Isn't it about time ...
... for the next Judge in this matter to take SCO's lawyers aside and explain what kind of effect him/her smacking them with a Rule 11 "frivolous litigation" contempt charge would have on their career?
SCO Group wants a judge to overrule a jury that found it doesn’t own Unix. Or it wants a fresh trial. Either, really, as long as SCO gets the result it wants. The company’s filed papers with a US court saying the jury hearing its case over whether SCO owned the Unix copyright, and that found for Novell last month, was either …
While SCO bleeds into the sand trying to claim the unclaimable (let's not forget who paid $20 million for a "licence"), we have Microsoft back, champing at the bit over unspecified patent claims that might or might not be in Linux.
(We can't possibly know because they won't tell anyone)
Lawyers , intellectual property, US legal system - all good for innovation, growth and prosperity, then
But the good news must surely be be that for copyright, at least, Linux must be cleaner than an operating theatre.
Now all we need is a half-decent ruling on Bilski...
Remember that SCO lawyer, Kevin McBride, is Darl's brother. All SCO litigation was basically shoveling money from SCO into the McBride family.
The job isn't done while there is still money to be had.
While Darl might be gone from SCO, the case can still be kept going for a bit longer.
If individuals and companies weren't so ready to take things to court, lawyers wouldn't ahve anything to do. Lawyers routinely advise against litigation (the good ones do) as it is always risky goign to court and far better to negotiate. Going to court isn't necessarily more remunative for lawyers and, as one side always loses, lawyers aren't hungry to line up to be the losing team.
Yes, lawyers beenfit from bloody-minded clients, but so does Kinko and taxi drivers and court clerks and so on. But it's the fact that companies and individuals call lawyers to help them seek redress; lawyers don't foment companies to do this.
Then why am I bombarded morning, noon and night by commercials on TV, radio, billboard and now even the bleeding *outside* of the subway cars for various liability law attorneys?
It was lawyers that coined the phrase "billable hours" for Azathoth's sake.
So long as the bills are paid (and someone must be paying SCO's lawyers or they would fold their tents in an eyeblink) a Lawyer will hang on like a lamprey with separation anxiety issues. If you can't think up a reason to continue litigating, they will.
"Going to court isn't necessarily more remun[er]ative for lawyers"? Only if they're doing it wrong.
If a retrial is ordered on the basis that "the jury didn't understand the evidence" then it opens the door for ANY trial (criminal or otherwise) to be re-ordered on the same basis.
Surely even SCO don't believe that this request is going to be granted? Have their lawyers got them by some sensitive part of their anatomy, because the only winner here is the lawyers.
Aliens because I think SCO has been taken over by them.
...before the whole of the US collapses, defederalizes and is taken over by hordes of immigrant narco-crazed illegal laborers, robot-predator-fleeing sand denizens and wide-eyed socialist canadians, with only small island of fascist regimes surviving in the vast inner territories of the defunt USA, I will be surprised.
So - if they are granted their wish (by some fairy?) so I can do whatever and always (forever, next 200 years) get a new "court day" just because the previous jury was too stupid, not really didn't understand my side (whatever it was!) or maybe they were not the right color or maybet they were watching Simpson in smartphone?
Well - as far as I know, it really could happen in USA (not in America, that's another story!)
SCO need to REALLY take a reality check. They lost twice and then asked for a Jury ruling and lost again. Really, how much more simple could it be made for them? Did they think that the first two Judges were too busy facebooking too??!
A request for this kind of thing in the UK could easily be perceived as stepping the wrong side of Contempt Law.
Once upon a time, Boies Schiller & Flexner were retained on something like that basis: they got paid in stock and a share of the booty. For some reason, which I don't rightly recall, they changed that, and now they're working on the basis that they're fully paid up, for however long the case takes. Oh, except for expenses, of course...
Follow the money... it leads northwest of Utah. North of Oregon, South of Canada.
Any normally funded exercise in corruption such as this would have sunk after two just torpedo's from the law... Does it not beg the question of what force above the law is at work here. For the sake of humanity, throw the SCO ring into the fires of Mount Doom.
Watch as the tower of SCO Group finally at long last falls... and if that happens maybe the other one will micro softly suffer some.
This is standard procedure when a jury verdict goes against you. They went against you, therefore they must be totally incompetent - motion to vacate!
If there was jury misconduct, or on-the-record observations that the jury was playing bubble bobble on their linux laptops during the trial, they might have good grounds. But ... no.
The decision of the jury overrides the decision of the judge, the judge can not overrule a jury. One must understand that SCO would not be questioning the Jury's decision if they had ruled in their favour. SCO is like a bully-child who had the toy that they tried to steal returned to its rightful owner.
not only technically....
A judge can overule the jury, BUT...
The cases where it has happened are few and far between....
Any judge who does that, has to have a whiter than white vest, since he/she will be investigated and torn into little bits and pieces and finally put under an electron microscope.
there have to be really very, very, very, good grounds to warrant an overruling.
Ususally the judge would rather make it a mistrial, than overrule a jury. but on the other hand, if he were to deem it a mistrial, he/she has to have just as good reasons....
So I would suggest, the request, will kindly be declined.
But as some others have already pointed out.... nothing is impossible in the US of A...s ;-)
Best regards
Obviously, the lawyers are getting paid by the delay, and nothing else. Possibly somewhere down the road, Microsoft promised to pay them for every minute they can stall, and they're ideas for keeping that up are now getting so thin it would seem the only place they can go after this is to outright contempt of court-- as they've tried everything else by now, most of which has already danced out to the edge of contempt...
I think Judge Kimball should order the officers of SCO and their lawyers to appear in front of the Federal Courthouse for a public flogging session. Each one of them should be flogged one hour each day, for each day this case has dragged on.
Should Judge Kimball make such an order, I have some ratty old cat 5 cables that I would be pleased to donate for this worthy cause. Should Judge Kimball need qualified applicants to perform this worthy public service, I am quite willing to put forward my resume.
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It's time for a judge to put the nails in the coffin and stop this travesty of justice. They lost with both a judge and a jury trial. It's time to end it. Novel owns the Unix copywrites, SCO doesn't and now IBM, Redhat, and world plus dog can sue them and put them out of their misery.