
Jury finds CBS infringes podcasting patent, awards $1.3M - palebluedot
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/09/jury-finds-cbs-infringes-podcasting-patent-awards-1-3-million/
======
fnordfnordfnord
A lot of complaints about East Texas in here. I've had a few myself since I
grew up there. That being said, this isn't the only example of gaming the
patent/courts system. Blaming the jurors for being prototypical dumb hicks
that some of them are is fun but misses the point. The real problem is that a
tech patent case wound up there to begin with. There is definitely no
interesting podcasting or other telecomm technology being invented there
(Longview); and that isn't the fault of the jurors. These companies set up
sham offices in the area to pretend that they belong in the Ninth Circuit
court. Fix the courts and you'll improve the situation a bit. Of course, the
company was predicated on a sham to begin with, so I'm not sure how you fix
_that_.

~~~
georgemcbay
I don't think most people see it as the jurors being "dumb hicks" but rather
the jurors (a fair number of whom are likely local business owners) having a
vested interest in having legal teams from all over the country continue to
bring cases to this district to prop up local businesses (which is far more
likely to happen if they find for infringement because it the plaintiffs who
move the cases there).

Wouldn't matter if this sort of thing were happening in NYC or SF (though,
practically speaking it would be less likely since the business brought in
through the lawsuit treadmill would be far less of the overall local economic
pie), it would still be a huge problem. When local jurors find in favor of the
plaintiff so often and with a significant amount of those cases being so
egregious that circuit courts are later forced to find that "that no
reasonable jury could have held the patent valid", then it seems likely there
are some fundamental perverse incentives that have to be addressed.

[1] see the EFF link that paulgb provided in another post:
[https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/09/after-setback-texas-
fi...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/09/after-setback-texas-fight-
against-podcasting-patent-troll-will-continue)

~~~
eli
That is a conspiracy theory.

I think it far more likely juries are trying their best to apply bad laws to
badly issue patents.

~~~
georgemcbay
"That is a conspiracy theory."

You could call it that, but to be clear I don't think these people got
together and planned this out in advance, I think a confluence of events
occurred that resulted in a situation which was beneficial to them and now
they act (perhaps even in a mostly non-coordinated way) to maintain and
strengthen it... rather predictably.

------
venomsnake
So we don't do jury trials in criminal cases where the jury can get the crime
(96% pleas), but when it is about complex and bullshit IP laws, where even
very savvy person will be confused - fire away.

Something is very wrong with that system.

~~~
MichaelApproved
Most criminal cases plea out because sentences have increased dramatically
over the last few decades. You can plea down to a small sentence or take your
chances with 15-20 years in prison, if you're convicted. Prosecutors know this
and pump up a case with as many charges as possible so you won't be tempted to
take it to trial.

You can argue that juries aren't savvy enough to judge a complicated IP case
and I'd agree with you but that's what the appeals court is there for. If the
jury got it wrong, you can appeal to judges who, presumably, have a better
understanding.

~~~
rayiner
Most criminal cases plead out because the accused are guilty.

~~~
zAy0LfpBZLC8mAC
How do you know that?

~~~
mindslight
Let's not kid ourselves - _most_ people [arrested by the police, charged with
a crime, sent to prison] _are_ guilty. This is what makes preserving justice
for the exceptions such a hard problem.

~~~
rayiner
I totally agree with that last sentence.

------
downandout
This will be appealed until the end of time - all this did was cost CBS more
in legal fees. In the intervening years, Personal Audio will use this one win
as a stick with which to extort settlements, but that will only be effective
against people that can't afford to litigate it.

These ultimate winner in appellate court after an extremely questionable
verdict is usually the last man standing. Since CBS has vastly more resources
than Personal Audio, my guess is that CBS will ultimately emerge the "winner,"
if you can call spending millions in legal fees "winning".

------
chmullig
God damn it, eastern district of Texas. Please stop ruining America.

~~~
IvyMike
Holy crap: correct me if I'm wrong, but 6000 nationwide patent cases in one
year, and one judge had 900 cases in his court, meaning that one judge was
responsible for 15 percent of this entire country's patent cases.

I hope I screwed that up somehow because that is insane.

[http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/the-year-in-
paten...](http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/05/the-year-in-patent-
litigation-more-trolling-more-texas/)

~~~
thaumasiotes
You hear a lot of complaints about the glacial pace of the courts, but is this
guy really deciding 2.5 cases a day? Maybe he could stand to go slower.

~~~
tehmaco
Closer to 3.5, unless the courts work weekends in the USA.

------
paulgb
EFF's statement [https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/09/after-setback-texas-
fi...](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/09/after-setback-texas-fight-
against-podcasting-patent-troll-will-continue)

------
Oculus
The scariest part about these cases is with Trans-Pacific Partnership[1] they
set a precedent for not only the United States, but a whole slew of other
countries[2].

1 - [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-
Pacific_Partnership#Intel...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-
Pacific_Partnership#Intellectual_property_provisions)

2 - [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-
Pacific_Partnership#Membe...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-
Pacific_Partnership#Members_and_Potential_Members)

~~~
superzamp
Dammit, I hope this crap will not spread to EU as well trough the
Transatlantic Parternship.

------
ejr
If the jurors in that area of the country have a special incentive to keep
these trials going, then that should be grounds to move them elsewhere. Local
businesses may be benefitting by having the increase in outside revenue due to
the influx of legal teams and such.

------
mmanfrin
What a kangaroo court case.

> The company made the argument that the "podcasting" patent actually covered
> "episodic content" transmitted over the Internet, including video content.
> The patent refers to a "compilation file," which Personal Audio lawyers say
> correlates to the HTML webpage that CBS hosts its content at.

------
chollida1
I think 1.3 million ends up being an interesting number. The number is small
enough that CBS might consider just paying it.

However, they are a huge company with alot of lawyers at their disposal. They
could chose to fight this without the financial burden that alot of smaller
players like Adam Corolla would have had.

> Now that its patent has been validated against CBS, Personal Audio will be
> allowed to move forward with trials against NBC and Fox.

This is also interesting. The enemy of my enemy is my friend may come into
play here as I'm sure FOX and NBC don't want to go to court.

I can see them helping CBS in an appeal with what I think is called an amicus
breif/curiae on CBS behalf.

------
sgloutnikov
Wonder if this trial is partially why the Adam Carolla trial settlement had a
quiet period until Sep. 30?

~~~
corobo
More than likely. Can't wait to hear why Carolla settled - wasn't his rallying
based on defeating the patent troll rather than just getting the troll to go
away?

Using money donated by listeners to _defeat_ the troll.. :(

~~~
smackfu
From this CBS case, you can see that even a large company with bottomless
legal pockets can lose a ridiculous patent case. Who's to say that Carolla
would have won?

------
a3n
What the hell is wrong with East Texas?

Is it the bed and breakfast industry? Do they profit from contingents having
to stay local?

~~~
dragonwriter
There's two main current factors (and one older factor) that seem to be cited
for ED Texas place in patent litigation:

1\. It used to be "rocket docket" where patent cases came to trial quickly,
which is generally seen as favoring plaintiffs (since they have likely done
more prep before the case is filed); this is no apparently no longer the case,
however.

2\. It apparently has a jury pool more inclined to large damage awards, and
possibly somewhat more plaintiff friendly in terms of finding liability at all
(often attributed to age and local culture regarding property rights.)

3\. It has judges that are reputed to be less inclined to summary judgement
motions from the defense and more inclined to let patent cases go to juries on
evidence where other courts would award summary judgement for the defense.

