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 Kilkrazy wrote:
Considering that 30 months ago Chapter House only produced;

Carnifex to Tervigon conversion kit
Shoulder pads with signs on
Doors with signs on
er...
That's it (I think)

It's difficult to see why the GW claims should be so long.

They had the not-Kroxigors, the Cathedral Missile Launchers, and something else...

Edit: Surprisingly, the CHS website (which I just checked to confirm "new releases" has this to say:

Due to legal obligations forcing me to be in Chicago, IL from May 30th to no later then June 13th, all orders placed during these weeks will be shipped out on Saturday, June 15th. Please place orders and plan accordingly.



I appologize for any delay and hardship this will incur on your hobby and games.



Sincerely,

Chapterhouse Studios LLC - Nick Villacci

Looks like we should have everything wrapped up by the 13th!

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Considering that 30 months ago Chapter House only produced;

Carnifex to Tervigon conversion kit
Shoulder pads with signs on
Doors with signs on
er...
That's it (I think)

It's difficult to see why the GW claims should be so long.

did I miss something, or wasn't there a new action filed in the past few months? and didn't the judge consolidate the actions?

EDIT: or maybe i completely misunderstood what it was that happened over the past year..... 0_o

czakk wrote:

The lawyers on each side will also be in 'trial mode' and working very long days.

Yea, and Jonathan Moskin has himself and....Jason Keener. Maybe he will have a paralegal assisting, but there are no other attorneys on the case for GW. A 40 hour trial over one and a half weeks involving thousands of pages of documents, hundreds of claims, and a respectable amount of live witnesses...I would not want to do that with a 2 person team.

Even the little state court PL cases I have worked involve more substantive teams.

weeble1000 wrote:

czakk wrote:

The lawyers on each side will also be in 'trial mode' and working very long days.

Yea, and Jonathan Moskin has himself and....Jason Keener. Maybe he will have a paralegal assisting, but there are no other attorneys on the case for GW. A 40 hour trial over one and a half weeks involving thousands of pages of documents, hundreds of claims, and a respectable amount of live witnesses...I would not want to do that with a 2 person team.

Even the little state court PL cases I have worked involve more substantive teams.

Perhaps Moskins firm has decided to let him sink with the ship and not throw any more bodies into it? Hard for anyone at this point to really think GW has a SOLID case. They have an uphill battle in this.

So for those of us interested in the Jury questions... they seem kind of interesting, a few I went wtf at and then thought about it.

7. Proposed Voir Dire Questions
1. Have you, or a relative or close friend, ever played any miniature war-games?

2. Have you, or a relative or close friend, ever collected and/or painted figurines?

3. Have you, or a relative or close friend, ever attended any gaming conventions?

4. Have you ever heard of Games Workshop, Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000, or Warhammer 40K?

5. Have you ever read a book published under the “Black Library” label?

6. Have you ever heard of Chapterhouse Studios?

7. Do you have any knowledge about or experience with copyrights or trademarks,including applying for a copyright registration or a trademark registration?

8. Have you ever been involved in the creation or selection of a trademark?

9. Have you ever been involved in the creation of an artistic work (book, painting, sculptor, etc) that was sold to others?

10. Have you, or a relative or close friend, ever made a claim of copyright infringement, trademark infringement, or patent infringement?

11. Have you ever considered filing for a copyright, trademark registration, or patent registration but decided not to?

12. Have you, or a relative or close friend, ever been accused of infringing another's copyright, trademark, or patent?

13. Have you, a relative or close friend, ever worked in sales or marketing?

14. Have you, a relative or close friend, ever been a member of a union?

15. Have you, a relative or close friend worked for commission, either currently or as part of a previous job?

Chapterhouse additionally proposes the following jury questions:
16. Do you use generic medicine?

17. Do you own a smart phone/blackberry/iphone?

weeble1000 wrote:

czakk wrote:

The lawyers on each side will also be in 'trial mode' and working very long days.

Yea, and Jonathan Moskin has himself and....Jason Keener. Maybe he will have a paralegal assisting, but there are no other attorneys on the case for GW. A 40 hour trial over one and a half weeks involving thousands of pages of documents, hundreds of claims, and a respectable amount of live witnesses...I would not want to do that with a 2 person team.

Even the little state court PL cases I have worked involve more substantive teams.

Well.. on the bright side Mr. Keener should have little trouble hitting his billables target?

There should be a couple of junior associates working on the file in the background as well.

-----

I'm looking forward to seeing costs motions and how much has been spent by the end of the trial.

I still think GW have to convince the jury that toy soldiers are really, really important and must be taken very seriously indeed. I would have thought there's a risk the whole thing will be seen as being a bit petty and childish by people from outside our hobby.

 Aerethan wrote:

Perhaps Moskins firm has decided to let him sink with the ship and not throw any more bodies into it? Hard for anyone at this point to really think GW has a SOLID case. They have an uphill battle in this.

Moskin and the firm get paid win or lose. He's spun what should have been a quick crushing defeat of an unrepresented garage business into a juicy multi-year trial with a ton of very very pricy motion practice. He's probably pulled in billables for him, Keener, and a host of juniors. Since he's been doing the solicitor's work for GW in the background as well, he might have been the partner that landed GW as a client and get an additional cut on top of his normal earnings. (depending on how they handle compensation at his firm / finders fees etc...).

Obviously better for him if he wins though

czakk wrote:

 Aerethan wrote:

Perhaps Moskins firm has decided to let him sink with the ship and not throw any more bodies into it? Hard for anyone at this point to really think GW has a SOLID case. They have an uphill battle in this.

Moskin and the firm get paid win or lose. He's spun what should have been a quick crushing defeat of an unrepresented garage business into a juicy multi-year trial with a ton of very very pricy motion practice. He's probably pulled in billables for him, Keener, and a host of juniors. Since he's been doing the solicitor's work for GW in the background as well, he might have been the partner that landed GW as a client and get an additional cut on top of his normal earnings. (depending on how they handle compensation at his firm / finders fees etc...).

Obviously better for him if he wins though

He's also been on a ridiculously short leash financially. GW has been cutting corners from day 1. GW motions are rife with errors and were slapped together in haste, likely with no review by lead counsel. GW declined to do either video or audio recordings of any deposition. GW squealed at any sort of cost, and has repeatedly complained about the defense "spending lavishly."

I would not be surprised if Moskin has been doing this thing on a reduced fee. GW is not a dream cash cow client. GW is a burdensome, contentious, vexatious, problematic client that wants a miracle result without having to pay for it. Simply put, GW is a client from Hell, and if the trial goes badly, Jonathan E Moskin will probably be blamed for the whole thing. If CHS slams in a solid win, I would bet even money that GW sues Foley and Lardner for malpractice (you heard it here first).

Edit: And given that Moskin was personally sanctioned by the Court, well....I can't say that GW wouldn't have a colorable argument to make.

Reading that document with GW's proposed instructions to the jury -

They really are trying to conflate all the issues together and claim that a specific item could be infringing the whole 40K universe.

That strikes me as ridiculous, but worrying, as is demonstrated by some of the uninformed opinions we've seen in this thread.

weeble1000 wrote:

czakk wrote:

 Aerethan wrote:

Perhaps Moskins firm has decided to let him sink with the ship and not throw any more bodies into it? Hard for anyone at this point to really think GW has a SOLID case. They have an uphill battle in this.

Moskin and the firm get paid win or lose. He's spun what should have been a quick crushing defeat of an unrepresented garage business into a juicy multi-year trial with a ton of very very pricy motion practice. He's probably pulled in billables for him, Keener, and a host of juniors. Since he's been doing the solicitor's work for GW in the background as well, he might have been the partner that landed GW as a client and get an additional cut on top of his normal earnings. (depending on how they handle compensation at his firm / finders fees etc...).

Obviously better for him if he wins though

He's also been on a ridiculously short leash financially. GW has been cutting corners from day 1. GW motions are rife with errors and were slapped together in haste, likely with no review by lead counsel. GW declined to do either video or audio recordings of any deposition. GW squealed at any sort of cost, and has repeatedly complained about the defense "spending lavishly."

I would not be surprised if Moskin has been doing this thing on a reduced fee. GW is not a dream cash cow client. GW is a burdensome, contentious, vexatious, problematic client that wants a miracle result without having to pay for it. Simply put, GW is a client from Hell, and if the trial goes badly, Jonathan E Moskin will probably be blamed for the whole thing. If CHS slams in a solid win, I would bet even money that GW sues Foley and Lardner for malpractice (you heard it here first).

Edit: And given that Moskin was personally sanctioned by the Court, well....I can't say that GW wouldn't have a colorable argument to make.

I understand the financial reasons that firms want long suits that drag on. But wouldn't they see the loss in court as a negative? Or would they say "the client's actions prevented a win from day one"?

What did GW expect out of this once pro bono representation signed on for CHS? Did they not think that CHS might just try to bleed them while they could?

Winning isn't free, or even cheap.

well, intitially I thought someone had to be intentionally stupid to be doing some of these things that have gone on in this case, but now that some useless clown has left our firm and i'm picking up where she left off.... my god. How does one read "130th avenue" out of "310 shawville boulevard"??????? how does one list an undertaking completed, when the undertaking is a very vague request, with the response from only one location that has been contacted for information out of a possible seven is "nope, we dont know what this is"??? How does one send two requests to one location in the same week and not have the memory to recall "oh hey, i sent this request a few days ago, no need to send this". How does one completely ignore the contents of a file, fail to cross-reference undertakings to see if file X answers Y,W and Z before sending requests to Y W and Z that will cost $300 to produce? I'm starting to realize there's a lot of laziness and outright incompetence involved, and the two seem to be much more common than one would think.

I'm starting to believe that a lot of this case wasn't so much planned as the product of laziness and outright ineptitude. I imagine there are better ways of discrediting an expert witness than battering him over and again with the same questions until his tongue slips, and there are better ways of dealing with a court case once you realize that the other side has pro-bono counsel. I mean sure, if there's enough trash in the claim, you might drive the other side out of business in terms of legal fees, but sawing your own arm and leg off into the deal?......

 Aerethan wrote:

I understand the financial reasons that firms want long suits that drag on. But wouldn't they see the loss in court as a negative? Or would they say "the client's actions prevented a win from day one"?

Civil litigation is a crap shoot - most cases (90% or so) settle before going to trial. That usually leaves the cases that are too close to call, involve a really unclear or novel legal point, or the high conflict clients (people unwilling or unable to settle) in the system. A loss is a negative, but might be unavoidable.

czakk wrote:

 Aerethan wrote:

I understand the financial reasons that firms want long suits that drag on. But wouldn't they see the loss in court as a negative? Or would they say "the client's actions prevented a win from day one"?

Civil litigation is a crap shoot - most cases (90% or so) settle before going to trial. That usually leaves the cases that are too close to call, involve a really unclear or novel legal point, or the high conflict clients (people unwilling or unable to settle) in the system. A loss is a negative, but might be unavoidable.

Surely a settlement is preferred to a loss? Granted, I don't see either side settling in the next 3 days. GW is in too deep to pull out, and CHS has virtually nothing to lose and therefore no reason to pull out.

 Alfndrate wrote:
So for those of us interested in the Jury questions... they seem kind of interesting, a few I went wtf at and then thought about it.

7. Proposed Voir Dire Questions
1. Have you, or a relative or close friend, ever played any miniature war-games?

2. Have you, or a relative or close friend, ever collected and/or painted figurines?

3. Have you, or a relative or close friend, ever attended any gaming conventions?

4. Have you ever heard of Games Workshop, Warhammer, Warhammer 40,000, or Warhammer 40K?

5. Have you ever read a book published under the “Black Library” label?

6. Have you ever heard of Chapterhouse Studios?

7. Do you have any knowledge about or experience with copyrights or trademarks,including applying for a copyright registration or a trademark registration?

8. Have you ever been involved in the creation or selection of a trademark?

9. Have you ever been involved in the creation of an artistic work (book, painting, sculptor, etc) that was sold to others?

10. Have you, or a relative or close friend, ever made a claim of copyright infringement, trademark infringement, or patent infringement?

11. Have you ever considered filing for a copyright, trademark registration, or patent registration but decided not to?

12. Have you, or a relative or close friend, ever been accused of infringing another's copyright, trademark, or patent?

13. Have you, a relative or close friend, ever worked in sales or marketing?

14. Have you, a relative or close friend, ever been a member of a union?

15. Have you, a relative or close friend worked for commission, either currently or as part of a previous job?

Chapterhouse additionally proposes the following jury questions:
16. Do you use generic medicine?

17. Do you own a smart phone/blackberry/iphone?

1-12 questions .... general information gathering

13 ... can kind of see this, but huh?

14 .... WTF does being a proud, union worker have to do with this trial?

15 .... eh ... I can see this as far as commissioned painting and what not goes ... but if I was commissioned to build a bridge ... what does that have to do with anything?

16 ... generic medicine? are they trying to put out there that they are like amoxicillin ( however you spell that ) instead of penicillin?

17 ... This one I understand ... if we have a smart phone then we can look up chapterhouse and GW on our free time.

People who view generic the same quality as brand name would generally side with CHS in this case, as they are the "generic" types. That or they feel that trademarks are meaningless if the product is inherently the same.

I think you'll find Q15 relates to 13, as in your income is linked to your sales, not having something you produce requested and purchased by somebody.

Ashitaka wrote:
Reading that document with GW's proposed instructions to the jury -

They really are trying to conflate all the issues together and claim that a specific item could be infringing the whole 40K universe.

That strikes me as ridiculous, but worrying, as is demonstrated by some of the uninformed opinions we've seen in this thread.

That has been GW's attitude all along.

They adopt a generic trope, like shoulder armour, and it becomes part of the 40K background. Everything in 40K becomes solid copyright of GW.

Then if anyone makes shoulder armour they have infringed the GW copyright.

On Q.15, don't forget that there was a lot of discussion on who did what for GW on commission and who held the rights to what afterwards.

Q.17 - I think this is more to do with similar products fulfilling a similar function as a further example of generic ideas in copyrights, etc.

It shouldn't be what you suggest as the Judge should make such things clear before hand. Jurors shouldn't investigate things themselves, they'll likely find this thread which would undoubtedly affect their ability to make a verdict. It would be nice if the jury knew of the various dirty tricks that GW have got up to in the last two years but it would invalidate the trial and land the juror in a lot of trouble.

My question is: a non-union member in Chicago? That's almost as tough as finding one in Detroit.

First, these are proposed supplementary questions. The Judge will ultimately decide which to include and how they will be worded.

Second, an experienced trial consultant can make potentially valuable inferences from such questions. An experienced lawyer can as well, but generally speaking a trial consultant is better it as they are specialists and have oodles more experience and years of qualitative and quantitative research to inform their analyses.

Why those questions? Well, doubtless one side or the other felt that they would yield important information, or one side or another felt that some or all of the submitted questions had strategic value, i.e. mislead or confuse the opposition. If you know a question has little practical value, but the opposing party does not, you can ignore the responses while the opposing party wastes valuable time interpreting superfluous data.

One may also wish to give the impression that a certain type of information is important, or is indicative of bias in favor of one party or another.

The questions that a party submits can be as instructive as the data the question provides.

Now, the defendant has retained the services of a trial consultant while the plaintiff has not, to the best of public knowledge. GW has mentioned the defendant's retention of trial consultants when decrying the defendant's "lavish" spending. The presumption is that the plaintiff has not retained such services, but that is simply a presumption based on the fact that the context of the relevant statement was to compare what the defense spent money on that the plaintiff had not spent money on.

Is that consultant going to be striking the jury? There's no way to know. Did the consultant have input into the SJQ? Again, there's no way to know. Has the consultant done any research? Again, no way to know. But unless GW was lying, the defendant has, at some point and for some purpose, retained the services of trial consultants.

 OIIIIIIO wrote:
17 ... This one I understand ... if we have a smart phone then we can look up chapterhouse and GW on our free time.

My suspicion is that they want to make a "CHS is to GW as downloadable apps are to Android" argument. Nothing wrong with buying something with YOUR money to work with a system created by someone else that you also bought with YOUR money. Right? Right? Right?


Eric

 MagickalMemories wrote:

 OIIIIIIO wrote:
17 ... This one I understand ... if we have a smart phone then we can look up chapterhouse and GW on our free time.

My suspicion is that they want to make a "CHS is to GW as downloadable apps are to Android" argument. Nothing wrong with buying something with YOUR money to work with a system created by someone else that you also bought with YOUR money. Right? Right? Right?


Eric

Either that, or the 3rd party accessories angle.

weeble1000 wrote:

Now, the defendant has retained the services of a trial consultant while the plaintiff has not, to the best of public knowledge. GW has mentioned the defendant's retention of trial consultants when decrying the defendant's "lavish" spending. The presumption is that the plaintiff has not retained such services, but that is simply a presumption based on the fact that the context of the relevant statement was to compare what the defense spent money on that the plaintiff had not spent money on.

I don't see that GW has any moral right to moan about the defence having 'lavish' spending when it was GW that first enlisted lawyers to go on the attack on a tiny company like CHS. What's to be gained from these crocodile tears? They threw their lawyers at someone who luckily managed to get pro-bono defence with a firm prepared to put up serious money? Well boo hoo for GW, don't go round threatening legal action if you're not prepared to pay for it.

It also seems a bit much that GW has done their best to prevent CHS revealing just how small a company they are and needing pro-bono representation to stand any chance of defence, but now GW slam them for spending 'lavishly' on that defence. Ugh.

 Alfndrate wrote:

13. Have you, a relative or close friend, ever worked in sales or marketing?

I can understand this one. Selling and marketing is all about branding, and how you present that brand. Part of GW's argument is that CHS is copying and diluting the GW brand.

14. Have you, a relative or close friend, ever been a member of a union?

Not quite sure about this one, but I assume it goes towards the idea of workers' rights, which could be part of the commission aspect, as GW is trying to claim they own the works of commissioned artists (and that GW just happened to lose the original contracts stating that ownership)

Chapterhouse additionally proposes the following jury questions:
16. Do you use generic medicine?

Again, all a part of brand awareness. Is the local grocery store brand of acitaminophen seen as the the same thing as Tylenol?

17. Do you own a smart phone/blackberry/iphone?

Probably the third party accessories argument in action here. Can Apple sue all of these companies making iPhone case and accessories? Can Ford sue O'Reilly Autoparts for selling a generic brand gas cap?

When it comes to jury selection, some correlations are relatively mysterious, but in such cases the data is what it is, and some demographic issues are quite the opposite of what you would expect them to be.

For example, in many circumstances, similarity to the plaintiff in a personal injury or product liability case is good for the plaintiff, but the data shifts depending on the circumstances. In the case of severe injuries, such as traumatic brain injuries, quadriplegia, etc., similarity to the victim is actually bad for the plaintiff. People begin to protect themselves from the possibility that something like that could happen to them by creating distance between themselves and the plaintiff.

There must have been something wrong with that guy. That would never happen to me because I don't do X, Y, or Z. You get a similar reaction in car accidents in particular. People do not like to think that a similar accident could simply happen to them too, so they blame the plaintiff rather than the product.

Those, of course, are just broad generalizations, and as with any case, there are many, many different factors to consider. Consequently, the best guide to jury selection is experience. When you've watched hundreds and hundreds of people deliberate on similar issues, you develop a sense for the sort of person who will likely favor a particular viewpoint.

When you get down to it, people are very similar.

There's an episode in the first season of the Showtime series Dead like Me where Daisy Adair explains her categorization of the people she reaps, all of whom she takes polaroids of. Daisy sorts them into boxes by personality type, a practice that Georgia dislikes, but by the end of the episode, Georgia comes to realize that Daisy has a point about being able to categorize people, even though on the surface it seems impersonal and demeaning. That is what trial consulting is about; being able to look at a person and quickly, efficiently, and accurately sort them into a 'type' of person.

When we hired a new paralegal a few years back, I was at a mock trial teaching him how to prepare seating charts for the three mock juries the 30+ research participants were being divided into. During the process he asked about why I had sorted the group the way I did, and I explained my reasoning, pointing out who the likely foreperson would be in each jury and giving some general predictions about how certain individuals would behave and how the deliberation would likely progress. When I was finished he said that I was being very stereotypical, and I told him that this was my job: examine a limited set of demographic data and place people into categories - Middle-aged, married, latino, Catholic, high school educated, blue collar, male from East Texas.

I have seen that person before. I have seen that person dozens of times. I have seen that person behave a certain way over and over and over again. When I go to strike a jury, and I see that person, I generally know what to expect. Beyond that it is a matter of understanding case themes, human decision-making, the facts of a case, the arguments and evidence of the parties, and gathering as much additional reliable data as possible to cross-check the core analysis.

SJQ questions provide data, but the utility of the data may seem esoteric. As I mentioned, the questions may even be completely useless, and have no meaning other than to screw with the opposing party. It could be that whichever party submitted the questions that are being discussed intended the opposing party to waste their precious jury selection time doing exactly what you are doing.

Do you ever look at the potential jurors' shoes? Odd question, but when my mom was working with a layer back during a trial thing, her layer said she would always look at their shoes, and those with nicer shoes were generally more intelligent and responsible people and would make greater jurors in her experience.

TragicNut wrote:

 MagickalMemories wrote:

 OIIIIIIO wrote:
17 ... This one I understand ... if we have a smart phone then we can look up chapterhouse and GW on our free time.

My suspicion is that they want to make a "CHS is to GW as downloadable apps are to Android" argument. Nothing wrong with buying something with YOUR money to work with a system created by someone else that you also bought with YOUR money. Right? Right? Right?


Eric

Either that, or the 3rd party accessories angle.

I thought about that, except that you can have 3rd part accessories for non-smart phones, too.

Here's my reasoning:
CHS makes 2 things: accessories and actual models.

The accessories are meant as add-ons for GW *and other* brand models. They are not stand alone products. They are made to enhance products created by another entity. You could use the "accessories" angle on smart phones well as a representation of this, but I think there are LOTS of other examples you could come up with for accessories that would work as well, or better. On the other hand, the actual models are meant as something bought to be used in-game to represent something in a system created by another entity. Not only does the smart phone app comparison work well for this, but I think this would be a harder aspect to find comparisons for than the accessories angle. KWIM?

Then again, it could be there because they intend to use it for BOTH.

Eric

 AduroT wrote:
Do you ever look at the potential jurors' shoes? Odd question, but when my mom was working with a layer back during a trial thing, her layer said she would always look at their shoes, and those with nicer shoes were generally more intelligent and responsible people and would make greater jurors in her experience.

Clothing is significant. Everybody has different tricks. I always check to see who takes a smoke break, for example. But generally speaking, choice of dress can be useful information.

What does the smoke break tell you?