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.'"
Too bad (Score:5, Insightful)
/mourn Groklaw (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Is this Judge Judy? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Go Judge (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Too bad (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Wish I could buy that judge a beer (Score:5, Insightful)
William Alsup deserves a medal for finally pushing those trolls a little. Too long have they been getting away with venue shopping and the abusive use of threats to sue. Time to sit back and watch the fireworks...
When this becomes the de facto standard on manhandling shell company tactics like this in a courtroom, complete with prior case law to ensure it, then I'll break out the bubbly.
Until then, don't even consider this to garner the masses attention span for longer than the usual 17 seconds they give it. And we will still watch multi-billionaires get away with financial murder, laughing all the way to the bank with their government subsidized too-big-to-fail bonus checks, not giving two fucks about anyone they leave in their wake.
Re:Mr Sham was signing the documents (Score:0, Insightful)
why in the fuck is this drivel at +3
Re:Wish I could buy that judge a beer (Score:4, Insightful)
However consider if you were on the Jury. Would you want to stick around another week or month to listen to this stuff, without being paid, just so that the judge can teach the guy a lesson?
Re:Go Judge (Score:5, Insightful)
And has the IRS got in on the act? (Score:5, Insightful)