11. Venue is proper in the Eastern District of Texas under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1391 and1400(b). PersonalWeb is a limited liability company incorporated in Smith County, Texaswith its principal place of business in Tyler, Texas. A substantial part of the events giving riseto the asserted claims occurred in this judicial district, Defendant transact business in this judicial district, and the patents were infringed in this judicial district
I think maybe its time for all technology companies everywhere to boycott a certain district in East Texas. Don't ship there. Geolock all services so they aren't useable there. Hell, if Hulu can keep the Canadians out, this should be easy.
If nothing else, it would send a message to the people living in that area that their local courts have been hijacked to do some very unfortunate things. It would send a pretty good message to other jurisdictions as well : "make a national nuisance of yourself, lose your interwebs."
Want to stay out of patent court? Don't mess with Texas.
Noonespecial is talking about private actors, not the state. This is essentially a call for a boycott, and I can't see this as a reflection on noonespecial's views on net neutrality one way or the other.
Its like a synthetic variation, not a logically novel form of argument. The flow is cutoff when the supply is witheld. The supply is withheld when the flow is cutoff. Etc.
Functional equivalents, and often the Law will see through such transparency. Are you going to withould supply from [an ethnic group, or a protected class] for example?
I was trying to say that noonespecial's suggestion for "technology companies everywhere to boycott a certain district in East Texas" isn't about net neutrality as schmichael objected because net neutrality is about intermediaries blocking or throttling access to services, whereas as the boycott noonespecial suggested would be by the providers of the service.
No, i do understand; but you are missing the point of the comment that you replied too -- which is that the purpose (public policy) of net neutrality is to prevent the collusion of private actors from acting against the common good. This type of collusion has issues associated with it that are far broader than what you are thinking of. And there are other laws/policy ideas beyond net neutrality to consider. This consideration isn't optional or arbitrary. [And this isn't an adversarial or snarky comment its just how the world works.]
But those private actors that the policy applies to must be middle men or acting on middle men in a network. Net neutrality as I understand it is about placing restrictions on network operators and regulators can do so that they cannot restrict access to content. So Wikipedia blocking access to it's own website would not be a network neutrality issue, but an ISP blocking access to it would.
And there are other laws/policy ideas beyond net neutrality to consider.
I was responding to a comment about network neutrality to say that it didn't apply. I wasn't discounting the possibility there could be other issues, although if Wikipedia decided to block access in Texas for a day (perhaps only allowing access to pages about patents, prior art etc.) I think that would be for the public good.
the collusion of private actors from acting against the common good
Net neutrality is not, per se the issue. it is one policy x of a set [X]. The argument/stratgem maybe far too narrow in scope to address the entire set [X], if for no other reason that its technical reference x not [X]. That was part of the larger point being made. There are alot of [laws] one may be breaking at the same time. If you are cute withrule Z an equally-hypertechnical look at law W might not be good. And if you try to undermine some of them (viz: a sythetic transaction) they are structured to see through to the end effect (don't care about the structure). So, if you are cutting off [insert name here] services to legally protected classes, for example, net neutrality might be the least of one's worries. And it might not matter the method. etc
Just something to think about. Also, this comment doesn't have anything to do with texas or whatever. Its just a general precaution. The issue is one of pre-texted market collusion, which being subject to abuse, is a dangerous precendent to allow.
Are you saying it doesn't matter if you are targeting legally protected classes specifically or if you are cutting off access to a wider group that includes them?
What is a sythetic transaction in this context? I tried googling it but couldn't find a good definition.
If net neutrality applied to service providers, Wikipedia would have been "guilty" of violating the ethic of network neutrality just for its boycott action earlier this year on the Internet blackout day to drum up opposition to SOPA and PROTECT IP Act.
. . . and "net neutrality" attempts to solve a problem by treating the symptoms rather than the infection itself, anyway. The real problem is governmental enabling and encouragement of monopolistic service providers. The fact such organizations may "abuse" the monopoly powers created and defended for them by governmental support is a side-effect of much deeper socioeconomic pathologies.
The OP's suggestion has nothing to do with net neutrality.
Net neutrality is about the /network/ being neutral to what it carries. The network should deliver skype, or google, or HN, or whatever, and treat them all the same. The network operator shouldn't get to charge Google for the privilege of using its pipes, just because Google is a big company with lots of cash.
The OP was suggesting something entirely different: That tech companies (and, yes, websites), should boycott this district of Texas.
That's no different than AmazonFresh being available only in the Seattle area.
Apparently the win rates in EDT aren't that great any more. Someone posted a link to this effect a few lawsuits ago. The reason why people still file there is because the judges all now have good working knowledge of patent law and that makes trials fairly efficient. Dunno if this is actually true, but.
It really doesn't matter what the "win rate" is when it costs 1.5 Million and takes 3 years to win. The trolls have their offices there and they appear before the same judges every day. I have no doubt this makes trials fairly efficient for them.
A little fear in a court that if they start hearing a bunch of bogus patent cases and generally being troll friendly might make half the internet become inaccessible from their jurisdiction might not be a bad thing. Yes, that's pretty unfair to a lot of people, but unfair seems to be the currency of trade these days.
That ignores the selection effects. Once word of their reputation got out, people started settling the weaker cases rather than litigating in East Texas.
They also have helpful local rules, like the one that lets people file a cover sheet with the clerk a day early, getting a case number and priority. So even if you anticipate the lawsuit, you can't get out of EDT, as Cisco found out once upon a time.
Sounds like a great idea to me. Political activism that may actually work!
But is it legal? I know it is not legal to refuse serving based on e.g. skin color, race or gender. And it's legal for a US company to refuse business with Canadians.
But is it legal for e.g. a California company to refuse to treat East Texas, or the whole of Texas, equal to North Carolina?
Given that the Republic of Texas voluntarily joined the United States, there might be an interesting argument regarding national origin (which is a protected class). There are at least a few diplomatic conventions that stem from this, such as flying the Texas flag at the same height as the US flag, instead of lower.
I was thinking that it could be covered by the commerce clause. But no, that prevents California as a state passing laws forbidding companies from doing business with Texas.
I don't think there are any federal laws demanding equal treatment of different polities by private (rather than state) actors.
Its not to keep from being sued there. Most of the people I asked that know these things agree that it would provide a thin defense in that regard. Its to send a message. If all of Tyler woke up one morning unable to watch Netflix, search on Google or order from Amazon, a few people might start to wonder WTF is going on.
I think maybe its time for all technology companies everywhere to boycott a certain district in East Texas. Don't ship there. Geolock all services so they aren't useable there. Hell, if Hulu can keep the Canadians out, this should be easy.
If nothing else, it would send a message to the people living in that area that their local courts have been hijacked to do some very unfortunate things. It would send a pretty good message to other jurisdictions as well : "make a national nuisance of yourself, lose your interwebs."
Want to stay out of patent court? Don't mess with Texas.