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 Kroothawk wrote:

 paulson games wrote:
Judges aren't required to be impartial. They make sure the law is followed and that the jury is impartial, beyond that Judges are free to inject all sorts of personal opinion and personal perspective into stuff.

That is a speciality of US (and British?) law. In Germany, a judge can be officially withdrawn from a case, when he is proven partial. Accusing a judge for being partial ("Befangenheitsantrag") is standard procedure in many major lawsuits here.

It is sort of splitting hairs, but the judge does not need to be impartial (he can believe one side is right/wrong or that a law is stupid), but he does need to be non-biased. What constitutes actual bias that can lead to recusal is a big grey area. Someone who has financial gain is usually clear cut. Other instances are cases where the judge had worked previously on a legal position or close personal relationships with plaintiffs/defendants.

Lawyers can make a motion requesting the judges recusal (though if they loose the motion, the judge might take that personally). Judges can recuse themselves voluntarily as well when they know that grounds exist, or they believe their interests might impact their ruling. Quite often though, judges are not impartial and believe in their heart that someone is guilty as sin, a sleeze ball who deserves to be tarred and feathered - but that doesnt prevent them from ruling on the matters of law and procedure in an unbiased manner.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Mohoc wrote:

 skyth wrote:
Now is it possible that Moskin's pattern of behavior can be brought up in the appeal with the intent to say that we don't believe that he provided all the documents and evidence that he should have and that we can't be sure of the veracity of the ones that he did?

I don't think so. From what I understand, the appeal will look at specific concerns as a matter of law, based solely on facts and evidence established by the original trial. Someone please correct me if I am wrong.

Something like his pattern wouldnt be for the appeal, though things like complaints to the bar or even seperate legal action by GW or CHS for legal malpractice or attorney misconduct (malpractice being a civil hearing, but misconduct being administrative).

The courts can also slap fines, fees and penalties of all sorts on the attorney should they see fit (such as the fine already levied - though other things like the court demanding all motions be made in person or cutting the amount of time allowed for discovery).

 Mr Hyena wrote:


But thats the thing; what really will stop bit companies from making and labelling that their bits are designed for warhammer 40k if this wins? If this happens; GW will lose alot of money; and armies will recieve less support; maybe with some even being squatted.

Nobody wants that to happen.

Ummm... becouse every car company has gone out of business? Aftermarket product are a fact of business, period. If GW fails to use it to there advantage like other company in vastly different markets. Then they should suffer the same fate the company that couldn't.

Actually, most car companies have gone out of business, but it wasn't because Pirelli and Michelin make tyres.

 TheAuldGrump wrote:
I am not certain that who holds onto the mould is juvenile - I would be worried that GW would 'accidentally' drop those moulds into the incinerator.
Certainly GW's lawyers have shown a certain willingness to abridge the law in their favour, and GW is the ones that hired them....
The Auld Grump, heck, I might be surprised that if GW does hold on to the moulds then they don't have an 'accident'....

weeble1000 wrote:
Why is that juvenile? Those are irreplaceable materials. If the case gets flipped on appeal, having those materials safely returned in good condition will be essential to seeing those products back in production. Moskin has been sanctioned by the Court already for reckless or deliberate mishandling of documents. If I were Chapterhouse, I wouldn't want to see irreplaceable materials put into the custody of opposing counsel that has behaved in the manner Jonathan Moskin has been behaving for three years.

Edit: Ninja'd. In any case, czakk has a point that most attorneys would have worked out stuff like this on the back end in a civil manner. This case has been anything but civil, and I have to agree with Grump that most of what I saw in terms of less than professional conduct was on the part of Games Workshop. If you look at the record from the Gallo v Rallo case, things become very, very clear. That record reads very similar to the GW v CHS case, and the constant between the two is Jonathan E Moskin.

GW wouldn't destroy the molds/masters even if they were told to.

Years back GW was able to take possession of a bunch of Demonblade molds and masters; some Orgg, a Commissar looking fellow and some kind of Orgg Dreadnought thingie.

When GW moved to Memphis the mold Supervisor found the box with the legal paperwork in it which clearly stated the materials were to be delivered to GW for destruction. IIRC there was even a date that the materials had to be destroyed by, that was several years past.

When some of the other GW staff found out about them they drooled over the models since they were pretty cool, but also rare now. He was asked by his new manager to cast a bunch up for them but he refused and said he was going to destroy the masters and molds like they should have been.

After lunch that day he was brought into an office, removed as the moldmaking/casting supervisor and put on suspension for the rest of the week for not following instructions and some other B/S I can't remember. When he came back to work the following Monday all the masters were gone and the molds were on a casting station with a few small bins with leftover parts in them. "Someone" who I cannot name here but still works for GW in Memphis had the caster spin a bunch up for him and his buddies (the caster didn't know what they were, just did as told).

He went ahead and tossed the molds in the bin after cutting them up, then melted down the remaining parts.

I do know a lot of them wound up on Ebay around the Summer of 2007 (August/September-ish).

I wouldn't be worried about CHS's masters or molds being destroyed, I'd be more worried about how many castings are going to be made of them when, or if, GW get's their hands on them.

 prplehippo wrote:
...I'd be more worried about how many castings are going to be made of them when, or if, GW get's their hands on them.

Not many. A lot of CHS' stuff just isn't top tier.

 Breotan wrote:

 prplehippo wrote:
...I'd be more worried about how many castings are going to be made of them when, or if, GW get's their hands on them.

Not many. A lot of CHS' stuff just isn't top tier.

If they are parts that CHS can no longer produce then they are "discontinued" models and therefore rare. People will pay a premium for them on Ebay. There's always someone who will.

I was amazed at what some gamers and collectors would pay for GW models when I left GW. I sold off my entire collection of rare, unreleased and discontinued models and pretty much funded my unemployment at the time. I wish I hadn't since I could use the money now!

Prplehippo, your story only shows just how disrespectful GW is of its legal responsibilities. A company that cannot destroy molds when it is contractually obligated to cannot really be trusted to maintain molds it is legally obligated to maintain.

Your story is full of gross negligence, laziness, disrespect for the law, and willful violation of intellectual property rights. It would be humorous but for the impact that GW's behavior has had on people's lives.

weeble1000 wrote:
Prplehippo, your story only shows just how disrespectful GW is of its legal responsibilities. A company that cannot destroy molds when it is contractually obligated to cannot really be trusted to maintain molds it is legally obligated to maintain.

Your story is full of gross negligence, laziness, disrespect for the law, and willful violation of intellectual property rights. It would be humorous but for the impact that GW's behavior has had on people's lives.

I could tell you some stories.....

That's pretty tame compared to some of the stuff I've seen going on at GW in Baltimore and Memphis.

 prplehippo wrote:
I could tell you some stories.....

Well don't let us stop you.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 prplehippo wrote:
I could tell you some stories.....

Well don't let us stop you.

well..... except where relevancy to this thread is important.

 prplehippo wrote:

I could tell you some stories.....

Please do.

Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:

 prplehippo wrote:

I could tell you some stories.....

Please do.

But in another thread, please. (Pretty sure that could fill a tread pretty nicely.... )

The Auld Grump (Or an entire forum....)

I've never understood the point of GW demanding that moulds used for metal or resin casting are handed over. While the moulds still cost money to reproduce, it is negligible compared to injection tooling where the mould costs tens of thousands. Even if GW were to acquire the master parts as well, first generation resin casts are fully appropriate as production masters. There's simply no way to stop a part from being reproduced if someone is hell bent on reproducing it (regardless of the legality). The relevance to this discussion is that I feel that the parties arguing what happens with the moulds is simply wasting time. It's a purely symbolic thing.

 Mangozac wrote:
I've never understood the point of GW demanding that moulds used for metal or resin casting are handed over. While the moulds still cost money to reproduce, it is negligible compared to injection tooling where the mould costs tens of thousands. Even if GW were to acquire the master parts as well, first generation resin casts are fully appropriate as production masters. There's simply no way to stop a part from being reproduced if someone is hell bent on reproducing it (regardless of the legality). The relevance to this discussion is that I feel that the parties arguing what happens with the moulds is simply wasting time. It's a purely symbolic thing.

Actually, it's one of the outcomes to winning a copyright infringement or counterfeiting case - you have the right to destroy the infringing materials.

 Janthkin wrote:
Actually, it's one of the outcomes to winning a copyright infringement or counterfeiting case - you have the right to destroy the infringing materials.

I understand that, but really in this kind of instance destruction of moulds is such a trivial thing, since the cost/effort required to make new moulds is so negligible. There are much more important things that both sides could be arguing about.

 Mangozac wrote:

 Janthkin wrote:
Actually, it's one of the outcomes to winning a copyright infringement or counterfeiting case - you have the right to destroy the infringing materials.

I understand that, but really in this kind of instance destruction of moulds is such a trivial thing, since the cost/effort required to make new moulds is so negligible. There are much more important things that both sides could be arguing about.

It's wouldn't be limited to just the molds but all materials that could be used to make the infringing product, the original sculpts (if they still existed), the masters, RTV molds, vulcanized molds, leftover stock etc. that way CHS would not be able to produce new molds for the infringing product.

Yes, someone could always use existing production models to make new molds for those items but there would be no real reason to since they couldn't sell them.

 Mangozac wrote:

 Janthkin wrote:
Actually, it's one of the outcomes to winning a copyright infringement or counterfeiting case - you have the right to destroy the infringing materials.

I understand that, but really in this kind of instance destruction of moulds is such a trivial thing, since the cost/effort required to make new moulds is so negligible. There are much more important things that both sides could be arguing about.

There's a difference between a "negligible cost" and "free," and negligible is relative. For a small company, the costs to re-create all of those materials could well be significant. Normally, as czakk pointed out, this sort of thing wouldn't be something the parties would really have to argue about. But GW has engaged in rather...questionable behavior throughout the course of the litigation. Taking GW's counsel at their word is simply demonstrably naive, and note the 14 day time period to deliver the materials in the Court's injunction as signed.

I wouldn't be surprised if all of those materials were in Winston's possession prior to the injunction, but getting them to Foley and Lardner during the holidays is not necessarily so easy. In any case, failing to comply with the injunction could spell trouble. As the emails seemed to indicate, that wording was apparently erroneous in the first place, and it was GW's counsel that sent in the electronic copy of the joint proposed injunction to the Court. So right there you have a further 'error' on the part of GW's counsel (like the 'error' of not receiving certified mail two weeks after it should have been delivered or the 'error' of not telling CHS that is had contact information for Gary Chalk, or the 'error' of Mr. Moskin not disclosing relevant discoverable documents after swearing an affidavit certifying the completion of discovery responses) that wound up getting the signature of a Federal Judge and potentially opening the door to a nit GW could later pick if it wasn't handled appropriately.

Consider GW filing a motion for sanctions after the new year citing Chapterhouse's failure to deliver the materials as ordered in the injunction. Is it better to handle it before GW has the opportunity to file a spurious motion for sanctions based on a potentially contrived error, or after?

If the appeals go the same way as the trial... how likely is it that GW will stick with Flywheel, Shyster, & Flywheel?

Considering that they gave already jettisoned their own in house lawyer....

The Auld Grump

That is one view, an alternative is that she cleverly got out before things spiralled even further down the pan.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
That is one view, an alternative is that she cleverly got out before things spiralled even further down the pan.

I don't credit Gill Stevenson with that kind of foresight. I heard she wasn't very pleased when the verdict was read, i.e. emotional. I think she might have known right then that her was grass. But if she had expected it and planned for it, she wouldn't be "looking for a new opportunity" which is not a positive thing for a lawyer to self-identify as.

This docket entry was made by the Clerk on Tuesday, December 10, 2013:
MINUTE entry before the Honorable Matthew F. Kennelly: Motion hearing held on 12/10/2013 regarding motion to amend/correct [466] and continued to 12/17/2013 at 9:30 a.m. Mailed notice.(pjg, )


--------

Odd that this is taking more than a day. Perhaps someone couldn't show up.


--- Edit ---

This is the oral part of the argument over what language goes into the injunction about the moulds. Unless they got slotted in at the end of the day it shouldn'thave taken very long.

Or he wants all counsel to be present in person....

 Kilkrazy wrote:
That is one view, an alternative is that she cleverly got out before things spiralled even further down the pan.

Alternative, but not very likely.

It is better to find another boat before fleeing the sinking ship, and as far as I know she still has no boat at all....

Not finishing what was the biggest case that she has yet handled just does not look good on her jacket, win or lose.

The Auld Grump

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
That is one view, an alternative is that she cleverly got out before things spiralled even further down the pan.

Alternative, but not very likely.

It is better to find another boat before fleeing the sinking ship, and as far as I know she still has no boat at all....

Not finishing what was the biggest case that she has yet handled just does not look good on her jacket, win or lose.

The Auld Grump

Yea, she's still without a job, at least according to LinkedIn.

Not... exactly a surprise.

I would be willing to bet that she is wishing that she never answered that Help Wanted advert from GW....

Whatever her plans may be, and may have been, this has likely set her back at least a year's effort.

Even if she is hired by a firm tomorrow she will still have to rebuild her qualifications.

And she likely cannot look to GW to give her a good word.

The Auld Grump, come to think, Flywheel, Shyster, & Flywheel and GW are made for each other....

Stipulation on what happens with the moulds:

IT is hereby stipulated and agreed, that notwithstanding the terms of the final injunction, the parties agree that pending the resolution of any timely filed appeals, counsel for Defendant Chapterhouse Studios LLC (“Chapterhouse” or “CHS”) may certify to Plaintiff Games Workshop Limited (“Games Workshop”) that Chapterhouse has delivered up to counsel for Chapterhouse all inventory, molds, masters, or other means of making the Chapterhouse products identified in paragraph 1(a) of the Injunction and/or that contain any of the infringed trademarks identified in paragraph 1(b) of the Injunction. After exhaustion of all appeals and to the extent such appeals are denied, counsel for Chapterhouse may then either provide the materials to counsel for Games Workshop for destruction or certify to Games Workshop that counsel for CHS has destroyed all of these materials.

I wonder if the second part of that stipulation("(counsel for CHS)certify to Games Workshop that counsel for CHS has destroyed all of these materials") was a goal of GW from the outset?

No, GW's goal was to get the molds themselves from what I remember... but this was the compromise arrived at, pending appeals.

I doubt it. I think GW would have very much liked to get their hands on the molds. That way if they lose the appeals..... well... accidents happen.

The long and the short of it is that this should never have been a 'dispute' in the first place. GW should have stipulated to such when drafting the proposed injunction without a fuss. It seems that GW did agree to such stipulation only to turn around and submit the incorrect proposed injunction, which was accepted by the Court, and then fought CHS's desire to either get a formal stiplation to such or change the text of the Court's injunction.

It should never really have been a week long issue. Getting someone to agree to do something they already agreed to do should not rerquire a slap fight, but it seems things are never easy when it comes to GW's counsel.

Normally, this would have taken a phone call.

'Hey, Bob, the Court's injunction requires that CHS deliver the materials to you. This is incoincistent with our discussions regarding the proposed injunction. Can we get a stipulation from you to the effect that our firm is allowed to hold the materials pending appeal?

'Sure Mike. It looks like we sent in the wrong copy of the proposed injunction by mistake. Rather than bother the Court with modifying the injunction as issued, we'll submit a stipulation to the Court tomorrow. Merry Christmas!'

'Thanks. Have a nice holiday.'

That sounds suspiciously like civility and courtesy.