Cisco wriggles out from $2 billion bill for ‘willful and egregious’ patent infringements Cisco has managed to avoid a $2-plus billion payment for patent infringement on a technicality that has nothing to do with the patents. The case has its roots in 2018 when an outfit named Centripetal Networks alleged Cisco had stolen tech Centripetal described to it under a non-disclosure agreement. Centripetal sued and won. …
Shouldn't there be a retrial?
Not a lawyer either but plain common sense tells me that the judge's wife being the owner of Cisco shares had no effect on the merits of the suit against Cisco.
Nothing changed so it is not an issue pretaining to the core of the matter.
And in any case, the judge ruled against Cisco, clearly describing their behaviour as “willful and egregious”.
Maybe the SC does not want to set a precedent for this type of technical issues and wants the lower courts to decide.
Or maybe not.
I'd like to see how the SC vote tally went.
O.
It would be in every news paper, used by the US government around the world to discredit them and trotted out everytime the company was mentioned.
But with cisco, it's a footnote on a technology website and brushed under the carpet. Oh and that 2bn, that would hurt the company too much so forget about that.
From now on it should be "Cisco, a known stealer of technology, ... "
Kind of similar to how Cisco has been shown to add NSA backdoors to their equipment but that's fine and dandy, Huawei on the other hand has not been proven to do the same for Chinese "intelligence" services and have in fact shown their hardware and software to prove it but OMG WTF CHINESE BAN THE BUGGERS!!!!!!
One might think there is some kind of double standard at play and perhaps security is not the issue.
At first, this decision sounds outrageous. And utterly bizarre that the USSC would allow it to stand. However... there is a strong case to be made that the appearance of justice is more important (to the state) than justice itself. Whether or not this is so, the question before the appeals court was the matter of the appearance of justice. Now here's the thing. Suppose I am a judge. I have a duty not only to be impartial, but to appear impartial. Moreover, the judge is a human. And humans are funny social beings. And if I'm known to have skin in the game, there is a temptation to try to _prove_ that I am impartial by not favoring "my" side. Which I can do by being harder on "my" side than the other side.
And that's the issue. CISCO is essentially in a position of being able to claim that this clearly trivial stock holding by the judge's wife might have pressured the judge to rule against CISCO because of the judge's temptation to _appear_ impartial rather than _be_ impartial. That's an important claim, and apparently one that the appeals system accepts.
And that's the issue.
Yes, very good point.
Rather elaborate and counter intuitive (legal matters do have a lot of that) but once you think it over enough, it makes sense.
The thing is that the judge should have known about his wife's holdings and then excused himself.
Seen as you say, the SC will definitely not want to set a precedent.
O.
Did Cisco steal trade secrets, or misuse patented data? They are mutually exclusive.
If it's the former, then it is subject to a non-disclosure agreement, but patents are required, except in the case where they are classified by a government, to be public, and not just public, but written such that a, "Person having ordinary skill in the art," can reproduce the invention.
So, which is this?
I cannot get over the ability of 'rich people'/'corporations', in America, to be able to litigate / appeal and re-appeal ad infinitum until the case goes away due to old age/death or lack of funds. !!!
There appears to be no definition of case proven ....
e.g. Ex Pres Trump appeared to be able to appeal and re-appeal even when the case had apparently been closed !!!
In the US of A, Justice is a vague concept that lives a very brief life ...
*if* you have enough money to question its very reason to exist !!!
I cannot get over the ability of 'rich people'/'corporations', in America, to be able to litigate / appeal and re-appeal ad infinitum until the case goes away due to old age/death or lack of funds.
Perhaps because it's a figment of your imagination?
There was one appeal in this case. The second appeal was rejected. "One and done" is not "ad infinitum".
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