Judge Makes Lawyers Pay For Frivolous Patent Suit 263
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?"
Why? (Score:2, Interesting)
Aha, first post?
No impact on patents (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:And now... (Score:4, Interesting)
Did I miss something? (Score:5, Interesting)
Perhaps there's a clearer report out there?
Re:And now... (Score:5, Interesting)
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:And now... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Separate the Patent from the Lawyers (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Did I miss something? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Why? (Score:1, Interesting)
This, and the Judges discretion during sentencing, are very, very crucially important checks and balances in our justice system.
Mandatory sentences, three-strike laws, and other such populist "think of the children" bullcrap removes those checks and balances, so now you have people going to jail for 25 years for jaywalking, and maybe we can even return to the era of all-white juries sentencing every nigger that comes in front of them.
GO TEAM DEMOCRAT LETS SAVE AMERICA WITH HOPE AND CHANGE
Disbar Frivolous Lawyers (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Jack Thompson Your days are numbered (Score:2, Interesting)
(just kidding)
Still there is proof he is useless http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Thompson_(attorney) [wikipedia.org]
Re:And now... (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
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:out is i? (Score:4, Interesting)
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.
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;