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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, @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]