Today I finally finished an article I have been writing for Wikipedia, as part of my IP Law class. The professor for this class is the same as the one that taught the Cyberlaw class I took in the Spring, and once again, he has asked us to work on Wikipedia as part of our classwork.
We were able to choose an article on Wikipedia that was related to the class, and I chose to work on the article on Jacobsen v. Katzer, which is a very important case as it relates to open source licensing, patent law, copyright, DMCA, and just about every other possible IP law issue.
Ultimately, it was a very complicated case because Katzer has attempted to throw the book at Jacobsen (and vice versa). The court has not yet resolved all the issues, but from reading through about half of the court documents that Jacobsen has posted, it appears that Katzer has:
- Patented technology that was not his to patent
- Attempted to get licensing fees from Jacobsen for those patents
- Stolen the intellectual property of an open source project, stripped it of its license and then incorporated it into his own commercial project
- Attempted to sue Jacobsen for copyright violation for something - I'm not even sure what
- And more - see the article for details
In short, it's a nasty, nasty case, but ultimately it should work out for Jacobsen, and he should come out the better (or at least none the worse). At a minimum, he has to prove that the patents are invalid, Katzer stole his IP, and that he didn't steal Katzer's IP - a walk in the park.
Clearly, that's easier said than done, but he's fighting what appears to be the good fight, and it looks like if he keeps at it, he will win in the end.
Some points that may assist you in focusing your analysis:
(1) Regarding the patent: There's only one and it is clearly owned by Katzer (After extensive research by a number of individuals and organizations, it has been found that there is no pre-existing art to this patent reinforcing the validity of Katzer's patent.).
The patent is not part of the case as the patent was disclaimed by Katzer (commonly referred to as the 329 patent). Jacobsen fought the disclaimer but was over-ruled by Judge White......the disclaimer was upheld; the patent is out of the case.
(2) In the beginning: Katzer requested fees from Jacobsen for infringement of his (Katzer's) patent by Jacobsen prior to Jacobsen filing a complaint against Katzer.
(3) Important: Jacobsen (Plantiff) sued Katzer (Defendant). Katzer counter sued Jacobsen for $6 million for copyright violation.
See District Court document 338 or 339 (I forget which one) for details that may add clarity to your analysis written by one of the District Court's judges that manages the discovery process for Jacobsen v Katzer.
Good luck in your analysis.
Anonymous,
I'm guessing you're also the editor that made a bunch of changes to the article on Wikipedia recently. I just looked through your changes, but didn't see any references, and so reverted them for now. I didn't have a chance to look at everything carefully yet though.
We should hash out the changes you made on Wikipedia via the article's talk page. I already started a discussion there, but thanks in advance for your research on this case. It sounds like you have some background on the Katzer side, which would be interesting to hear.
There are a number of individuals that have followed this case very closely. The necessary footnotes with links have been added to the Wikipedia article in support of the insertion of facts. Our interest is only presenting the facts with the specific District Court Documents being cited.....no opinions whatsoever.
There are four District & CAFC Court documents that maybe of interest (1) District Court document 290, (2) District Court document 338, (3) the Amicus brief filed on behalf of Katzer by ACT to CAFC and (4) Summary Judgement submissions due at the end of this month.
We are very careful to use the Internet only for the presentation of facts in this case. We have observed a large number of very good legal types either mis-understanding what has been going on or failing to internalize the ramifications of the outcome of this case.
Regarding your input on Wilkipedia, your reversions have been re reverted.
Hopefully our input has provided you additional insight into Jacobsen v Katzer.
I just checked and reverted the changes to the article for the same reasons as previously stated. I want to include your changes, but they lack references, and are not integrated into the article.
Please don't respond here though, so that others may find our discussion. Please respond on the article's talk page.
The 1st comment above is very similar to ones made to Wikipedia by Rod Katzer, Matt Katzer's _brother_. He's also spammed the same comments in reply to dozen's of blog postings. Apparently, a willingness to bend the truth runs in that family....
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