According to Groklaw, the long running battle between SCO and Novell may finally be over. The Judge ruled that SCO, the company that claimed Linux infringed on it’s IP and sued everybody in sight, never did own any rights to Unix in the first place, and has ordered the company to pay millions. Novell and others are unlikely to ever see much of that, though, as SCO is in bankruptcy.

The following, quoted from Daily Kos:

Accodring to Chambers, God has caused fearsome floods, egregious earthquakes, horrendous hurricanes, terrifying tornadoes, pestilential plagues, ferocious famines, devastating droughts, genocidal wars, birth defects, calamitous catastrophes resulting in the wide-spread death, destruction and terrorization of millions upon millions of the Earth’s inhabitants including innocent babes, infants, children, the aged and infirm without mercy or distinction.

So, you think “yeah, he’s got a point.” And you read this, and you realize “he’s flipping smart.”

Chambers says he’s tried to contact God numerous times, “Plaintiff, despite reasonable efforts to effectuate personal service upon Defendant ( ‘Come out, come out, wherever you are’ ) has been unable to do so.”

The suit also requests that the court given the “peculiar circumstances” of this case waive personal service. It says being Omniscient, the plaintiff assumes God will have actual knowledge of the action.

Ernie Chambers, Nebraska, lawsuit, god, god on trial, religion vs. reason

The Bangor Daily News is reporting a Maine woman has sued Fidel Castro for her father’s death.

Sherry Sullivan of Stockton Springs accuses Fidel Castro, his brother Raul, the Cuban army, and the Republic of Cuba for the wrongful death of her father, who has been missing and assumed dead since he was last seen at a Mexican airstrip in 1963.

According to the lawsuit, from 1960 until their disappearance, Sullivan and Rorke participated in numerous covert anti-Castro operations in Central America and Cuba. They also took part in Operation Mongoose, a covert-action sabotage and subversion program against Cuba run by the CIA.

Compare that to the story of prisoner 345 (lesser known as Sami Al-Hajj), a reporter for Al Jazeera who was captured by the US and has now been held in Guantanamo Bay for over five years. Actually, compare that to hundreds of prisoners who’ve been held and tortured there.

Still, Sherry Sullivan is hopeful about her prospects, noting:

in the past few years, state courts have ruled in a number of wrongful death claims against the Castro regime and have awarded millions of dollars to the families of victims. Damages have been paid from Cuban assets frozen by the U.S. government shortly after the Castro revolution, Sullivan said.

According to The Associated Press, at the end of 2005, approximately $270 million in Cuban assets were frozen in U.S. bank accounts.

“I’m just basically filing the same type of suit that has won in other courts,” Sullivan said.

One wonders what Sami Al-Hajj’s family might say.

Sami Al-Hajj, prisoner 345, prisoner abuse, wrongful death, lawsuit, Fidel Castro, covert operations, Sherry Sullivan, Geoffrey Francis Sullivan

Roy Pearson sues Custom Cleaners for $67 million over lost pants. Millions! Pants!

Roy Pearson, pants, lawsuit, Custom Cleaners

Vonage has been saying Verizon’s patent claims are overly broad for some time, but now people have dug up some prior art.

One of the patents Verizon is complaining about is #6,104,711, what they call an “enhanced internet domain name server.”

In short, it’s all about linking phone numbers to IP numbers, and Jeff Pulver says he was doing that in 1995 with Free World Dialup, an early, noncommercial VoIP service.

Even better, Pulver published his work. The Internet Telephone Toolkit came out in January 1996, and a presentation that drew additional attention:

In November 1996, I gave a presentation to the VoIP Forum in Dallas. The meeting included participation from Cisco, Intel, Microsoft, IBM, Nokia, Motorola, and Vocaltec for the purpose of making [features of my work] the basis for a VoIP open standard. How do these companies feel about the Verizon’s assertion it owns the idea of name translation? How did Verizon accomplish this when the notion of name translation in H.323 traces back to the original ITU working group in 1993?

GigaOM » Doubts raised over Verizon VoIP patents

Tier 1 Research analyst Daniel Berninger agrees, noting the founding work done by Cisco Systems, Microsoft, IBM, Nortel, Intel, Motorola, Lucent, Vocaltec Communications, and other members of the VoIP forum is disclosed in Verizon’s later patent claims.

patents, verizon, vonage, jeff pulver, patent, free world dialup, fwd, h.323, copyfight, underdog, patent law, patent infringement, legal battle, lawsuit, intellectual property, innovation, court case, chilling effect, prior art

Vonage will be in court again tomorrow defending itself against Verizon’s claims of patent infringement. The innovative VoIP company had lost the trial and was ordered to pay $58 Million in damages in early March, when a jury found them to have violated thee of seven related patents held by Verizon. Vonage appealed of course, but it’s uncertain if the company, which has yet to turn a profit, has the stamina for a drawn out battle. The company’s annual 10-K filing painted a stark picture of the challenges Vonage faces (NPR coverage).

The best news for Vonage so far came on April 6, when an appeals court temporarily lifted the injunction that would have forced them to cease operations. And tomorrow the company will face an appeals court in a case that could make or break the company.

I’m among those that’s been saying patent law is broken, and cases like this are a perfect illustration of how laws that were meant to encourage innovation are instead used to protect the establishment. (Take a look at Article I Section 8, where it speaks of promoting “the progress of science and useful arts.”)

The Software Freedom Law Center’s Eben Moglen says Verizon filed for the patents in 1997 specifically so that it could use them as ammunition against the then developing but not commercialized VoIP technology.

vonage, verizon, intellectual property, patent infringement, patent law, lawsuit, court case, legal battle, innovation, chilling effect, underdog, copyfight