Microsoft Trial Misconduct Cost $40 Million 231
SpuriousLogic writes "The judge who banned Microsoft from selling its Word document program in the US due to a patent violation tacked an additional $40 million onto a jury's $200 million verdict because the software maker's lawyers engaged in trial misconduct, court records reveal. In a written ruling, Judge Leonard Davis, of US District Court for Eastern Texas, chastised Microsoft's attorneys for repeatedly misrepresenting the law in presentations to jurors.'Throughout the course of trial Microsoft's trial counsel persisted in arguing that it was somehow improper for a non-practicing patent owner to sue for money damages,' Davis wrote. The judge cited a particular incident in which a Microsoft lawyer compared plaintiff i4i, Inc. to banks that sought bailout money from the federal government under the Troubled Asset Relief Program. 'He further persisted in improperly trying to equate i4i's infringement case with the current national banking crisis implying that i4i was a banker seeking a "bailout,"' Davis said."
Damnit! I'm torn! (Score:5, Insightful)
On one hand, it's fun to see Microsoft getting punished, on the other, I happen to agree with Microsoft's argument with regard to patent trolls.
I think Microsoft might have made out better this way anyway. Arguing to invalidate the patent could have hurt them and their practice of patent filing and arguing Bilski could have really blown the lid off of things. In short, they more or less had to defend "software patents" while at the same time finding a legal argument against the plaintiff.
Dumb law, dumber jury and dumbest lawyers (Score:5, Insightful)
Why are American Judges demanding so much money? (Score:5, Insightful)
$2 million for mp3s, $40 million for a bad argument.
Do these judges send a $10 million bill to toilet paper companies when they have to wipe their backside?
Re:Fol de Rol (Score:4, Insightful)
How should I picture this? MS stopped paying, so instead of trolling for them we're trolling against them now?
Re:Why are American Judges demanding so much money (Score:3, Insightful)
$40m is still about a million copies of Windows to sell... that's like losing all the revenue stream from sales to a major city.
Re:Fol de Rol (Score:5, Insightful)
the law is on their side
Extending the "Extensible markup language" seems like a no-brainer. It is in the name of XML!!! And I thought patents had to be non obvious !
Not really sure on which side the law is on that one. That said, explaining this to a judge might prove to be a complex situation.
Penalize client? (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't know a lot about the intricacies of the legal system, but why is the client penalized for the behavior or mistakes of the attorney? Does the client dictate or approve every word that comes out of the attorneys mouth in court? If the attorney used misleading wording then shouldn't the attorney be censured or fined and not have that penalty included in the actual judgment?
Maybe this isn't applicable at all, but what if an attorney represented someone guilty of committing a crime, and the judge tacked a few extra years onto the sentence because he didn't like the attorney or what they said?
Re:Damnit! I'm torn! (Score:3, Insightful)
On one hand, it's fun to see Microsoft getting punished, on the other, I happen to agree with Microsoft's argument with regard to patent trolls.
Yes, but if you want a law changed, the proper venue is through your lobbyists in Washington DC, not in the courtroom.
As you said, the MS lawyers could have argued on a broader scale, but chose not to. Guess why.
Re:Why are American Judges demanding so much money (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't have points to mod you up, but the judges do need to have their heads and their asses examined.
In this case, I completely disagree.
Microsoft made the argument that a company having a patent but not producing anything shouldn't be able to ask for monetary damages. That is wrong. I can make an invention even though I know clearly that I don't have the money, talent and intention to turn this into a product that can be sold at profit. If I am better at inventing than at marketing it would be ideal to invent things and sell those inventions to others who are better at marketing. The fact that Microsoft uses the invention proves that it is worth money and that damages should be paid.
This is of course completely independent of the question whether the patent should be invalidated, or whether Microsoft is infringing on the patent. It is quite possible that a court outside Texas would have judged in favor of Microsoft, and stupid software patents should be (but are not) invalid, whether they are owned by Microsoft or used to extract money from Microsoft. But that wasn't what the judge complained about: He complained that Microsoft repeatedly told the jury to not award damages for reasons that were not in agreement with the law.
And since they tried to influence a court decision that was about $200 million, making them pay 20 percent for trying to convince the jury to do something that is clearly wrong seems fine.
Re:Why are American Judges demanding so much money (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why are American Judges demanding so much money (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Damnit! I'm torn! (Score:2, Insightful)
I happen to agree with Microsoft's argument with regard to patent trolls.
Which part? Equating the patent troll i4i with a banker looking for TARP bailout money sounds a lot like a Wookie Defense to me. It seem that Microsoft's attorneys should have simply stuck with the facts at hand. Does i4i have an implementation of their patent? Have they ever? And, most importantly, was their patent sufficiently obvious to someone skilled in the art? Remember, the USPTO doesn't have the final say in whether or not a patent is enforceable. The courts, however, do.
MIcrosoft's attorneys need to stop playing silly games and start litigating their case.
This. Their argument was, essentially, that "we infringed, but the law is wrong." This is as effective as Tenenbaum's argument "yes, I distributed your copyrighted songs, but the law is wrong." Fine argument for the legislature, horrible argument for a court.
Whoever wins... (Score:5, Insightful)
We lose.
Re:Dumb law, dumber jury and dumbest lawyers (Score:3, Insightful)
Instead of trying to educate the jury that the whole point of "Extensible" markup language is to extend and customize the files the lawyers were pulling stunts.
Please bear in mind that this case was being conducted in Eastern Texas.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_District_Court_for_the_Eastern_District_of_Texas [wikipedia.org]
This court has long history of being friendly to patent trolls because of the aging population who will make up the jury and Pro-IP jugdes. Do you really want to try and teach a bunch of 50-60 year olds XML in front of a judge who is bias in favour of the opposing lawyer? Chances are the judge himself has no idea about XML, and any time you brought up what it was to educate the jury as to what it was he would assume that knowledge was not needed to decide on this case since he did not understand it either and probably has no desire to learn.
While the technology the underlies this patent may be blisteringly obvious to anyone who is technologically inclined, patent troll choose this courtroom and this judge specifically to get a non-technical jury who will have no idea what is obvious. This then brings the case to who can get the most convincing expert witness to the completely clueless, the game the patent troll is most adept at.
This is a problem with putting so much power in the hands of the people, if the people also have the right to remain uneducated then you are more likely to get poor outcomes in decisions that can only be made by people who are highly educated.
To dredge up every slashdotters favourite, the car analogy: Would you let someone who could not drive become a driving test examiner?
Not that I am saying that we should abandon juries or democracy, but they both have this inherent problem that will need to be addressed: More and more of what affects our lives can only be understood with years of study and is therefore outside the scope of general knowledge for most of the population.
Re:Dumb law, dumber jury and dumbest lawyers (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Damnit! I'm torn! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Fol de Rol (Score:3, Insightful)
Just because XML is eXtendible, doesn't mean that a particular idea implemented through that extension isn't non-trivial (lots of negations, I know...) and hence, patentable.
This is like saying that sailing and navigating a ship was a known skill at the time of James Cook, so his discovery of New Zealand and Australia aren't really discoveries at all. But in fact, he used a lot of skills and was a talented navigator (often stated as the best of his time) to successfully perform his journeys and draw maps that were used for centuries after!
Re:Damnit! I'm torn! (Score:3, Insightful)
Well how about the fact that the company is in Canada and the lawsuit is taking place in Texas. You gotta be kidding, you seriously think this is legit? This company is a parasite. Even its "product" is just some crapware which plugs into word and it's suspect that there is even a product, it looks like they made that page simply for the court case.
First of all, what difference does it make if the company HQ is based in Canada or not? Secondly these are all your assumptions, and you have no data nor proof backing up your theories. With all due respect brother, your assumptions are useless to me and all others whom demand empirical data. Right now you're just trolling, and using words such as "parasite" in such rhetorical manner is not going to help your case.
Re:Fol de Rol (Score:2, Insightful)
Extending the "Extensible markup language" seems like a no-brainer. It is in the name of XML!!! And I thought patents had to be non obvious !
A common misconception on Slashdot is that patents are solely defined by their titles. The mere fact that XML has the word "Extensible" doesn't mean that anything you could ever write to extend it is therefore obvious. Consider - once the internal combustion engine was invented, did that make all engine improvements obvious? Fuel injectors? Catalytic converters? How about the new sparkplug-less engines?
Re:Damnit! I'm torn! (Score:3, Insightful)
you can't be serious. an XML authoring tool? there were tons of such tools a decade ago.
Please understand my point of view. I'm not saying that this is right nor wrong. If you ask me software patents are one of the most worthless products of mankind. However in the current system I don't see why some should be allowed to file suit, and other not. I don't see why MS should be allowed to hold ridiculous [businessinsider.com] patents and others shouldn't. So don't try to convince me that such patents are idiotic, for you are only preaching to the choir. However I don't see any other way to have this changed other than if the situation would become so absurd that the corporations themselves push for removal of software patents, or at least a serious reform of it. Corporates are very easy to figure out you see: if it means profit, they want it. As long as software patents mean profit no corporation is going to push for a reform, so the only way to have this reform is to play by their own rules and change that simple fact, by making patenting a source of loss.
Re:Damnit! I'm torn! (Score:4, Insightful)
They should be seeking the patent be thrown out because using markup languages to store documents (including formating, notes, whatever, etc.) has been around for something like forty years.
Re:Lawyers? Punished? Hahahahah (Score:1, Insightful)
Lawyers always win, that is a law of nature.
You may not like it, the same as you may not like gravity, but both are there to stay.
Accept them.
Re:First post? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not the job of judges to determine the value of a law, only to interpret them.
Patent law doesn't say you have to be using the patented device to sue. It never even hints at it. The judge has no authority to make it say that. Microsoft was fined for pretending the law does say or hint at that.
Re:Damnit! I'm torn! (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Damnit! I'm torn! (Score:3, Insightful)
Pissing off the judge is very bad form and is likely to, at the very least, get you thrown out of the court room.
Pissing off the judge is a standard part of the Microsoft playbook. For reference, please see Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson.
Re:Damnit! I'm torn! (Score:4, Insightful)
Ok. The patent is on XML authoring. How is storing any kind of data in XML non-obvious?
Actually, U.S. Patent 5,787,449 [google.com] is a patent on "a computer system for the manipulation of the architecture and content of a document having a plurality of metacodes and content by producing a first map of metacodes and their addresses of use in association with mapped content; said system comprising: metacode map distinct storage means; means for providing a menu of metacodes to said metacode storage means; and means for compiling said metacodes of the menu by locating, detecting and addressing the metacodes in the document to constitute the map and storing the map in the metacode storage means; and means for resolving the content and the metacode map into the document." It is also a patent on "A method for producing a first map of metacodes and their addresses of use in association with mapped content and stored in distinct map storage means, the method comprising: providing the mapped content to mapped content storage means; providing a menu of metacodes; and compiling a map of the metacodes in the distinct storage means, by locating, detecting and addressing the metacodes; and providing the document as the content of the document and the metacode map of the document." And finally, it is a patent on "A method for producing from a document made up of metacodes and content, a map of metacodes and their addresses of use in association with mapped content of the document and stored in distinct map storage means, the method comprising: (a) reading the content of the document until a metacode is found; (b) copying the content and storing the copied content in a mapped content storage; (c) noting in the map the found metacode and its position in the content; (d) repeating the processing of (a)-(c) until the entire document has been processed; and then (e) providing the document as the content of the document separately from the metacode map of the document."
Apparently, I cannot say this enough times on Slashdot. A patent's scope is determined by its claims, not by your vague, fleeting impression of the title, or a fleeting summary by some tech editor.
Re:Damnit! I'm torn! (Score:4, Insightful)
It bears repeating so that people will "get it". I'm not a lawyer, but I am an inventor and I've filed Patents and been an expert witness on some infringement litigation in the recent past. While I'm not an expert, I've got some experience in dealing with stuff of this nature.
Folks, the gent's telling you the God's truth on this. Each claim has to be evaluated separately and combined. The "basic idea" may/may not be sufficient to invalidate the patent as it's written, depending on the nature of what they're claiming. Sometimes it will. Sometimes it won't.
If you've never looked at the body of a Patent, you will not be able to even remotely make a judgement call on the validity thereof.
Heh... I'm guessing that many if not a small majority of the software patents out there would fail on those grounds.
Cool sig you got there. :-D
Re:Damnit! I'm torn! (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Damnit! I'm torn! (Score:4, Insightful)
"Until you have spent hours picking apart the claims, the specification, and the file wrapper, you don't know how broad the claims are or whether you could implement them, or what "basic idea" they cover."
I can implement it, except now I can be sued for implementing it. I'm a good programmer and generally a nice guy, am I supposed to pour over every patent to figure out what I can or cannot write? It's madness. I expect the lawyers to be for this, because it makes them money. But why anyone else would is beyond me or maybe just below me.
Re:MvP (Score:2, Insightful)
1- i4i is actually a Canadian company.
2- They're patenting the idea of using XML to contain information relating to a document. I don't care if they're making a product that does it, it's still so broad and applicable, that they can hardly be called 'visionaries' for thinking of it, and then patenting it first.
Re:MvP (Score:3, Insightful)
Neither. I would follow the traditional rules for choice of venue, and thus would sue in a court near me. Normally, the venue for a lawsuit should be the court nearest to the plaintiff or the court nearest to the defendant.