Apple and Nokia Outraged That Samsung Lawyers Leaked Patent License Terms 201
An anonymous reader writes "U.S. courts have strict rules in place governing the treatment of confidential business information. The most sensitive information is labeled 'highly confidential — attorneys' eyes only', meaning that only a company's outside lawyers are allowed to see it. The Apple-Nokia patent settlement contract and deals Apple struck with others (Ericsson, Sharp, Philips) were such highly confidential business information. But a Samsung executive allegedly boasted in a patent licensing negotiation with Nokia a few months ago about knowing all the terms of the Apple-Nokia deal because the Korean company's lawyers had provided it to their client, against the rules. The United States District Court for the Northern District of California now wants to find out more before deciding on sanctions against Samsung and its law firm, Quinn Emanuel."
Where's the Samsung fanboys now? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Where's the Samsung fanboys now? (Score:5, Insightful)
Slashdot--the only place where everyone celebrates Manning and Snowden because "all information should be free", but condem teh evil corporations for leaking information about teh other evil corporations.
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Because Manning should have (at a minimum) gone through the AG and/or chain of command with concerns of abuses before doing anything so reckless as compromising the operational security of so many other soldiers. (S)he should have done what (s)he agreed to when being given the security clearance and rank that (s)he held.
I know there are a lot of non-military folks who think that doing so would be pointless, but I spent enough time in uniform (a few months shy of a decade) to know that there would have been
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Manning was very naive, arguably stupid, but she's still a hero. That's what you are when you take immense personal risk in order to do the right thing.
As for the topic at hand: I applaud companies for being open about each other's evils. The more transparency, the better.
Re:Where's the Samsung fanboys now? (Score:5, Insightful)
If Samsung had released this information out of some desire to force more open negotiations on the whole industry, I would applaud them.
Instead, we have some weaselly Samsung exec bragging about cheating and getting away with it, solely for their own benefit in a specific contract negotiation.
If you don't see the difference between that and Snowden or Manning... You just won't.
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Uhh, if you were to put this in terms involving Snowden, it would have been roughly equivalent to Snowden heading into a job interview and telling the interviewer, "Before we start, let me tell you what you said on the phone last night to your mistress." Samsung's lawyers illegally provided its executives with the terms of a confidential agreement that was only disclosed to them for use in ongoing litigation, and then, rather than either making it public out of a moral obligation (anyone who knows anything
Re:Where's the Samsung fanboys now? (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't intend to defend Samsung as being good or evil (all I really know about them in terms of cellphones is that my Samsung Stratosphere really sucks!)
But.. how does THIS event make them corrupt or evil? Because they broke a law? Because they broke the terms of someone else's contract? How is it morally wrong to know what someone else paid for the same 'product'? Isn't that how we all shop for anything which doesn't already have a price tag on it? Do you buy a house without looking at comps? If you go to an open market and you hear someone else haggling for one of something you want is it wrong to then offer the vendor the same deal? Or are you supposed to pretend you heard nothing and start the haggling from scratch?
Why should our legal system be helping to enforce these secrecy clauses on contracts? How is it in the people's intrest to enforce them? All I can see it being used for is to jack up the price of goods as well as to keep new and smaller players out of markets.
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How is it morally wrong to know what someone else paid for the same 'product'?
To the contrary: it is morally wrong to hide that data. This is known as "price discrimination".
extortion price discrimination (Score:2)
The extortionists don't want their new targets to know how much they extorted from prior victims.
This is why they always want the victim to sign a NDA.
Just another attack by the darkside, nothing more.
Barnes & Noble Exposes Microsoft's "Trivial" Patents and Strategy Against Android [groklaw.net]
Barnes & Noble did not put up with the BS, and neither will Samsung.
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Your post would make more sense if Samsung made available their own secret agreements to other companies, for example, to Nokia.
Re:Where's the Samsung fanboys now? (Score:5, Informative)
The legal system cannot work without officers of the court acting with honesty in the interests of justice. In this case, officers of the court (Samsung's lawyers) disobeyed a lawful order from the court in order to give their client an unjust advantage in that client's negotiations with a third party. This is called contempt of court, and it violates their obligation to act in good faith as officers of the court. It's similar to suborning perjury, or helping your client flee the jurisdiction to escape justice, or hiding evidence they have full knowledge of. On the prosecution side, it would be like destroying evidence that clears a suspect of charges. There will be severe penalties for the lawyers in question. They will likely not be officers of the court for much longer.
Samsung, to be fair, didn't violate any such obligation. We don't know if they encouraged lawyers to do this or not, but we do know that they took unfair advantage of it. A company acting in good faith as part of a legal process would have put a stop to it immediately, fired said lawyers, and informed the judge and made whatever efforts they could on their end to limit the damage. We know Samsung didn't do this, and in fact bragged about their corporate espionage. It's a murkier issue as to Samsung's actual liability or criminality in this, but if it is determined they induced this contempt of court by their lawyers, I imagine the consequences will be severe for them as well. Certainly Nokia has cause to sue Samsung's lawyers, if not Samsung directly. Apple will no doubt use Samsung and their lawyers' actions in this matter as argument for further limiting of their confidential information in current and future cases, and I imagine courts will agree. The fact is Samsung persuaded a judge that Apple should give up certain confidential information, that judge gave an order that only Samsung's lawyers would be allowed to see this information and no one else, but Samsung's executive team got the information anyway after their lawyers took this confidential information and sent it to Samsung in violation of court order.
At a minimum, Samsung got caught not reporting unethical behavior by their legal counsel, and taking advantage of it for their own gain, likely in the many tens or hundreds of millions of dollars. Considering Samsung's history of destroying evidence and other legal shenanigans, I don't think it's such a stretch that they somehow induced their lawyers to commit contempt of court. Logically, the lawyers would need such inducement, as why would they risk being disbarred if they weren't being pressured or incentivized in some way by their client?
The nature of the court order that was violated is not the issue here. The issue is a serious breach of obligations by Samsung's lawyers, and Samsung subsequently having an unfair advantage in their negotiations with Nokia, and an unfair competitive advantage in the marketplace with Apple.
Re: Where's the Samsung fanboys now? (Score:2)
Re: Where's the Samsung fanboys now? (Score:5, Insightful)
Samsung are one of the least ethical companies around. Do your research. Bribery, corruption.. They should not be painted as saints, nor should their breach of law be overlooked.
Fanboys of any denomination should be ignored.
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Samsung are one of the least ethical companies around.
Anonymous Coward has denounced you. (you are not at war)
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Samsung is a great example of unregulated capitalism.
And it's not a good example.
Re: Where's the Samsung fanboys now? (Score:4, Informative)
Unfortunately, those are required to survive in business in Asia. Many other places too (e.g. Mexico, Chicago), but it's particularly bad in Asia. If you take a "I will never give nor accept bribes" stance and try to run a business in Asia, you will be bankrupt within a week.
Re: Where's the Samsung fanboys now? (Score:5, Informative)
False, false, false, wrong, wrong, wrong. I have been doing business in Asia for ten years now and have never paid a single bribe. You're a damn fool if you do because whoever you bribe will always either retire or go to jail, leaving you high and dry. The following quote is informative:
"One of the things I have always found troubling about Westerners doing business in emerging market countries is that they sometimes take an almost perverse pride in discussing payoffs to government officials. It is as though their having paid a bribe is a symbol of their international sophistication and insider knowledge. Yet, countless times when I am told of the bribe, I know the very same thing could almost certainly have been accomplished without a bribe."
--Dan Harris, chinalawblog.com
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Even in the USA there are "bribes" paid by businesses. Its called campaign donations, political sponsorship, etc and is quite legal.
Find out how much the companies such as Google, Microsoft, Apple, Exxon, Big Cigarette, Media, etc pay as political donations... Bet your bottom dollar there are strings attached.
It is corruption, for in a true DEMOCRATIC government it should be the desires of the voters that dictate the laws and governance moving ahead.
One person one Vote, and not One Dollar One Vote
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Citations? Or are you just talking out of your ass?
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The privileged nature of those documents is precisely to allow parties like Apple to prey on others.
That doesn't even make sense.
Re:Where's the Samsung fanboys now? (Score:5, Insightful)
Makes perfect sense. If the details of the terms and conditions obtained from Apple by one party become known to other parties then Apple's ability to extract "better" terms from those other parties is diminished. All royalty seeking behaviour is cloaked in non-disclosure conditions to avoid the situation where the consumers could possibly bargain from a position of knowledge. This is not unique to patent licensing or Apple.
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It is a deceit that denies the end user the right to information about the impact upon them, as the ultimate payer of all patent costs. Technically speaking one company has no legal right to suspend the free speech rights of another company, regardless of illegal conditions of contract inserted in a contract. The judge is now caught in whether a ruling that allows bias in contractual conditions that goes against the spirit of patent law, anti trust laws (artificial distortion of competitive access to a mar
Re:Where's the Samsung fanboys now? (Score:5, Informative)
Via http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2013/10/03/apple-samsung-sanctions-grewal/ [cnn.com]
July 7, 2004: Jury advised of adverse interference when Samsung allowed emails to be automatically deleted even after it was told to retain relevant emails. After Samsung's appeal, Judge William Martini found "Samsung's actions go far beyond mere negligence, demonstrating knowing and intentional conduct."
October 17, 2005: The U.S. Department of Justice fined Samsung nearly $300M for memory price fixing within the U.S.
Feb. 7, 2007: U.S. government fined Samsung for $90M for memory chip price fixing for violations in 2006.
Jan.15, 2008: Samsung's offices in Korea were raided after evidence showed that a slush fund was used to bribe government officials and other business leaders.
July 16 2008, Samsung chairman, Lee Kun-He was found guilty in Seoul of financial wrongdoing and tax evasion. Despite prosecutor request of seven years in prison, sentence was reduced to three years followed by a pardon by the South Korean Government in 2009 to allow him to help with its successful bid to host the 2018 Winter Olympics. He is now a member of the International Olympic Committee and this 'pardoned criminal' returned as Samsung's Chairman in March 2010.
May 19, 2010: The EU Commission fined Samsung for being part of a cartel that shared confidential information and fixed memory chip prices (along with eight other firms).
Nov. 1, 2011: The Korean Fair Trade Commission fined Samsung for being part of a cartel that fixed prices and reduced output for TFT-LCD screens between 2001 and 2006.
March 15, 2012: The Korean Fair Trade Commission fined Samsung for a mobile phone price fixing scheme and consumer fraud whereby consumers would be paying more than what the discounted prices advertised.
July 25, 2012: Magistrate Grewal informs the jury that they could take into account that "spoliation" of evidence occurred when Samsung destroyed evidence that could have been used in the Apple lawsuit; Samsung had a policy of automatically deleting emails that were two weeks old and should have suspended that policy between August 2010 (when Apple informed Samsung of patent infringement) and April 2011 (when Apple initiated the lawsuit).
August 24, 2012 a jury returned a verdict finding Samsung had willfully infringed on Apple's design and utility patents and had also diluted Apple's trade dresses related to the iPhone. But Samsung continues to fight the ruling, and continues in their copying behavior.
Dec 2012: EU issued a Statement of Objections (SO) against Samsung for abusing its Standard-Essential Patents in not providing FRAND rates. Samsung withdrew all SEP-based injunction requests against Apple in Europe days before the SO was issued, but to no avail.
April. 2013, Samsung is accused of and admits hiring people in several countries to falsify reports of HTC phones "constantly crashing" and posting fake benchmark reviews.
October 2013 Samsung in confirmed reports from independent and objective testing, found to be intentionally falsifying performance benchmarks of its flagship products: the Galaxy S4 and Note 3.
PR Spin (Score:2)
Why does this read like a PR document written by Apple to sway public opinion? Both parties have come close or outright crossed the ethical lines in their various legal battles. Finger waving or sanctioning a lawyer here or there does not change the core issues. Rather is distracts from the core issues and gains sentiment (or attempts to).
Re:PR Spin (Score:5, Informative)
Show me where Apple have crossed the ethical lines ? You may disagree with their case, but I don't recall anyone claiming their lawyers were unethical in prosecuting that case ...
As for Samsung, they're just scumbags who don't respect the law of any land...
(Taken from Fortune [cnn.com] ...)
If Apple tried to pull that shit, all hell would break loose. And rightfully so. For me personally, it's enough that I don't buy anything with a Samsung brand on the outside any more. They're the only company for which that's the case.
Simon.
Re:PR Spin (Score:4, Interesting)
That's a pretty one sided summary. Where's the comments that the auto-deleting emails was done by apple as well? Where's the comments that apple was investigated for price fixing wrt ebooks? Or the details that the jury that awarded billions to Apple is under scrutiny for improprieties. This response is so one sided it has to be an Apple fanboi (at best) or an outright shill that wrote that article. BTW, if it is Florian Muller, then yes a known and outright shill for the anti-open source agenda. The truth is not found at the extremes of a topic like this.
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Show me where Apple have crossed the ethical lines ?
- using what practically amounts to slave labor at Foxconn
- dodging taxes by claiming residence in ireland
- suing everyone and their moms with bullshit claims and patents
- false advertising (it should be named the Idiot Bar, not the Genius Bar)
- overpricing all their stuff
- suing everyone making compatible hardware into bankruptcy
- putting in a clause into OSX's license prohibiting using it on anything but official Apple hardware
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Show me where Apple have crossed the ethical lines ?
- using what practically amounts to slave labor at Foxconn
You mean just like every other major manufacturer? The Foxconn jobs are highly desired, anyway.
- dodging taxes by claiming residence in ireland
Don't most major US companies hold a lot of assets in overseas subsidies?
- suing everyone and their moms with bullshit claims and patents
You mean just like every other major manufacturer? If you're arguing that the patent system should be reformed, I totally agree with that. Until that time, shouldn't they play the game?
- false advertising (it should be named the Idiot Bar, not the Genius Bar)
If you say so.
- overpricing all their stuff
Well then their sales will suffer, right? Oh... wait...
- suing everyone making compatible hardware into bankruptcy
What is "compatible hardware" in this case? Are you talking about the 1990s clones?
- putting in a clause into OSX's license prohibiting using it on anything but official Apple hardware
This is
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you seem to have confused ethics with legality and the status quo.
"everyone is doing it!" does not suddenly make something ethical.
- overpricing all their stuff
Well then their sales will suffer, right? Oh... wait...
selling well != ethical
- suing everyone making compatible hardware into bankruptcy
What is "compatible hardware" in this case? Are you talking about the 1990s clones?
no. try google.
- putting in a clause into OSX's license prohibiting using it on anything but official Apple hardware
This is a moot point now, as there is no distribution of the OS other than the Apple store. It's been an "upgrade" market for the OS rather than a "purchase" market for a long time.
incorrect. you can buy the full thing without needing a previous version to install it. check out this listing on amazon [amazon.com] if you dont believe me.
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Show me where Apple have crossed the ethical lines ?
- using what practically amounts to slave labor at Foxconn - dodging taxes by claiming residence in ireland - suing everyone and their moms with bullshit claims and patents - false advertising (it should be named the Idiot Bar, not the Genius Bar) - overpricing all their stuff - suing everyone making compatible hardware into bankruptcy - putting in a clause into OSX's license prohibiting using it on anything but official Apple hardware
Legal on all counts. The taxes is par for the entire course of all corporations and non-profits, if legally available to them. The rest of your stuff is hilarious, especially the Design Patents for clone hardware and OS X only on Apple hardware.
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Legal on all counts.
"Show me where Apple have crossed the ethical lines ?"
invest in either a dictionary or glasses.
Re:PR Spin (Score:5, Insightful)
The labour at Foxconn is actually fairly well paid. The suicide rate at the factory is LESS than in the general populace. Many workers were upset when their hours were reduced because they're only working there so they can make some money now then leave in a year or two. A lot of these people are sending money home to their farming families. There are lines outside the company of people wanting to work there. AND Apple is working to improve conditions and clamp down on working violations.
Dodging taxes is legal, though of dubious ethics. But no other large company is playing by any different rules.
Everyone is suing everyone. You think Samsung isn't also on the suing end of courtroom as well? In any case, the problem is the patent system that allows those patents in the first place; once the patent is actually accepted, Apple legally has the right to defend it. You're looking at this from the wrong side.
That 'false advertising' claim is subjective. I've never had a problem at the genius bar.
By definition, their stuff isn't overpriced because people buy it at that price. If it were overpriced, nobody would buy it. It's what the market will bear, and people are perfectly happy to pay it.
I don't know who you're talking about on the compatible hardware front, exactly, but Apple isn't under any obligation to make software that allows OS X or iOS to run. That's not unethical, that's just a philosophical discussion. If you don't like it--and I'm sure you'll tell me you don't--don't run it.
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"- using what practically amounts to slave labor at Foxconn"
The same company that a dozen other companies use
"- dodging taxes by claiming residence in ireland"
Do you take every tax deduction you are eligible to take?
"- suing everyone and their moms with bullshit claims and patents"
Every company is suing everyone. Do you know that Motorola basically blackmailed Google into buying them by threatening to sue other Android manufacturers?
" false advertising (it should be named the Idiot Bar, not the Genius Bar)
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"- using what practically amounts to slave labor at Foxconn"
The same company that a dozen other companies use
Just because "someone else does it!" doesn't make it ethical. Everyone else who does it is also behaving unethically.
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Show me where Apple have crossed the ethical lines ?
- using what practically amounts to slave labor at Foxconn
- dodging taxes by claiming residence in ireland
- suing everyone and their moms with bullshit claims and patents
- false advertising (it should be named the Idiot Bar, not the Genius Bar)
- overpricing all their stuff
- suing everyone making compatible hardware into bankruptcy
- putting in a clause into OSX's license prohibiting using it on anything but official Apple hardware
- Foxconn is not owned by Apple.
- Common corporate tactics. Quite unethical!
- Suing anyone who copies their pretty processes. Spiteful, but unethical?
- Biased opinion.
- In a free market? Get serious.
- Not sure what cases you are talking about. They generally license 3rd party hardware, but you have to pay a fee.
- They are a hardware company. Why should they support other hardware? Idiotic.
Except for the taxes, this is just more biased gibberish.
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- dodging taxes by claiming residence in ireland
"Dodging taxes" implies moving hiding income so that it is never taxed, such as when corporations claim to operate out of the caiman islands. Apple does not 'claim residence' in Ireland. They claim residence in Cupertino, California. All sales in the US pay US sales tax, and there is no dodging there. They own a subsidiary in Ireland where they aggregate revenue from sales outside the US. But for all of those sales, they already pay sales tax to the countries in which the sales were made. They just hold tha
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Show me where Apple have crossed the ethical lines ?
How about posing as police to search someone's home? [sfweekly.com]
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Hmm... Lots of those are about memory price fixing. Many memory manufacturers were found guilty of the same, and Apple isn't there because THEY DON'T MANUFACTURE MEMORY. Ditto for TFT-LCDs.
Samsung is ripe to get in more trouble than Apple, because they're a vastly larger company, with interests in innumerable diverse industries that Apple doesn't care to be involved in.
Besides, why are you giving Apple a free pass, when THEY BUY SAMSUNG PARTS for their own products, and apparently don't care about all of
Re: PR Spin (Score:2)
Samsung is more likely to get in trouble with the law, because they have shown a 20-year pattern of not giving two shits about the law. Multiple price fixing convictions, collusion, and now what amounts to industrial espionage while making a Federal Court an accomplice.
Yeah, that's brilliant. No judge will ever kick the shit out of you for that.
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Unless you can show examples of Samsung breaking the law in the same industry as Apple, there's no reason to believe Apple is any better. And going with Samsung's copying of Apple's "rounded corners" will just get you laughed off of /.
Except that's not at all what happened here. Plenty
Re:PR Spin (Score:5, Informative)
Why does this read like a PR document written by Apple to sway public opinion? Both parties have come close or outright crossed the ethical lines in their various legal battles. Finger waving or sanctioning a lawyer here or there does not change the core issues. Rather is distracts from the core issues and gains sentiment (or attempts to).
It reads like PR because it's written by a known Apple, Microsoft, and Oracle patent shill.
Steven
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I didn't even click through to TFA.
Then I did.
I fixed the bio:
Florian Mueller is a douchebag-turned-shill with 25 years of software industry brown-nosing spanning across different market segments (games, education, productivity and infrastructure software), diverse frauds and a variety of technical and commercial areas of ass-hattery, enabling any twisted perspective you're willing to pay for. Florian shills for clients on the patent wars surrounding mobile devices, and on their economic and technical impli
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Paid shill, but not paid shill by either Apple or Nokia. He gets paid by Oracle and MS.
Anyway. Facts are facts. Even if they come from a shill.
because the company's LAWYERS had provided it (Score:5, Insightful)
Not Samsung. The legal firm, the only ones privvy to the terms. Samsung itself only received the information, and stupidly let on knowing the information, but ultimately it's the legal firm that screwed up. Not Samsung.
Re: because the company's LAWYERS had provided it (Score:5, Insightful)
If they accepted it with the knowledge that the judge had forbidden them from having it, and didn't tell anybody about it, then Samsung may well have crossed a line.
The reason these things are intended to be kept only by the lawyers is so that neither party can gain an advantage by using information they're not legally allowed to have.
To then take the information you're not legally allowed to have and then use that to gain leverage in a contract negotiation would be illegal. And it sounds like Samsung went into negotiations with someone and said "well, I know the terms of this deal with these people, and I want better".
It's like SEC regulations on insider trading -- they're designed to keep people from profiting from information which isn't public. And there are cases where you could be told something as part of your job, and warned sternly that, for that issue you are now an insider and can't act on that. (Which is why many of us try very hard to not actually know the specifics of some of the systems we work with. It's just easier to keep some information at arms length.)
Having that information may be illegal. Using the information may certainly be illegal. I'm not so sure that Samsung would be blameless here.
Who is Dr. Ang? (Score:2)
He doesnt seem to be notable enough for wikipedia but there's a cite in an IBM press conference from two years ago as "Dr. Seungho Ahn, Executive Vice President and Head of the IP Center, Samsung Electronics."
He may become an overnight celebrity of sorts.
Public knowledge (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Public knowledge (Score:5, Insightful)
Except many settlements are essentially a contract between two private parties, enforced and accepted by the court. Often time, the settlement is made to allow anybody admitting any legal responsibility while making the issue go away -- like Michael Jackson't settlement with the kids he allegedly molested.
There's lots of occasions where some of this stuff remains private information, because it's an agreement between the two entities, and spares them having it discussed in court and going on the record.
This isn't something where the court has ruled, this is a case where the two parties agreed to stop the court proceedings and come up with a settlement. Since this can involve information which can affect stock prices and the like, it sometimes needs to be confidential.
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If you want to set them privately don't use public institutions to arbitrate your problems in the first place.
And even if you do not involve any public entity in your dispute keeping your secrets should be your problem, not mine, the government's or societys.
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That's an interesting topic of conversation, but how could you possibly enforce it? Suppose I sue you. We go to lunch, sit down, and hash out our differences: "Tell you what, fredprado. Let's just end this. If you promise not to build that fence and quit yelling at my kid for walking down the sidewalk, I'll drop the suit. Can we make a gentleman's agreement?" We shake hands, go our separate ways, and both follow through on the agreement.
First, how would you craft a law enforcing that our private negotiation
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Even if you decide to lie in court about the contents of your settlement I see no problem, as long as you do not come crying when someone discovers the truth.
When you file the suit, you make it public (Score:2)
By filing a suit, you have raised the stakes and any resolution should be public.
There are only two conditions where the settlement would want to be private - the defendant knows they screwed up and want to cover up any future liability or embarrassment, or the plaintiff was over aggressive and filed a questionable suit to force an issue with the defendant and wants to save face. Fuck that.
If you file a suit it has the MEAN something. Using it in any other way makes it easy to back down, undermining the sys
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No, those are most certainly not the only two conditions where the settlement woud want to be private. In fact, neither of those conditions are the most common one. The most common one is that the defendant, even though he does not think he is in the wrong, finds it cheaper and easier to settle than to have the enormous expense of a court trial. And those are the ones that the defendant most wants to keep private, because making them public puts a giant target for every scam artist on his back. Can you
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Re:Public knowledge (Score:4, Insightful)
You do know that using the public institutions is not something the parties agree to, right? ONE party can take it to court, which according to you seems to me that the OTHER party loses all it's right to privacy. That is a pretty stupid idea.
Finally, the reasons the secrets were not kept secret is because the court ordered them to be shared with the other party. I fail to see why any of my secrets should be made public just because I was ordered to provide them to another party that happened to file suit against me.
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I didn't say settlements were unilateral, I said going to court was a unilateral action.
What you seem to want to do is create a kind of legal extortion. If someone claims you have wronged them your choice is either agree to their terms, or lose your right to privacy. The plaintiff can demand absolutely anything, and there is nothing you can do about it. Plaintiff can claim he injured himself and demand $1000. What are you going to do, just pay it? If you refuse, and the plaintiff sues, it is now 'in co
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Except your secrets are being shared because you're the party taking the other one to court. This was Apple-Nokia trying to get Samsung to pay for their patents - which should all be public anyway, and so should all dealings with them, If you want it to be private, keep it as a trade secret and don't file a patent.
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Sorry but no. If it reached the courts it should not be private anymore.
That seems like a rather ridiculous and idiotic opinion to me. But I'm sure you'll be able to give some argument to support your opinion.
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In general I agree with you. Two parties should be allowed to come up with whatever agreement they want to, including keeping it out of the eyes of the public.
However, patent and copyright issues are
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That makes no sense at all. First, you have stated zero reasons why agreements between two private parties (any agreements) should be made public. Second, you somehow manage to drag goverment spying into it, as if that has anything at all to do with it.
There are good reasons why such things should be kept private. Let's say I file a claim against you, claiming your slightly uneven sidewalk caused me to stub my toe. You go ask your friendly lawyer what to do, and he says 'well, you could fight it but tha
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Furthermore any private content should be your responsibility to keep secret about if you so want, not the government's. If someone else found about your dirty secrets it is your problem and nobody else's. If you can prove your lawyer or anyone that has signed your contract broke it and leaked information he should not by all means go after him for any punishment contained in the c
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And you still have provided zero reasons why this information should be public.
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The real story (Score:5, Insightful)
Ignoring all the florian-spew and articles based on it, it seems an expert report was accidentally insufficiently redacted, and Samsung has not been fast enough in their investigation of where all the information went, so the magistrate judge is setting a deadline and ordering some depositions. Yawn.
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So... They didn't redact information, and distributed it. And now Samsung's on the hook?
Well, seems like the NSA could save a BUNCH of money by posting everything secret unredacted on Wikipedia.
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So... They didn't redact information, and distributed it. And now Samsung's on the hook?
They were lawyers employed by and paid for by Samsung. If Apple's lawyers or Nokia's lawyers had stupidly sent this information to Samsung, Samsung wouldn't be in trouble. It was Samsung's lawyers.
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Ignoring all the florian-spew
That's an excellent visual, and highly accurate. Everyone can safely ignore this article, as it comes from fosspatents (Florian's anti-FOSS website). You can safely assume that nothing in the article is even remotely true; except, perhaps, that Samsung, Nokia, and Apple are real companies.
Following government message (Score:4, Funny)
gee, that makes sense (Score:2)
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So ONLY the lawyers can see the agreement between the two companies? Not the executives? So in other words, an agreement occurred but it is completely impossible to comply with them because nobody at the company knows what the terms are. Genius!
Both Apple's and Nokia's executives have seen this agreement between Apple and Nokia. Plus Samsung's lawyers. There was no need for Samsung's executives to see it; Samsung didn't have to comply with that agreement because it was between Apple and Nokia.
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To be specific, Samsung's external lawyers; actual Samsung employee lawyers would not (or at any rate should not) have had access.
Hum, guys? This is a Florian Mueller article. (Score:2)
Florian has admitted that he is a paid shill (Score:2)
The guy has less credibility that Enderle, if such a thing is possible.
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So, skip the article and go direct to the order; note that this isn't just a motion from Apple but an order of the court. Samsung definitely have some questions to answer.
make it all public (Score:2)
Free and efficient markets require information. All legal settlements should be required to be public by law. The same is true for most contracts and other deals (including employment contracts).
Making that happen would also be very simple: if it's not public, it's not enforceable in a court of law.
it depends on WHERE they saw them (Score:2)
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How exactly do you enforce that?
Re:Dear Leftwing People (Score:4, Funny)
With regulations, of course.
Libertarians live in rainbow-and-pony-filled imaginary worlds of wishful and magical thinking
As opposed to being filled with hope and change?
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Negative, we live in the real world, where 'regulation' has been perverted and redefined to mean 'hiring an army of bureaucrats and letting them run amok.'
There's no need for regulation in the modern sense, just application of good old fashioned criminal and civil law.
But more than that, there needs to be a bit of a cultural shift. Right now it's way too acceptable to write off all sorts of corruption as 'just the way the world is' and tolerate it rather than digging it out and exposing it to the light.
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Negative. The Chinese system has little resemblance to a system of common law and strict liability. It looks much more like our current system of privilege and regulation, in fact.
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Because might aka money can afford more civil law time than you. Thus might makes right.
You cannot afford to spend years in court, $BIG_COMPANY|$RICH_PERSON can. This means they can infringe on your rights and then tie you up in courts for years. They do not need to win the court cases only drag them out long enough that you are too poor to continue.
You have the mental difficulty of not seeing what is already happening and would continue to happen.
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Says someone who has never been in this situation.
If you can't even get recourse the risk of regulatory capture is better.
Death squads (Score:3)
Summary executions of anyone *suspected* of keeping a corporate secret. We can sell licenses like we do for deer or elk during hunting season. Give 'em a name and a tag and make sure they register the body with the local game warden when they finish.
Guns, meaningless killing, and anti-corporatism - It's the perfect left-right-libertarian utopia
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Economic freedom requires functional markets. This includes the need for basic regulation. If only to address the lack of perfect information. For instance unregulated meat would be a nightmare. Companies can change names quickly enough you would never know what the quality of the product was.
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That does not mean they can't keep secrets it just means they can't use the court to enforce it. So I just offer all my employees $X bonus if no leaks occur.
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There are legitimate reasons to have NDA in place. I worked on a project for a large jeweller, and had access to shipping data. Let's just say some items rely on security through obscurity , and if I revealed the data, it would expose them to crime,and force them to use more secure (and expensive) shipping, making their products less competitive, and more expensive for Joe Average who wants to buy an engagement ring for his sweetheart.
"Industrial grade diamonds". Check.
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They would simply ban words like that from meetings. It would be to improve customer premium experience or some similar horseshit.
The lack of a decent way to create perfect market competition is what drives me to support what you might call leftist policies. Simply as a way to address needs that our non-perfect market fails to.
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Hi Rightwing I am Leftwing. If we work together I'm certain that we can get this bird off the ground.
Re:Sounds like lawyers playing lawyer (Score:5, Insightful)
Except, as TFS says, there are strict rules in place for some things.
Sometimes, a lawyer is needed to be a buffer between you and something else you're not legally allowed to know. If this was the case, then the lawyer has either broken the law, or the standards of the Bar. Those are the kinds of things that can get you in trouble.
Whether or not this is true is a different story, but if it is true, there could be some serious consequences.
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Lawyers are also a part of the legal system. While they may work for their clients, they are granted special rights in many crountries, inclusding the US aince they agree to the normal proessional ethics. It is very possible that a lawyer must retain knowledge from the client under specific circumstances. Lawyers are paid by the client for a very specific service. They got access to the licensing condition so that they could judge if these touch their clients interest. while i would liek to see patent swaps
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Patent deals shouldn't be a private matter, since a patent is an agreement between the patent holder and the public, dealings and licensing of patents should also be public.
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That is my opinion, and i would vote for a political party which likes to implement this, but currently the law says otherwise.
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Heck, I was involved in a lawsuit where the plaintiff company obtained confidential information about the defendant company before the lawsuit (industrial espionage, anyone?) and managed to get a judge's order to restrict that knowledge to the lawyers. The result was defendant's lawyers were not allowed to show the defendant their own documents.
How do I know? During a deposition, plaintiffs showed me (on the defendant side) one of defendants documents marked confidential, but also marked as produced by pl