[Yagharek]

It amazes me that these clowns sued over the wavebird and classic controller, yet not the N64 pad. Surely that counts as prior art?

[Soneet]

Nope, you sue because you know you can win. Lets not start pretending justice is just in any country. The more you can spend on lawyers the more likely you are to win regardless of whether you are 'right'.

...

"you sue if you know you're in the right"
"you sue because you know you can win"
if you're right you win...
you win when you're right...



"Lets not start pretending justice is just in any country"
...
Let's not start pretending... justice.. is just...
justice isn't just...
...



"The more you can spend on lawyers the more likely you are to win regardless of whether you are 'right'."
... you win even if you're wrong?



The 1st thing you said really isn't any different than what I said...
The 2nd thing you said doesn't make sense if you think about it.
The 3rd thing you say doesn't even match the first 2 things you said.

Also, the 3rd thing you said is quite an American thing to say by the way. That's the whole point of the loser pays system: you don't fight in court with money, because the loser pays in the end. So money shouldn't stop anyone for going for justice.

Come on you guys, stop arguing for the sake of arguing with complete total nonsense. You're the 2nd guy doing this now.

[chicken_ramen]

PS. Courts are there to enforce the law. You either break it or you don't. Suing because someone "kind of broke the law"? Now that's ridiculous and that's what you're saying with "not every case is black and white".

You sue over a dispute. Almost by definition both sides will feel that they have assertable rights. The first job of a court is to decide what the facts are (often the jury takes this role) then once the facts are decided the court's second job in this sort of situation isn't to decide who has broken the law, but to decide how the law applies to the decided facts. Law breaking is criminal, not civil. In civil law decisions there will be a winner and a loser but the situation is not black and white all of the time. Asserting so is naive.

Also, lets not pretend that loser pays is perfect, it can lead to the escalation and dragging out of court cases when neither party believes they will be ultimately responsible for costs. A much greater problem in the American civil law, from my perspective, is exemplary damages but this however is also how a client pays system can work. When the successful applicant attains a windfall gain, they will be in a position to pay their legal fees as well, so a person who believes they are right will probably not be dissuaded by legal fees under the American system either.

Finally, to those arguing against loser pays, please note it is not a blanket system of payment. At least in Australia, the jurisdiction I'm most familiar with, it is significantly more nuanced. The presumption is that costs will follow the event, but waste, rejected settlement offers and proportionality issues can rebut the presumption. Also in most of these jurisdictions exemplary damages are more restricted than they appear to be in the US, such that damages awarded relate to the actual injury suffered. The extra award for costs is more necessary in this situation.

[Christine]

Banned people make me wary about what I post. I don't mind seeing them, but I usually want to do a quick history search to see what caused the ban.

Almost every ban I've ever investigated involves either A) blatantly NSFW images or B) being repeatedly and continuously disruptive. In short, bans don't just get handed out because someone posted something stupid or obnoxious. No, one must earn a ban. It requires dedication and effort. I'll never be banned because I'm too lazy to post often enough to arouse the notice of the administration (or for that matter, most of the regular members). Of course, I'll never have any significant amount of notoriety, and my tag will always say 'Member' - but I can post pretty much whatever the hell I feel like without worrying about earning a 'Banned' tag.

[Gamer @ Heart]

I wonder how many lawyers nintendo has on staff or if they contarct out shit like this against tiny companies.

[Soneet]

Almost every ban I've ever investigated involves either A) blatantly NSFW images or B) being repeatedly and continuously disruptive. In short, bans don't just get handed out because someone posted something stupid or obnoxious. No, one must earn a ban. It requires dedication and effort. I'll never be banned because I'm too lazy to post often enough to arouse the notice of the administration (or for that matter, most of the regular members). Of course, I'll never have any significant amount of notoriety, and my tag will always say 'Member' - but I can post pretty much whatever the hell I feel like without worrying about earning a 'Banned' tag.

:lol @ tag

[Manos: The Hans of Fate]

Hey Manos, I'm suing you for assault. Never mind that it didn't happen, or I've never met you in my life. I'm pressing charges. Now, let's say by some freak chance, it actually does make it to court. The case is thrown out, as it should be, but you still have to pay legal fees for your defense. How the FUCK is that fair?

It's not, but its also not an issue. If someone commits an action like that then they (and their lawyers) get their ass sanctioned by the court for filing a frivolous/clearly false lawsuit. There are specific Rules of Civil Procedure (in the Federal system and among the various states)to punish actions just like the ones you describe, removing the need for a blanket loser pays rule.

There is nothing wrong with plaintiffs recovering legal costs and it happens a lot, especially with douchebag insurance company behavior and other things (as its allowed by law for people to recovery attorney costs), removing the need for some blanket rule.

I was referring to civil law also not criminal law.

[Manos: The Hans of Fate]

I wonder how many lawyers nintendo has on staff or if they contarct out shit like this against tiny companies.

Most likely a core term of corporate in house counsel to advise and a regular group of firms for outside counsel they use for legal filings/actions. I mean Howard Lincoln wasn't originally Nintendo in house correct?

[Christine]

:lol @ tag

Sweet.

[linsivvi]

Microsoft settled because they couldn't be bothered. Whatever amount they paid was pocket change to them.

That said, the settlement fee probable funded Anascape's legal fee against Nintendo.

As usual, regardless of outcome, lawyers win. 2 years legal fee for a frivolous patent claim.:lol

[Manos: The Hans of Fate]

Sweet.

Still the guy who one time got banned for dissing pro-wrestling was really funny. I believe he was "super kicked by the clique" or something along those lines. :lol

[BlazingDarkness]

keep reading Analscape ;(

[Manos: The Hans of Fate]

keep reading Analscape ;(

Yeah the concept of Analscape being left bloodied by Nintendo is so damn funny that I don't want to process the correct name. :lol

[Christine]

Most likely a core term of corporate in house counsel to advise and a regular group of firms for outside counsel they use for legal filings/actions. I mean Howard Lincoln wasn't originally Nintendo in house correct?

Correct. It was his work in Universal City Studios, Inc. vs Nintendo Co., Ltd. that got him brought on as General Counsel.

Microsoft settled because they couldn't be bothered. Whatever amount they paid was pocket change to them.

It's pocket change to Nintendo, too. They just have a ... combative attitude concerning litigation. They're probably second only to IBM in how pugnacious they can be about legal challenges.

[Cow Mengde]

Still the guy who one time got banned for dissing pro-wrestling was really funny. I believe he was "super kicked by the clique" or something along those lines. :lol

I was once banned because I put a spoiler tag on the score for a game review. I was like what? I thought it was common practice here to do that. I thought I was doing the right thing. :lol Oops.

[Manos: The Hans of Fate]

Correct. It was his work in Universal City Studios, Inc. vs Nintendo Co., Ltd. that got him brought on as General Counsel.

We also shouldn't forget the work of John Kirby!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Kirby_%28attorney%29

The man with the exclusive rights to use the name Donkey Kong in yachts!

I love this story

Nintendo's attorney (and future board member) Howard Lincoln, was at first inclined to settle for $5–7 million.[9] Eventually, however, he decided to fight, reassuring the head of the company's U.S. division, Minoru Arakawa, that this was a sign that Nintendo had made it big.[10] On May 6, Arakawa and Lincoln met with Coleco and Universal in Los Angeles. Hadl reiterated his stance that Donkey Kong infringed Universal's rights to King Kong. Lincoln countered that Nintendo had discovered many unlicensed uses of King Kong's name and characters and that Universal's trademark on these was less than 10 years old. In private, Greenberg tried to persuade Nintendo to sign a licensing agreement; he had not told them that he had already done so.[7] By the end of the meeting, Hadl agreed to send a chain of title to Nintendo regarding Universal's ownership of the King Kong name. When this failed to materialize in the next few weeks, Lincoln prodded Universal again. They responded with more demands for royalties.[8] Lincoln researched the merits of Universal's claims to King Kong and deemed them untenable.[11] Nintendo called for another meeting, which was set up for May 21. Believing that Nintendo was finally caving,[8] Sheinberg intimated that Nintendo might expect future business from Universal if they agreed to settle the matter. Lincoln only repeated Nintendo's position that Universal had no legal basis to make any threats.[11] He recalled later, Mr. Arakawa and I decided that we would go down and simply tell him [Sheinberg] that we've come to tell you to your face that we would pay you if we thought we were liable, but we had done our homework and we were not prepared to pay anything because we hadn't done anything wrong. We just wanted to essentially look him in the face and tell him that. It seemed the honorable thing to do. As it turned out, maybe Hadl had led him to believe that we had come down to reach some sort of monetary settlement with him. And it was really funny because it was not what he was expecting and his reaction was shock.[12]

[OnPoint]

I was once banned because I put a spoiler tag on the score for a game review. I was like what? I thought it was common practice here to do that. I thought I was doing the right thing. :lol Oops.

You can be banned for so much here. Only boring posters don't get banned at all anyway. A one day or one week ban is like a rite of passage.

[daCuk]

That, or being demoted (as my current state proves).
Some mods are way too cool, and some just wake up from the wrong side of the bed
If I am banned for this post, well, I do not really care. I love reading GAF for the opinions of other gamers; I already know what I think about the topics here