Re:Judge Make Lawyers Pay For Frivolous Patent Sui

[flyingsquid (813711)]

Me make fun of illiterate editors

Why you make fun of article? Hulk work hard on article! Not easy. Many long words. Hulk hands big, computer keys tiny!

Narrow the scope perhaps

[Linker3000 (626634)]

"could this case be the 'shot heard round the world' in the revolution against patent trolls?"

Not until/unless (take your pick) US legal jurisdiction extends round the world - on an official level!

Judge Matsch's opinion and order

[Anita Coney (648748)]

United States District Court,
D. Colorado.
MEDTRONIC NAVIGATION, INC., Medtronic Sofamor Danek, Inc., Sofamor Danek Holdings, Inc., St. Louis University, and Trustees of Dartmouth College, Plaintiffs,
v.
BRAINLAB MEDIZINISCHE COMPUTERSYSTEMS GMBH, Brainlab AG, Brainlab USA, Inc., and Brainlab, Inc., Defendants.
Civil Action No. 98-cv-01072-RPM.
Feb. 12, 2008.

Anthony Lawrence Giacomini, Sean Connelly, Daniel M. Reilly, Hoffman, Reilly, Pozner & Williamson, L.L.P., Conor Fitzgerald Farley, Lee Frederick Johnston, Holland & Hart, LLP, Denver, CO, J. James Li, Vera M. Elson, McDermott Will & Emery, LLP, Palo Alto, CA, Krista Leigh Vink Venegas, McDermott, Will & Emery, Los Angeles, CA, Kurt A. Luther, Leslie I. Bookoff, Finnegan, Henderson, Farabow Garrett & Dunner, Washington, DC, David W. Harlan, Senniger Powers, St. Louis, MO, for Plaintiffs.

James Edward Hartley, Holland & Hart, LLP, Denver, CO.

Jay R. Campbell, John J. Del Col, Joshua M. Ryland, Renner, Otto, Boisselle & Sklar, LLP, Kyle B. Fleming, Cleveland, OH, L. Andrew Cooper, Marc David Flink, Thomas H. Shunk, Baker & Hostetler, Denver, CO, for Defendants.

ORDER FOR AWARD OF ATTORNEY FEES AND COSTS TO BRAINLAB DEFENDANTS

RICHARD P. MATSCH, Senior District Judge.
*1 The defendants (collectively BrainLAB) seek to recover all of their attorney fees and costs incurred in the defense of this suit for patent infringement, contending that it was filed and prosecuted not to protect the technology protected by the patent claims but to drive a competitor out of a market for an emerging technology for application in the navigation of surgical instruments in procedures requiring exquisite precision, as in the removal of a brain tumor. Medtronic Navigation, Inc. (Medtronic) and its predecessor Surgical Navigation Technologies, Inc. (SNT) marketed variations of a device called "StealthStation" in competition with BrainLAB's "VectorVision" devices. The accused devices can be described as passive optical systems in contrast to an active acoustic system. That contrasting technology was at the core of this case.

BrainLAB contends that it is entitled to fees and costs because this is an exceptional case justifying relief under 35 U.S.C. 285; that plaintiffs' lead counsel should be held responsible under 28 U.S.C. 1927 and that the Court should grant the motion in the exercise of its inherent authority to protect the integrity of the processes of adjudication. Upon reflection, this Court finds and concludes that the rulings on the claims construction issues adjudicated the fairly debatable issues in this case and that the manner in which plaintiffs' counsel continued the prosecution of the claims through trial was in disregard of their obligations as officers of the court. The fairness of the adversary system of adjudication depends upon the assumption that trial lawyers will temper zealous advocacy of their client's cause with an objective assessment of its merit and be candid in presenting it to the court and to opposing counsel. When that assumption has been contradicted by a trial record of conduct reflecting a winning is all that is important approach to the trial process, the court has a duty to redress this resulting harm to the opposing party.

BrainLAB has made a plausible argument that this entire civil action was frivolous. The chronology of the suit must be viewed against the backdrop of developments in the field of image-guided surgical navigation technology.

In approximately 1991, SNT began development of an image-guided surgical navigation product. SNT worked with Dr. Richard Bucholz of St. Louis University. SNT also collaborated with Dr. Peter Heilbrun of the University of Utah. In 1994, SNT obtained rights to the application for patent that issued as U.S. Patent No. B1 5,383,454 to Bucholz (the 454 Patent or the Bucholz Patent). The claims of that patent relate to a system that depends on the activation of sound emitters on a surgical instrument and the pati

Could this case be the 'shot' against trolls?

[DRJlaw (946416)]

Simply put, no.

"After the court issued its claim construction rulings, Medtronic's counsel proceeded cavalierly, with reckless indifference to the merits of Medtronic's infringement claims," Matsch wrote."

"Matsch said the McDermott lawyers willfully ignored his rulings on claim construction in their arguments before a Colorado jury in 2005. In patent cases, those orders define the scope of the patents and, therefore, what the plaintiff's lawyers can argue for infringement."

"The judge said in his Tuesday ruling that while McDermott paid lip service to the orders, the lawyers improperly pointed the jury toward Medtronic's broad reading of the patents. McMahon also made comparisons of the two companies' products, the StealthStation and VectorVision, instead of comparing Medtronic's patents to BrainLAB's product, "contrary to established law," Matsch wrote."

Summary for lawyers [law.com]

In the anatomy of the typical patent case, there is

1. The filing of a suit
2. Discovery
3. A so-called "Markman hearing" to resolve disputes between the litigants as to the meaning of disputed terms or phrases within the patent claims
4. Summary judgment motions
5. A trial (bench or jury)
6. Post-verdict motions
7. Appeal

If you read through the judge's ruling, or even the law.com article, it's apparent that the judge believed that the trial was unnecessary, and that the case could and should have been resolved by summary judgment (and any subsequent appeal). If the case had ended at this point, there would likely be no talk of sanctions or the like. Therefore the answer to the question at the end of the summary is no.

All the rest relates to the judge's determination that 1. the platintiff's attorneys misrepresented the state of the case in their briefs opposing the motions for summary judgment that would have ended the trial phase and 2. the plaintiff's attorneys disregarded both his rulings in case and unequivocable legal standards for what does and does not constitute patent infringement.

To use bad sports analogies, this ruling is the red card or the technical foul called on the field, not a warning that the team should never have attempted to play the game.

Disbar Frivolous Lawyers

[Doc Ruby (173196)]

The judge should have been able to set against the frivolous lawyers a "strike" that would add up towards disbarment if they did it again. Given repeated frivolity found by courts, lawyers should get a warning, a fine, a suspension and finally disbarment as the strikes accumulate over time, perhaps resetting once a year or 5 or 10 or 20 if not repeated. Perhaps several strikes assigned at once when the frivolity is really serious and the judge wants to push them towards disbarment, or out completely.

Then lawyers will be a lot more careful about flooding the courts with these worthless cases just because they have nothing better to do (and the client pays). That's their sworn job anyway, as "officers of the court", but they don't honor that oath without teeth when they break it - they're lawyers. And for those who see good cases get rejected just because they're not open/shut for lazy lawyers, that kind of refusal is also grounds for suing lawyers; suits in which the judges typically look very critically on the lawyers who should be staying out of trouble. Maybe that counterbalance needs stronger teeth, too, but there's certainly plenty of ways to get these lawyers to respect the merits of a case, whether trying or refusing it.

He did it because the lawyers suckered the jury

[Ollabelle (980205)]

I read a bit of background on this http://www.law.com/jsp/article.jsp?id=1202990197454 [law.com] and noted that the judge in pre-trial motions restricted the construction of the patent claim to fairly narrow grounds. But in the trial, the lawyers ignored that restriction and, among other things, showed the jury how the two competing products were similar rather than showing how the competing product used their client's patent. If effect, the jury based their reasoning on improper evidence. The judge rightfully tossed the verdict and slammed the lawyers for their deceitfulness.

Now, where's my violin?

Confusion over Judge's conduct in the trial

[MobyDisk (75490)]

After presiding over the 13-day trial, Matsch wrote that McDermott's lawyers not only disregarded his instructions during the trial but argued "with full awareness that their case was without merit."

(IANAL). If the lawyers disregarded the judge's instructions, shouldn't the judge have found them in contempt of court and declared a mistrial? It seems like waiting until the jury came to a decision and then overturning it doesn't result in a fair verdict.

Re:

[plague3106 (71849)]

A judge can do that if he feels the jury made a wrong decision. I'm not sure if its only in civil cases (which this is) or in criminal cases.. although I think in criminal cases they can only throw out an improper guilty verdict, not an innocent one.

Re:

[SatanicPuppy (611928)]

It's pretty much only when the jury comes to a conclusion that is in opposition with the known facts of the case, though the whole thing can be tossed because of irregularities in the conduct of the lawyers as well.

The judges also have a large amount of say in the verdict, though there they have to follow precedent and the law; if a jury tries to award an absurdly high (or low) amount of money (based on precedent) the judge can throw out or modify the verdict within the scope of the law.

Re:Why?

[ridgecritter (934252)]

Judges have broad authority to set aside or nullify a jury verdict. Usually called "judgement non obstante veredicto", or judgement notwithstanding the verdict. If the judge strongly believes the jury got the facts and/or the applicable law very badly wrong, a jnov can be entered. It's unusual, as juries are accorded very strong cred as the triers of fact.

Re:And now...

[pheared (446683)]

How is that the same? The small label wouldn't be "patent trolling" since they would have a legitimate claim. They also wouldn't be displaying a let's see what we can get away with attitude. The judge made the kind of impartial corrective action they are supposed to make. If anything, this sets precedent for less frivolous lawsuits.

Re:And now...

[sm62704 (957197)]

You commented kind of on what I was thinking. When is someone going to get hit with a suit for abusing copyright? After all, we can outwait patents, which only last 20 years. Copyrights are forever, or as close to forever as can matter to anyone still breathing.

Re:And now...

[milsoRgen (1016505)]

If this is held up through appeals,

That is exactly what worries me, as FTA:

"Judge Matsch does some things that are out there, but he's usually right. Very infrequently is he reversed on appeal."

It says he is rarely revesred... But the "out there" part certainly gives me pause for thought.
However this guy has done some cool things, like halting clean dvd edits [findlaw.com], he was involved in the McViegh trail [cnn.com] and even the Kobe Bryant trial among other things [nytimes.com] .

Re:

[pizzutz (1175903)]

If this is held up through appeals,

That is exactly what worries me, as FTA:

Also from TFA:

"The U.S. 10th Circuit Court of Appeals saw it differently and affirmed Matsch's decision to overturn the verdict."

This has already gone through the appeals court. While they could go to the supreme court, I suspect it's done and over.

Re:And now...

[HeronBlademaster (1079477)]

What's so cool about halting clean dvd edits? Do you find it morally objectionable to remove morally objectionable content from movies?

For example, I like the Matrix trilogy, but there is a completely unnecessary sex scene in the second movie. Is it your intent to force all who would wish to watch the movie to view that scene? Even "fast forwarding" still gives you glimpses, interrupts the flow of the movie, and requires either good timing or a quick backtrack-rewind to resume the movie after the scene.

Many movies are like this. If I want to see a movie without what many consider objectionable material, why are movie studios fighting this? Wouldn't they be better off releasing a clean version of the movie themselves, and keep the profit? But since they refuse to do this, then I do not think that there is anything wrong with editing a movie to clean it up.

More to the point, networks and cable stations do this regularly to air movies on TV. Rather than prohibit *other* people from editing movies, movie studios should do what they do for networks - provide a license to edit the movie.

Prohibiting things like this does nothing but reduce movie studios' monetary gains. I, for one, won't see movies that have objectionable material unless I can either buy an edited version or see it on TV (where it is edited anyway).

I'm not saying that someone should be able to buy one copy of a DVD, edit it, and sell dozens or hundreds of burned copies. I propose that every edited copy be sold attached to an original - that way the studios get their sales money. The price could be somewhat higher than the price of the original alone, to compensate the editors for their work. Additionally, whoever does the editing should need a license (or some other form of permission) from the movie studio for each movie they edit.

Prohibiting the editing of movies altogether is not the answer.

Re:

[milsoRgen (1016505)]

What's so cool about halting clean dvd edits? Do you find it morally objectionable to remove morally objectionable content from movies?

Yes I do find that objectionable. I find intolerance of natural human functions in the media objectionable. If you can't handle it, don't watch it.

Prohibiting the editing of movies altogether is not the answer.

Yes it is the answer. Get over yourself.

Re:

[VisceralLogic (911294)]

What's so cool about halting clean dvd edits? Do you find it morally objectionable to remove morally objectionable content from movies?

Yes I do find that objectionable. I find intolerance of natural human functions in the media objectionable. If you can't handle it, don't watch it.

Why shouldn't people be able to watch it as they want to watch it?

Prohibiting the editing of movies altogether is not the answer.

Yes it is the answer. Get over yourself.

Let me guess... you're also against fast-forward, rewind, ad-skip in TiVo, and anything and everything else that allows consumers to watch content as they wish to do so?

Re:And now...

[milsoRgen (1016505)]

Why shouldn't people be able to watch it as they want to watch it?

They should watch it as the people who created intended it, first and foremost.

Let me guess... you're also against fast-forward, rewind, ad-skip in TiVo, and anything and everything else that allows consumers to watch content as they wish to do so?

No go ahead and watch it as you will with the tools you have at your own disposal, but I am not going to be happy with companies making a profit off of someone elses IP that they have butchered just to pander to the Ned Flanders of the world.

Lastly perhaps the issue at hand is why anyone would find human sexuality so offensive they need to engage in censorship? Is it a religious thing? Ashamed of your own body/sexuality thing? I have trouble understanding it. Perhaps that's why it seems so outrageous to me.

I realize my personal stance is a bit on the other extreme end, what consenting people decide to do is fine by me. Wanna hunt humans and make it a televised sport? Fine by me. Want graphic all male orgies to go with that 6 o'clock news cast? Fine by me. The day people understand that violence and sex are part of the human condition and nature as whole will be the day we can really start moving forward as society.

Re:And now...

[milsoRgen (1016505)]

They all make a profit from someone else's IP.

Yes but they don't edit the product without consent from the owners of the IP. And even then it's for time allotment, commercial interruptions or intermissions.

What exactly is objectionable about me buying a copy of the movie making changes to it and selling that changed copy for a profit?

A.) The fact you are potentially destroying the artistic vision set forth by the creators of the conent.
B.) The issue at hand was editing in regards to 'moral' objections. Which was nothing more than pandering to religious types that attempt to engage in a war mainstream culture.

You're attempting to argue that is someones right to watch this edited, family friendly media. And sure, I suppose they do have that right. But the sooner we ditch these archaic concepts ingrained in the major monotheistic religions the better off we will be.

Re:And now...

[zmooc (33175)]

So half the movie is about killing various people, people that are locked up in a slimy bath for their entire life and people's life being controlled by robots and you actually dare complaining that the sex scene is "unneccessary" while all those other disgusting parts aren't?

What is wrong with you? Do you hate to be distracted by love while watching violence? To me you appear like a very, very sick person.

Re:And now...

[hedwards (940851)]

What's so cool about halting clean dvd edits? Do you find it morally objectionable to remove morally objectionable content from movies?

For example, I like the Matrix trilogy, but there is a completely unnecessary sex scene in the second movie. Is it your intent to force all who would wish to watch the movie to view that scene? Even "fast forwarding" still gives you glimpses, interrupts the flow of the movie, and requires either good timing or a quick backtrack-rewind to resume the movie after the scene.

This sort of things is one of the things that I wanted the Blu-ray and HD-DVDs to provide. Basically the content would still be there, but people that didn't want to view it could change a setting and those things would be skipped. Kind of like a V-Chip, but far less likely to make mistakes. Bonus points if there were a way for individuals to create their own cut points to avoid things they're uncomfortable with. I've got a few things myself that I don't want to see in movies.

It really does seem like a fair compromise, people that don't want to view the material would have an easy way of avoiding it, and the people that do could do so. It would also make it quite a bit easier to separate out the "please, won't somebody, think of the children" crowd from the people that just don't want their own kids watching it.

If they really wanted to buff up the bottom line, they could probably make a feature which would do the opposite, skip all the wholesome stuff and get straight to the T&A and B&G.

Re:And now...

[orgelspieler (865795)]

I don't care whether you find the sex scene objectionable or not. Copyright law does not have an exception to the "derivative works" clause that allows for such modifications. Modified versions reduce the marketability of officially edited versions released for other purposes. Take Sex and the City, for instance. There are several scenes that were critical to the plot of an episode, but were "objectionable" to certain puritanical people (who apparently wield an inordinate amount of power over the FCC). Consequently, they shot several scenes twice, basically anything with breasts or a lot of cursing. One shot was for DVD and HBO, and the alternative version was for the whiners. Though, if you ask me, anybody old enough to watch Sex and the City is old enough to see the sex scenes and the occasional tit. Anyway, it allowed the writers and directors some flexibility over how the episodes were sliced and diced.

Returning to the Matrix: did you see how the original Matrix was edited for TV? Instead of "give you the finger" it was "Why don't I give you the flipper." WTF does that even mean? If I were the W bros. I'd have been a bit ticked. Also the sex scene in th sequel was tastefully done, and I thought it added a bit of gravity and beauty to what would have otherwise been a ridiculous rave scene.

Re:And now...

[thePowerOfGrayskull (905905)]

What's so cool about halting clean dvd edits? Do you find it morally objectionable to remove morally objectionable content from movies?

Ummm... the fact that Clean/Family flix - who held no rights in the movies they were redistributing - was redistributing copyrighted material for money in direct violation of the copyright holders' rights?

If you find the content morally objectionable, how is it more moral to buy an edited version from someone who has no right to sell it? It seems to me that the best thing you can do is vote with your wallet and not buy it.

And if that is too extreme for your tests, I respectfully suggest that you don't see that content as nearly so "objectionable" as you make it out to be.

Wouldn't they be better off releasing a clean version of the movie themselves, and keep the profit? But since they refuse to do this, then I do not think that there is anything wrong with editing a movie to clean it up.

Yes, I'm sure they would. But that's their choice -- and they're under no obligation to give away their work for another company to profit off of, if they choose not to do it.

Prohibiting the editing of movies altogether is not the answer.

The courts prohibited only using copyrighted material without permissions, which is after all what copyright is for. Whether the owner of the copyright wishes to allow a company to PAY for the rights to do what Clean Flix wanted to do is entirely up to the owner(s). The court is quite correct in stating that it has no say in it.

Re:

[Jherek Carnelian (831679)]

Indeed, that ruling was just an end-run around the first sale doctrine.

Those clean-edits people were doing the effective equivalent of buying a book, blacking out certain sentences and pulling out specific pages and then reselling the book.

Just because a new storage medium inherently prevents direct alteration should not be an excuse to prevent a legitimate buyer from doing something that produces the same end result.

That is not correct.

[pavon (30274)]

Try purchasing one copy of a book, re-printing it under a new binding with only the content you don't want to censor, then selling it in large quantity -- and see how long you can get away with it.

For every DVD that Cleanflix sold, they purchased an original copy at full price. The issue the directors/producers had with them was that they were changing the movies, not that they weren't getting paid.

Re:out is i?

[hedwards (940851)]

Unfortunately, right now, "Out there" could very well mean exercising some degree of intelligence and common sense.

With over 200 years of laws stacking on top of each other, stacked upon a constitution which was written vaguely in places and ammended nearly 30 times, which borrows some concepts from completely outside of those sources, it is definitely possible to justify most positions with enough technicalities.

The 2nd ammendment is a good example.

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

That is taken by many people to mean that it is unconstitutional to regulate firearms. But the word firearm doesn't appear anywhere in it, nor does a word which logically extends there unambiguously. One could easily say that rights from individuals owning muskets to hydrogen bombs and mutated anthrax for duck hunting and right to form up a militia to overthrow the federal government are protected there. Almost, if not all, people will find at least one thing in that list which they don't think people should be allowed to own or possess. But those are all things which could be inferred to be protected if one wasn't utilizing enough common sense.

In this case, it sounds to me like the judge got tired of the plaintiff's attorneys disregarding courtroom procedure and tainting the results. I've often felt that judges weren't going anywhere near far enough to enforce profesional conduct in the courtroom. I'm a little bit surprised that he didn't bother to reference rule 13, IIRC.

&Standard IANAL clause;

Re:And now...

[SatanicPuppy (611928)]

The exact opposite is what happened here; a bunch of slick, highly paid lawyers smooth-talked the jury, and then the judge tossed the jury verdict and stuck the plaintiff with the costs for their litigation.

This kind of thing is most common when the lawyers get out of control...If the judge decides that the lawyers are running amok, they can throw the whole thing out and charge them with contempt or whatever. There is some precedent in also tossing cases where the juries decision contravenes the material facts of the case, but that's a much greyer area, though it has been upheld more often than not.

Re:And now...

[julesh (229690)]

Imagine the little record label suing Sony for re-listing their catelog without permission, and Sony simply out-spends them, then forces them out of business by having them pay for the legal costs?

Funnily enough, you don't hear about this happening very often in the UK, which has a loser-normally-pays system (rather than loser occasionally pays, as in the US). Now this could be because UK law has a substantially different culture to the US (although I'm far from convinced that this is true) or it could be because the threat is blown up out of all proportion by those who have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. Here's a suggestion: google tort reform astroturf [google.co.uk]. I highly recommend the first link that comes up, and some of the others are good too.

Re:And now...

[MacDork (560499)]

then forces them out of business by having them pay for the legal costs?

The plaintiff's lawyers are being ordered to pay, not the plaintiff.

Re:

[chimpo13 (471212)]

As long as the 21st Amendment doesn't get infringed upon. No one cares about the others.