Re: Attorney fees

[David Kastrup]

Hyman Rosen <hyrosen@mail.com> writes:

> rjack wrote:
>> What is manifestly clear from case law is that once a copyright
>> owner repeatedly brings meritless claims that are not within the
>> jurisdiction
>> of the court, the court will assume that the purported copyright owner
>> is filing frivolous, harassing actions subject to F.R.Civ.P. Rule 11
>> sanctions.
>
> I would guess that a prerequisite would be for a court to
> actually decide that the claims were frivolous, which is
> difficult when the cases are settled before they get to
> trial. I will anxiously await a courageous code grabber
> who is willing to go all the way, and then we'll see.

I don't see how.  There are just two possibilities: "Your honor, the GPL
does not concern me."  A perfectly valid stance _explicitly_ allowed in
the GPL.  The case proceeds from there and consequently says nothing
about the GPL.  "You honor, I accept the GPL."  In which case there is
just a tick-off of the GPL clauses and it is checked whether he can
reasonably be considered in the claimed compliance.  If yes, this says
something about a mistake of the plaintiff when checking the conditions.
But not about the validity of the GPL as such.

So what sort of "go all the way" is supposed to get to a ruling about
the GPL?

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum