Re: JMRI case -- Implementation of the Federal Circuit's Opinion

[Hyman Rosen]

Alexander Terekhov wrote:
> http://jmri.sourceforge.net/k/docket/284.pdf

Of the various claims, the only one relevant to this
newsgroup is the request for a preliminary injunction.
The others are patent claims, DMCA claims, attorney
fee claims, and other such irrelevancies.

The District Court appears to have decided to ignore
the meat of the opinion of the Appeals Court
<http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/opinions/08-1001.pdf>
while selectively reading just a bit of it and claiming
to obey it. The Appeals Court said

    "The choice to exact consideration in the form of
     compliance with the open source requirements of
     disclosure and explanation of changes, rather than
     as a dollar-denominated fee, is entitled to no less
     legal recognition. Indeed, because a calculation of
     damages is inherently speculative, these types of
     license restrictions might well be rendered
     meaningless absent the ability to enforce through
     injunctive relief."

Instead, the District Court decided to focus on the part
of the Appeals Court decision where the judges enumerated
some possible non-monetary considerations that an author
might benefit from, and said that a plaintiff must show
that he was specifically harmed in one of these ways. That
is exactly contrary to what the Appeals Court said above.
I predict another round trip through the appeals process.
Clearly, the District Court judge was drunk.