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won a ruling that throws out a $388 million jury verdict over a patent on software used to deter piracy.U.S. District Judge William Smith in Providence, Rhode Island, yesterday vacated the April verdict. The jury had found that Microsoft violated a patent owned by Uniloc Singapore Private Ltd. and Uniloc USA Inc., which claimed Microsoft wrongfully used their security technology to earn billions of dollars.
Uniloc’s suit, filed in October 2003, targeted Microsoft’s Windows XP operating system and some Office programs. Microsoft, based in Redmond, Washington, argued that it used a different method for registering software and that the patent was invalid.
The jury “lacked a grasp of the issues before it and reached a finding without a legally sufficient basis,” Judge Smith said in his order.
When a judge, after a jury has reached a verdict, says something like
a finding without a legally sufficient basis
what often is actually being said is that the issue shouldn't have been presented to the jury for the jurors to decide.
When an issue arises during a trial - a claim - for which there is no legally sufficient basis - that is, insufficient supporting facts or inferences from facts and/or inadequate lawful basis - then it's the judges job to remove that issue from consideration by the jury. The judge does this by granting Microsoft's "Motion for (partial) Summary Judgment" or Microsoft's "Motion", during trial, to "Dismiss" (a claim/issue) at either the end of the plaintiff's case or at the end of the defense case, OR grants a Motion for a "Directed Verdict" - all which keeps issues without a legally sufficient basis from being decided by a jury.
The judge also shapes the outcome of the jury's deliberations by the manner in which he crafts or approves the "jury interrogatories" - the written questionaire the jury must answer, the questions that "frame the issues" or provide a framework for the jury's deliberations. In other words, the issues that the jury gets to decide are the issues the judge instructs the jurors to decide.
Which makes the statement "a finding without a legally sufficient basis" sound, to me, like the judge asked the jury to answer a question for which the judge knew or should have known "there is no way you, the jury, to decide this issue any other way".
Which is, ofttimes, the same as saying either the judge should have decided the issue without asking the jury. When the judge has the conviction that there's only 1 just outcome that's when the judge steps up and relieves the jury of the responsibility.
It's far too easy to "blame the jury" or "blame the legal system" IF you don't fully understand how the system works.
And, lastly, to be fair, it's hard to say exactly what went wrong without either reading the entire trial transcript and filings. There are times a jury may exceed the bounds of reason or the law, but in my observation, that outcome is rare - far more rare than those who attack the jury system would have you believe. And, usually when a jury goes outside the bounds of the law, there's 6 or 12 citizens who feel there's good reason to do so, i.e., the law itself isn't quite such a perfect thing. ;)
Often, it seems that the only qualification to sit on a jury is that you are unqualified. For instance, if you work in medicine, you will typically be barred from sitting on a jury hearing a case of medical malpractice. This is not entirely daft because juries should begin hearing the evidence from a neutral standpoint. However...
In cases where the technical complexity of the evidence is great, juries need to be vetted to ensure that, at the very least, they have the aptitude to understand the evidence, even if they do not initially have relevant knowledge of the subjects. Indeed, this should also be true of judges and defense lawyers. I can't comment on miscarriages of justice in the US, but in the UK, it is often apparent that defense lawyers did not understand the forensic evidence and didn't challenge it fully!
Kaled.
The jury “lacked a grasp of the issues before it and reached a finding without a legally sufficient basis,” Judge Smith said in his order.
How would you like to hear that if you were one of the juror's who probably took a considerable time out of work to sit their, listen, weigh the facts and then render a decision.
Seems to me the judge at the initial trial was dozing on the bench.
This seems to be tantamount to an admission that the whole jury system is flawed...
My opinion? (for what it is worth) The overturn is spot on.
Software patents are evil.
I can see granting a patent on a finished software product, maybe. But not an algorithm or a technique
Why is a software "technique" (your word) necessarily different to a manufacturing process (for which patents can be granted). If a patentable device relies on software to function, why should that not be patentable while an arrangement of mechanical components (that might comprise an older but equivalent device) is patentable?
It occurred to me recently that it should be possible to create a lossless compression algorithm for program distribution that, in many cases, is actually "better than perfect" but in all other cases should be near perfect. However, if I can't patent it, why should I bother even doing the mathematical analysis to see if I'm correct, let alone spend the time coding it to confirm the theory?
If people want to give away their efforts, that's fine, but those of us that expect to be paid for our efforts should be granted the same rights as other inventors.
Kaled.
