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So wait, whats happening now?

Is CHS going to be broke no matter what happens?

 MRPYM wrote:
So wait, whats happening now?

Is CHS going to be broke no matter what happens?

Given that CHS made back a big chunk the payment to GW via their Kickstarter a while back, and that they're appealing which might even remove the payment entirely, I think that's a pretty big "no."

I thought the ruling for this court had already come down from the judge, each side had to bear their own costs.

Or did I just imagine that?

Cheers

Andrew

 AndrewC wrote:
I thought the ruling for this court had already come down from the judge, each side had to bear their own costs.

Or did I just imagine that?

Cheers

Andrew

Exactly right. And now CHS is appealing this result to a higher court, presumably because they find some fault with it.

Sorry Weeble, the previous two posts had me confused as to whether I had imagined the previous decision. They seemed to intimate that CHS had a bigger bill to pay to GW.

I had a smile at Doc 462 in which the Judge accused CHS of a 'Laundry list' of objections. Shame he didn't exercise the same discretion with GWs' list of infringments.

Ah well, onward and upward.

Just how high can this eventually go?

Cheers

Andrew

 AndrewC wrote:
Sorry Weeble, the previous two posts had me confused as to whether I had imagined the previous decision. They seemed to intimate that CHS had a bigger bill to pay to GW.

I had a smile at Doc 462 in which the Judge accused CHS of a 'Laundry list' of objections. Shame he didn't exercise the same discretion with GWs' list of infringments.

Ah well, onward and upward.

Just how high can this eventually go?

Cheers

Andrew

I can't imagine it would go higher than the 7th circuit court of appeals, although conceivably it could go en banc. From there the only appeal is the Supreme Court, which wouldn't accept this case I don't think.

weeble1000 wrote:
From there the only appeal is the Supreme Court, which wouldn't accept this case I don't think.

On what grounds would this get to the Supreme Court? I thought these days they only accepted cases that have Constitutional issues in them.

 Breotan wrote:

weeble1000 wrote:
From there the only appeal is the Supreme Court, which wouldn't accept this case I don't think.

On what grounds would this get to the Supreme Court? I thought these days they only accepted cases that have Constitutional issues in them.

Going offtopic, I think, but to here it looks as if US Supreme Court looks outside of constitution of US. As an example is a case from june where patentability of genetic code was looked at.

 Breotan wrote:

weeble1000 wrote:
From there the only appeal is the Supreme Court, which wouldn't accept this case I don't think.

On what grounds would this get to the Supreme Court? I thought these days they only accepted cases that have Constitutional issues in them.

I don't think it would, but maybe the choice of law issue.

 RiTides wrote:
Actually, I don't think that's what he implied at all xruslanx. He was mad that they didn't settle and get it off his docket. The judge was pretty immature in that regard, I think... he really didn't do his job all that well in my opinion, and I hope the appeals court says as much.

The result of the case is an absolute mess as it currently stands, and he didn't seem to really aid in the lessening of that in any way, once it became clear that the parties weren't going to settle.

Agreed. The judge was expressing annoyance at BOTH parties for not settling this dispute prior to trial. There was no denigration pointed directly at CHS's attorneys over GW's attorneys. It was a blanket complaint that there was no reason that they shouldn't have come to a resolution on their own.

Additionally, GW's attorneys were the only ones that received an actual, specific, and recorded sanction.

 Breotan wrote:

weeble1000 wrote:
From there the only appeal is the Supreme Court, which wouldn't accept this case I don't think.

On what grounds would this get to the Supreme Court? I thought these days they only accepted cases that have Constitutional issues in them.

Copyright is a Constitutional issue. "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries...."

They usually take one IP case a session or so. I don't expect this will ever be amongst those, though.

 RiTides wrote:
Actually, I don't think that's what he implied at all xruslanx. He was mad that they didn't settle and get it off his docket. The judge was pretty immature in that regard, I think... he really didn't do his job all that well in my opinion, and I hope the appeals court says as much.

The result of the case is an absolute mess as it currently stands, and he didn't seem to really aid in the lessening of that in any way, once it became clear that the parties weren't going to settle.

I somewhat disagree. I think the Judge predicted this outcome right at the very start, encouraged the parties to settle to this outcome at an early stage, and after three years of bitter argument, expense and court time, we've ended up exactly where he predicted in the first place.

Asking the parties to sort it out between themselves is exactly the most professional thing that he could have done at the time. Unfortunately while it may be in the client's best interest to settle, it's not always in the short term interest of their legal team.

Looking back, clearly GW should have chosen the 'settle' option, which would included a generous offer to CHS in order to buy them out and shut them down.

Still, here we are today - and GW has spent far more than that on this case, and without the satisfactory results they were thinking they were going to get.

 Holdenstein wrote:

 RiTides wrote:
Actually, I don't think that's what he implied at all xruslanx. He was mad that they didn't settle and get it off his docket. The judge was pretty immature in that regard, I think... he really didn't do his job all that well in my opinion, and I hope the appeals court says as much.

The result of the case is an absolute mess as it currently stands, and he didn't seem to really aid in the lessening of that in any way, once it became clear that the parties weren't going to settle.

I somewhat disagree. I think the Judge predicted this outcome right at the very start, encouraged the parties to settle to this outcome at an early stage, and after three years of bitter argument, expense and court time, we've ended up exactly where he predicted in the first place.

Asking the parties to sort it out between themselves is exactly the most professional thing that he could have done at the time. Unfortunately while it may be in the client's best interest to settle, it's not always in the short term interest of their legal team.

However, a judge shouldn't be pissed off just because a suit isn't settled out of court and he actually has to work on it, it's kinda what he's paid to do. I don't get pissed off when I get in to work and people haven't cancelled their insurance claims even though they won't like they payout they get. I'm paid to handle those claims regardless of what happens with them down the line. Do I have other claims to deal with? Of course, but to me every one is equally valid so long as the client wants them handled(and for the judge, the public is the client).

I very much agree with Alpharius that GW has really botched this whole thing. They could have easily bought out CHS with an NDA early on. GW should have realized that the second that CHS got pro bono representation. They could have easily outlined the potential costs to CHS to continue, looked at their past sales, and offered will under the amount they've spent to make it all go away quietly.

Instead, they've spent well over 1mil and are no better off. They've shattered a large portion of their reputation, and they've pissed off a decent chunk of their customers in the process. They are very well poised to lose more in appeals than they did in trial.

GW should have realized from day one that CHS had very little to lose by fighting, and had everything to gain. GW on the other hand had very little to gain from this and potentially everything to lose. Just the trademark fair use issues that were ruled on were a huge loss to GW's perceived iron fist. They sued over a shoulder pad that was similar, and in doing so lost protection over their own pad's design. They won a scant few claims, a few products were pulled. But as the magistrate said at the beginning of this mess, for GW it's a zero sum game. The ONLY way GW will be satisfied it seems is for CHS to fold entirely, which just isn't going to happen. Even if CHS lost EVERYTHING in this claim, they have new products rolling out that are well outside the scope of GW's supposed IP.

 Aerethan wrote:



However, a judge shouldn't be pissed off just because a suit isn't settled out of court and he actually has to work on it, it's kinda what he's paid to do. I don't get pissed off when I get in to work and people haven't cancelled their insurance claims even though they won't like they payout they get. I'm paid to handle those claims regardless of what happens with them down the line. Do I have other claims to deal with? Of course, but to me every one is equally valid so long as the client wants them handled(and for the judge, the public is the client).

Judges don't get pissed when they have to work on a file - most judges love their jobs. Judges do get pissed when parties waste taxpayer money and court time on childish issues or matters that should have been settled between counsel like professionals.

For whatever reason the parties in this case went the scorched earth route and seemed to be unable to work out even simple issues without court intervention. You will see the judge's frowny face when this happens and for good reason. Every hour spent in court on this stuff costs YOU the taxpayer money - the registrar, the transcriber, the judge, the use of the facilities, security, clerk time spent researching etc... all cost money (lots of money) and means that another case isn't getting the time and attention it deserves or is being delayed, which costs those parties money and delays the resolution of their case.

czakk wrote:

 Aerethan wrote:



However, a judge shouldn't be pissed off just because a suit isn't settled out of court and he actually has to work on it, it's kinda what he's paid to do. I don't get pissed off when I get in to work and people haven't cancelled their insurance claims even though they won't like they payout they get. I'm paid to handle those claims regardless of what happens with them down the line. Do I have other claims to deal with? Of course, but to me every one is equally valid so long as the client wants them handled(and for the judge, the public is the client).

Judges don't get pissed when they have to work on a file - most judges love their jobs. Judges do get pissed when parties waste taxpayer money and court time on childish issues or matters that should have been settled between counsel like professionals.

For whatever reason the parties in this case went the scorched earth route and seemed to be unable to work out even simple issues without court intervention. You will see the judge's frowny face when this happens and for good reason. Every hour spent in court on this stuff costs YOU the taxpayer money - the registrar, the transcriber, the judge, the use of the facilities, security, clerk time spent researching etc... all cost money (lots of money) and means that another case isn't getting the time and attention it deserves or is being delayed, which costs those parties money and delays the resolution of their case.

I don't see that it should be a waste of time when neither side will settle. Now if GW had offered a settlement(other than "close and go away entirely" and CHS wasn't taking it because they felt they could get more from trial, sure, I can understand the frustration, and vice versa.

czakk wrote:

 Aerethan wrote:



However, a judge shouldn't be pissed off just because a suit isn't settled out of court and he actually has to work on it, it's kinda what he's paid to do. I don't get pissed off when I get in to work and people haven't cancelled their insurance claims even though they won't like they payout they get. I'm paid to handle those claims regardless of what happens with them down the line. Do I have other claims to deal with? Of course, but to me every one is equally valid so long as the client wants them handled(and for the judge, the public is the client).

Judges don't get pissed when they have to work on a file - most judges love their jobs. Judges do get pissed when parties waste taxpayer money and court time on childish issues or matters that should have been settled between counsel like professionals.

For whatever reason the parties in this case went the scorched earth route and seemed to be unable to work out even simple issues without court intervention. You will see the judge's frowny face when this happens and for good reason. Every hour spent in court on this stuff costs YOU the taxpayer money - the registrar, the transcriber, the judge, the use of the facilities, security, clerk time spent researching etc... all cost money (lots of money) and means that another case isn't getting the time and attention it deserves or is being delayed, which costs those parties money and delays the resolution of their case.

You do realize how many motions to dismiss this judge denied, right? He ruled that a picture of a skull on page 88 of a book was a valid trademark used in commerce. He allowed a claim to proceed to trial when the 30b6 witness said, "this thing is a copy of our idea, that's the best I can come up with," when asked to describe the nature of a copyright claim. Whether or not you agree that those decisions and others were correct, Judge Kennelly made them. He made them. Him. It was his responsibility to do so.

Jude Kennelly decided that the claims in this case were both proper and involved triable issues of fact. Having made such decisions by repeatedly denying both motions to dismiss and motions for summary judgement, can he really be upset that one or more of the parties exercised their rights to a jury trial?

weeble1000 wrote:

czakk wrote:

 Aerethan wrote:



However, a judge shouldn't be pissed off just because a suit isn't settled out of court and he actually has to work on it, it's kinda what he's paid to do. I don't get pissed off when I get in to work and people haven't cancelled their insurance claims even though they won't like they payout they get. I'm paid to handle those claims regardless of what happens with them down the line. Do I have other claims to deal with? Of course, but to me every one is equally valid so long as the client wants them handled(and for the judge, the public is the client).

Judges don't get pissed when they have to work on a file - most judges love their jobs. Judges do get pissed when parties waste taxpayer money and court time on childish issues or matters that should have been settled between counsel like professionals.

For whatever reason the parties in this case went the scorched earth route and seemed to be unable to work out even simple issues without court intervention. You will see the judge's frowny face when this happens and for good reason. Every hour spent in court on this stuff costs YOU the taxpayer money - the registrar, the transcriber, the judge, the use of the facilities, security, clerk time spent researching etc... all cost money (lots of money) and means that another case isn't getting the time and attention it deserves or is being delayed, which costs those parties money and delays the resolution of their case.

You do realize how many motions to dismiss this judge denied, right? Did you read his summary judgment opinions. He was ignorant of basic facts in the case. He ruled that a picture of a skull on page 88 of a book was a valid trademark used in commerce. He allowed a claim to proceed to trial when the 30b6 witness said, "this thing is a copy of our idea, that's the best I can come up with," when asked to describe the nature of a copyright claim.

And a defendant cannot extricate itself from a case without approval from the plaintiff or a ruling from the court. Just keep that in mind.

Which is kinda what I was getting at. GW pushed this. CHS tried to have the nonsense thrown out, and the judge let it sit. Hell even the shoulder pad copyright, which by all reasoning should have been dismissed with prejudice based on both the denied copyright registration and then GW hiding said denial, was left in the case at trial.

It seems that Judge Kennely did very little to try and par down the size of this case, hoping that it would just go away and he could focus on what he felt were more important cases, again as Weeble said earlier, despite the huge implications that this case might have in myriad other industries and cases.

The judicial snark that started this particular line of conversation had to do with the insessant motion practice and inability of counsel to work trivial matters out between themselves - you will be arguing this when my kids are grown up or words to that effect were uttered after the jury verdict and the trial was basically over.


That's not to say the case couldn't have been managed differently or narrowed in scope judicially. But it is important to distinguish between a judge saying "Why are you here" with regards to the case as a whole and "why are you here bothering me with this" for a particular argument or spat between counsel or more globaly when counsel have shown an inability to agree on even the most basic of things like that stipulation wrt to who would hold on to the molds. That sort of behaviour needs to be discouraged, and snark is one of the tools the bench has to do it. Especially in the absence of legal costs awards on all these motions and hearings.

czakk wrote:
The judicial snark that started this particular line of conversation had to do with the insessant motion practice and inability of counsel to work trivial matters out between themselves - you will be arguing this when my kids are grown up or words to that effect were uttered after the jury verdict and the trial was basically over.


That's not to say the case couldn't have been managed differently or narrowed in scope judicially. But it is important to distinguish between a judge saying "Why are you here" with regards to the case as a whole and "why are you here bothering me with this" for a particular argument or spat between counsel or more globaly when counsel have shown an inability to agree on even the most basic of things like that stipulation wrt to who would hold on to the molds. That sort of behaviour needs to be discouraged, and snark is one of the tools the bench has to do it. Especially in the absence of legal costs awards on all these motions and hearings.

Excellent point. I believe we wandered off in a different direction based on phrasing at some point.

I agree that it's reasonable for a judge to be frustrated at lawyers arguing and being petty.

I've heard the "GW should've saved money and bought CHS" line a LOT in the years of this thread.
There's a lot of presumption in that statement. It assumes that CHS *would have* sold to GW. Any contract would, surely, have included a clause that he not go right back into business with his new start=up capital (LOL), which I have a hard time believing would've gone over with CHS.

Eric

 MagickalMemories wrote:
I've heard the "GW should've saved money and bought CHS" line a LOT in the years of this thread.
There's a lot of presumption in that statement. It assumes that CHS *would have* sold to GW. Any contract would, surely, have included a clause that he not go right back into business with his new start=up capital (LOL), which I have a hard time believing would've gone over with CHS.

Eric

Hard to say either way - because it was never on the table. (Sort of like wondering if the ACW would have happened if the Confederates hadn't fired on Fort Sumter, we will never know, because they did....)

The Auld Grump

 MagickalMemories wrote:
I've heard the "GW should've saved money and bought CHS" line a LOT in the years of this thread.
There's a lot of presumption in that statement. It assumes that CHS *would have* sold to GW. Any contract would, surely, have included a clause that he not go right back into business with his new start=up capital (LOL), which I have a hard time believing would've gone over with CHS.

Eric

A buyout settlement could have included a non compete clause that says CHS can't reform and create another company in direct competition within X years I'd imagine.

With how much GW has spent, if I were CHS and someone offered me a million to go quietly, I'd do it in a heartbeat and move on to other games or hobbies. But then again that's me.

The bigger point remains that GW didn't even consider a single settlement option that was presented because those offers didn't shut CHS down entirely for no money.

 TheAuldGrump wrote:

 MagickalMemories wrote:
I've heard the "GW should've saved money and bought CHS" line a LOT in the years of this thread.
There's a lot of presumption in that statement. It assumes that CHS *would have* sold to GW. Any contract would, surely, have included a clause that he not go right back into business with his new start=up capital (LOL), which I have a hard time believing would've gone over with CHS.

Eric

Hard to say either way - because it was never on the table. (Sort of like wondering if the ACW would have happened if the Confederates hadn't fired on Fort Sumter, we will never know, because they did....)

The Auld Grump

All I have to say about this is that if you've never been sued; if you've never faced a lawsuit threatening your livelihood that goes on year after year after year, you can at least try to imagine what that is like.

Even with pro-bono representation the stress is monumental. Hell, remember what Paulson said, and he was out of the case quickly in comparison to Chapterhouse. We know that Nick testified to earning a salary of 3K per month from Chapterhouse Studios, and that total revenue for more than four years of sales, revenue mind you, was barely more than $400,000.00.

If that was you, and someone offered you half a million dollars in cash, right now, to close your business...would you stand on principle? Would you turn that down knowing that even if you stuck through years more litigation and had to sit through a trial in which you would be openly called a thief, you might still lose your whole business anyway?

We have no idea what happened behind the scenes, but there are glimpses in the public record. For example, Judge Gilbert intimated that GW viewed the case as a zero sum game and Jonathan Moskin said that a license was a non-starter. We know the parties could not work out a settlement in multiple pre and post trial efforts. We know that the Court felt that the parties had great difficulty communicating. And we know that Jonathan E Moskin was sanctioned in this case for withholding discoverable documents and sanctioned in a previous case for being deliberately misleading in settlement negotiations. We also know that Moskin swore in an affidavit that he hung up in the middle of a meet and confer over a quip expressing doubt about the veracity of his assurances as to document production in a case in which his firm was sanctioned for requiring opposing counsel to file repeated motions to compel discovery.

Those are all straight up facts well documented in the public record that have been discussed many times in this thread.

Hena wrote:

 Breotan wrote:

weeble1000 wrote:
From there the only appeal is the Supreme Court, which wouldn't accept this case I don't think.

On what grounds would this get to the Supreme Court? I thought these days they only accepted cases that have Constitutional issues in them.

Going offtopic, I think, but to here it looks as if US Supreme Court looks outside of constitution of US. As an example is a case from june where patentability of genetic code was looked at.

Pardon me for the OT, but that case does deal with the U.S. Constitution, specifically Art. I. § 8, Clause 8. There is a long-running body of U.S. patent law on being unable to patent anything from nature. Thus, you cannot patent a gene that is naturally occurring in the human body, but you CAN patent a gene you create. (cDNA v rDNA)

Sorry, law school nerd hat came out. I'll go back to lurking now.

How many genes have actually been 'created' though? Typically you import them from another species. Maybe the 'novel' combination of a certain gene from a bacteria into a specific plant could be protected, but not the genetic sequences themselves.

Nuwisha wrote:

Hena wrote:

 Breotan wrote:

weeble1000 wrote:
From there the only appeal is the Supreme Court, which wouldn't accept this case I don't think.

On what grounds would this get to the Supreme Court? I thought these days they only accepted cases that have Constitutional issues in them.

Going offtopic, I think, but to here it looks as if US Supreme Court looks outside of constitution of US. As an example is a case from june where patentability of genetic code was looked at.

Pardon me for the OT, but that case does deal with the U.S. Constitution, specifically Art. I. § 8, Clause 8. There is a long-running body of U.S. patent law on being unable to patent anything from nature. Thus, you cannot patent a gene that is naturally occurring in the human body, but you CAN patent a gene you create. (cDNA v rDNA)

Sorry, law school nerd hat came out. I'll go back to lurking now.

I'm not from US so I have no idea of US constitution, merely was assuming that IP things would not be in it. However being a person involved in DNA sequencing, I can say that cDNA is a naturally created DNA. It is copying a section of DNA using natural enzymes (eg. even those are either pure natural enzymes or modified versions of them). Only part that is artificial is the selection of which bit to copy (mutagenesis aside of course).

I would have no problem is continuing this in other thread though if wanted .

The patenting of DNA is an interesting topic in law and science, however this thread is about the GW vs Chapter House case.

I don't think GW ever considered offering Chapter House a settlement. As far as we know, GW simply issued an ultimatum, without prior consultation or offers of recompense, requiring CH to close their business, on their general principle of "All of your SF are belong to us".

 Kilkrazy wrote:
The patenting of DNA is an interesting topic in law and science, however this thread is about the GW vs Chapter House case.

I don't think GW ever considered offering Chapter House a settlement. As far as we know, GW simply issued an ultimatum, without prior consultation or offers of recompense, requiring CH to close their business, on their general principle of "All of your SF are belong to us".

There's a meme I haven't heard in a long time.




Having said that, the CATS/Captain dialogue is almost a carbon copy of the GW/Chapterhouse positions so far.

Chapterhouse Employee wrote:Main screen turn on.

Villacci wrote:It’s you !!

GW wrote:How are you gentlemen !!
All your base are belong to us.
You are on the way to destruction.

Villacci wrote:What you say !!

GW wrote:You have no chance to survive make your time.

GW wrote:Ha ha ha ha …

As it turns out in this case GW set themselves up the bomb.