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from the if-you-aren't-retaining-pay-a-retainer dept.
El Reg has the story on chipmaker Broadcom sueing Netflix for shrinking the set-top box market, which it claims could not be done without infringing its patents.
In a lawsuit [PDF] filed late last week in California, the San Jose-based Broadcom – which designs and sells chipsets used in millions of set-top boxes – argued that "Netflix has caused, and continues to cause, substantial and irreparable harm to the Broadcom Entities [that] sell semiconductor chips used in the set top boxes that enable traditional cable television services.
"Upon information and belief, as a direct result of the on-demand streaming services provided by Netflix, the market for traditional cable services that require set top boxes has declined, and continues to decline, thereby substantially reducing Broadcom's set top box business."
The claim is that Netflix must have used Broadcom's "novel" patents to run its service
"Upon information and belief, Netflix could not displace traditional cable television services, or could not do so as effectively, without the use of the Broadcom Entities' patented technology"
Broadcom wants a jury trial, royalty fees, attorney fees, and damages.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday March 19 2020, @01:20PM (9 children)
That's pretty much what legal action is: severe pain and suffering for all parties involved.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by barbara hudson on Thursday March 19 2020, @01:43PM (8 children)
"Severe pain and suffering for all parties involved ".
Not for the lawyers who came up with this latest stupidity, nor the lawyers who will defend against it, nor the whole civil court system that couldn't exist without lawsuits for everything. They're making out like gangbusters.
SoylentNews is social media. Says so right in the slogan. Soylentnews is people, not tech.
(Score: 1) by VacuumTube on Thursday March 19 2020, @02:14PM
Taking their cues from politicians, some lawyers are becoming increasingly shameless in their greed.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by JoeMerchant on Thursday March 19 2020, @02:22PM (6 children)
Do the devil or his demons suffer in hell? As for making out like gangbusters, the people who write the rules do tend to win the game more often:
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 2) by fadrian on Thursday March 19 2020, @03:55PM (5 children)
It may well be that the Congress has too many lawyers for its own—and the nation's—good.
And it may well not be.
Who do you want writing laws? People who know the law or morons that will make word salad of statutes that will be overturned five times before they do what they're supposed to do and allow even more loopholes or unintended consequences?
Somehow, people always seem to think that legal expertise is a bad thing. It's not. It's as necessary a skill in running a law-based society as much as programming is for a modern economy.
That is all.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 19 2020, @04:38PM
The problem is Congress has too many corrupt moron lawyers.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday March 19 2020, @05:00PM
The problem is that nobody has a check on the lawyers, and they're doing much worse things than the programmers would [youtube.com] given similar freedom to operate.
Minimum wage is still sub $10 per hour, but ANY adversarial legal action in our court system is expected to cost upwards of $3K per party and climb quickly from there. Two month's wages+ to get anything out of the courts - it's anything but a system of justice for the people. And that's just the clearly visible bottom end, the corruption escalates quickly from there.
Laws and lawyers do indeed have value, but not nearly the amount of value which they ascribe to themselves. And in the legislature that legal expertise is more often put to use slipping money to friends, family, and self than it is in writing good laws that operate for the maximal benefit of their constituents. Especially at the national level, the politicians are many layers removed from the drafting of the legal language - most of the elected never put eyes to page before voting on legislation.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by mr_bad_influence on Thursday March 19 2020, @06:59PM
In reality, how many bills/laws are actually written by those congress critters and how many are written by corporate and special interest groups? Lawyers and legal training have no bearing on the laws enacted and certainly don't benefit the common folks.
(Score: 1) by ze on Thursday March 19 2020, @07:33PM (1 child)
I'd rather we had policy makers who understood anything about what they're making policy about, rather than just how to best game the system for their own interests.
I think if we had scientists for lawmakers, even if they totally ignored their legal advisers, we'd still probably be better off than with these lawyers who totally ignore their science advisers.
Not to mention that the convolution of a legal system is proportional to its corruption; these lawyers are manufacturing the false need for themselves to start with.
IMO nobody who passes the legal/business culture's barriers to entry into our system of political power is actually qualified or trustworthy to have any power...
Though, tbh, I think anyone voluntarily seeking power should be disqualified from it for that reason alone. Taking real responsibility for what they're supposed to be responsible for isn't something anyone does very willingly.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday March 21 2020, @11:47AM
How about every single time they have a random test to prove that they actually know the law and its contents before it can go in?
Also, ban riders. Any rider. Of any kind.