Judge Orders Patent Troll To Explain Its 'Mr. Sham' To Jury 117
netbuzz writes "Judge William Alsup of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California has no problem calling Network Protection Sciences (NPS) a patent troll. What he does have a problem with is NPS telling a Texas court that NPS had an 'ongoing business concern' in that state run by a 'director of business development' when all it really had was a rented file-cabinet room and the 'director' was actually the building landlord who merely signed legal papers when NPS told him to do so. Judge Alsup calls the alleged business a 'sham' and the non-employee 'Mr. Sham,' yet he declined to dismiss the patent infringement lawsuit filed by NPS against Fortinet from which this information emerged. Instead, he told NPS, 'this jury is going to hear all of this stuff about the closet. And you're going to have to explain why "Mr. Sham" was signing these documents.'"
We've heard from Judge Alsup before (Score:5, Informative)
He was also the trial judge in Oracle v. Google.
I think I like the guy.
District of Eastern Texas (Score:5, Informative)
Not sure if this is widely know, but the Eastern District of Texas is horribly corrupt. All the patent trolls have an "office" there so they can sue everyone in that district. Why? Because the court system is infamously plaintiff friendly. Just about any bullshit argument you can make will fly. Doesn't matter if pretty much all cases get overturned on appeal, the plaintiffs get what they wanted: costing the defendants lots of money, forcing most all to settle. And the district gets what they wanted: lots of lawyers and experts flying in to the small towns pumping up the local economy. Those laws congress is mulling over can't get passed fast enough.
Re:Is this Judge Judy? (Score:5, Informative)
She's not a "Judge," or at least not any more. She's an arbiter/celebrity. The "trials" on that show aren't real trials, they're arbitration with a contractual agreement not to pursue further arbitration elsewhere.
And, yes, she can be extremely biased and unprofessional. It's easy to do when you stack the "docket" with the worst human scum you can find.
Re:Too bad (Score:4, Informative)
The wiki suggests you need to learn the difference between Hollywood and history: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Bean [wikipedia.org]
Re:Wish I could buy that judge a beer (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Should have dismissed (Score:2, Informative)
The judge called NPS behaviour "litigation misconduct" and demanded that they explain why it is not to the jury. If they fail to explain or if they refuse to explain then the case will be decided as misconduct on their own actions. If it was dismissed these asshats and their lawyers would have another chance against someone else somewhere else, if the case is shown to be based on misconduct then this company and it's lawyers will be facing a much harder time in every other court action. If I was one of the owners of Fortinet I would be laughing my ass off while paying our lawyers to show up and watch Aslup and the jury rip NPS into tiny little pieces. If there is proof of litigation misconduct then Fortinet will not only win but they can get legal costs and the lawyers for NPS can face disciplinary action at the bar for their part in the sham.
Re:/mourn Groklaw (Score:2, Informative)
No, the concern was that NSA was reading private e-mail that was not posted and was not public in any way.
Re:We've heard from Judge Alsup before (Score:5, Informative)
He's the guy who pointed out the he could write rangeCheck, and that he'd have written it identically.