
Court Rules That EFF's Stupid Patent of the Month Post Is Protected Speech - DiabloD3
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/11/court-rules-effs-stupid-patent-month-post-protected-speech
======
CPAhem
The company in question GEMSA Pty Ltd of Australia got a patent on "Storage
cabinets" on a computer. Pretty much a patent on folders or directories. Now
they are suing everyone.

According to the EFF: "As far as we can tell, GEMSA seems to think that anyone
with a website that links to hosted content infringes its patent"

[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/06/stupid-patent-month-
st...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2016/06/stupid-patent-month-storage-
cabinets-computer)

~~~
bufferoverflow
How does this not get immediately dismissed by prior art?

~~~
Tuna-Fish
In order for it to be dismissed as prior art, it has to make it all the way to
court. The business model of patent trolls like GEMSA is that they get a bunch
of obviously overbroad and spurious patents, and then they sue a lot of
companies for them, offering to settle for less than the cost of defense. If a
company actually puts up a legal defense, they drop the lawsuit.

~~~
jandrese
I'm a little surprised that the courts don't get cranky at the firm that files
hundreds of cases and then retracts pretty much all of them. It seems like red
flag behavior that should be investigated. Is there just a lack of oversight
on legal firms? It seems to take exceptionally egregious behavior before
anybody steps in.

~~~
arcbyte
In some states for some actions there is a rule that disallows retracting a
suit after an answer is filed. Might be useful for patents in federal law.
That's for Congress to take up.

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livarot
> any foreign order censoring EFF would be unenforceable in the United States
> under the First Amendment and the Securing the Protection of Our Enduring
> and Established Constitutional Heritage Act (SPEECH Act).

This way of naming laws is incredibly childish.

~~~
appleflaxen
on its face it's pretty stupid: acronyms that are so contrived (or worse,
misleading) that you have to shake your head when you hear them.

but there is at least a little bit of value to having a brief, specific name
to use when referring to it that somehow relates to the topic at hand.

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bartart
This is good for the EFF in the short term, but what if the Australian court
finds that the EFF is ignoring its order and so must pay fines?

Perhaps in response to US court saying "the Australian court lacked
jurisdiction over EFF", the Australian court will say that the US court has no
jurisdiction in Australia. The Australian court could conceivably force the
EFF to change how its site is shown to people in Australia. Then after
realizing that people in Australia can still access the US version of the
EFF's site, force the EFF to change its site in all countries.

This sort of problem could become more common, such as the case that Google
lost where the Canadian Supreme Court ruled that Google had to remove results
in violation of Canadian law from all Google results worldwide.

~~~
benchaney
countries' laws only apply within its borders. An Australian court cannot fine
the EFF or force them to modify their website because it does not operate
within Australia, they have no ability to "force" the EEF to do anything.
Google only had to obey the Canadian Court because it has operates in Canada
[0]

[0]: [https://www.google.ca/about/locations/?region=north-
america](https://www.google.ca/about/locations/?region=north-america)

~~~
vidarh
Countries laws apply wherever they say they do. Whether they are able to
enforce them is a secondary issue.

Some countries do claim jurisdiction outside their own borders for certain
types of cases.

~~~
kwhitefoot
Generally only for their own citizens. This covers, for instance, cases of sex
tourism.

~~~
germanier
The German criminal law explicitly covers e.g. all cases of money
counterfeiting, human trafficking, and war crimes worldwide regardless of
nationality. They have given themselves some binding restrictions on what
cases should be prosecuted. Of course enforcement is usually hard to
impossible so it does not get used often. But just as an example, a German
court has sentenced an Rwandan FDLR president for assisting war crimes even
though there is absolutely no connection to Germany.

Germany is not alone in claiming universal jurisdiction for certain crimes.

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Overtonwindow
_After its thorough analysis, the court declared “(1) that the Australian
Injunction is repugnant to the United States Constitution and the laws of
California and the Unites States.._

Wow, now that's a judicial smack down.

~~~
bdonlan
This is a term of art, defined in the relevant statute:
[https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/4104](https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/28/4104)

> Any United States person against whom a foreign judgment is entered on the
> basis of the content of any writing, utterance, or other speech by that
> person that has been published, may bring an action in district court, under
> section 2201(a), for a declaration that the foreign judgment is repugnant to
> the Constitution or laws of the United States.

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kazinator
I suspect that the court in fact found the patent to be stupid (not merely
"protected opinion"), but stopped short of writing that into the verdict. The
EFF substantiate their "stupid" accusation with reason; it's not just
schoolyard name-calling.

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gpvos
But can EFF officials still travel to Australia now?

~~~
icbm504
If they are fined or in contempt of court ... I would recommend consulting
with an Australian lawyer and then the Australian embassy before boarding a
plane to Australia.

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dogweather
It's hard to even call that a legal system, when a court can find "stupid" to
be a statement of fact.

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hamandcheese
I’m certainly not familiar with Australian politics or law, but is it not
surprising that the Australian court would grant the injunction in the first
place?

~~~
CPAhem
Australia has some of the most draconian anti-libel laws in the English-
speaking world.

A judge recently sent a blogger to jail for 4 months for "libel" even though
the truth of the matter was not disputed.

A book on Chinese bribing of Australian politicians has been withdrawn after
defamation threats from these politicians.

This was largely unreported in the Australian press, only in the New York
Times: [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/20/world/australia/china-
aus...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/20/world/australia/china-australia-
book-influence.html)

~~~
jlawer
Was on the front page of abc's news site... not sure how unreported that was :
[http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-11-13/academic-claims-hes-
be...](http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-11-13/academic-claims-hes-been-
silenced-by-chinese-government/9142694)

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em3rgent0rdr
Good but unsuprising. A much more newsworthy story would be if a US Court
ruled otherwise.

