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CyberSitter Sues The Chinese Government (In Los Angeles) Over Green Dam Filters
from the good-luck-with-that dept
Last summer, of course, there was a lot of attention paid to China's announced plans that every PC sold in China needed to include the new "Green Dam Youth Escort" software, which was a client-side filtering program. After international outrage over the plan actually had some sort of impact, the government backed down. A smaller story, that came out during all of this, was that the Green Dam software appeared to copy significant portions of the commercial filter product, CyberSitter. Now, CyberSitter has sued the Chinese government and a bunch of companies for $2.2 billion. The lawsuit has been filed in Los Angeles, and I would wonder what jurisdiction a Los Angeles district court has over the Chinese government concerning software that was only to be used in China.
While the lawsuit does include the expected copyright claim, it also goes much further to claim trade secret violations and "conspiracy." And while the Chinese government is obviously the headline grabber, it also includes Sony, Lenovo, Toshiba, Acer, ASUSTek, BenQ and Haier, claiming that these computer makers were in on the conspiracy. While many of those have US operations, it seems like a longshot that (a) the court has jurisdiction over their actions in China or (b) the charge of "conspiracy" has any chance of sticking.
While the lawsuit does include the expected copyright claim, it also goes much further to claim trade secret violations and "conspiracy." And while the Chinese government is obviously the headline grabber, it also includes Sony, Lenovo, Toshiba, Acer, ASUSTek, BenQ and Haier, claiming that these computer makers were in on the conspiracy. While many of those have US operations, it seems like a longshot that (a) the court has jurisdiction over their actions in China or (b) the charge of "conspiracy" has any chance of sticking.
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What are they saying conspired?
Conspiracy? My testacles are tingling in anticipation....
But what are they alledging? My guess is that those manufacturers forged an agreement to preload their products for Chinese distribution to include some form of "OEM" style of the Chinese Green Dam. That's the only thing that makes sense to me. But how does that involve them in the infringement of Cybersitter's IP?
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John R. Carlisle
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it's also legal tiddly winks for another reason: Many of those companies operate in China under a different corporate structure than in the US, and different again in their home (depending on where they live). Almost everything that happens in China is done on a joint venture basis with a local company, which means they are suing entities that aren't directly involved in the Chinese market.
Finally, I doubt they will find anything that can suggest that the operation was based in the US, or that any of the infringing took place in the US.
They are doing it here mostly because in China, they would pretty much get laughed out of court (if they even made it that far).
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Why are you agreeing with Mike?
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Legal Impossibility
You'd be right, mainly because "conspiracy" is a criminal violation and a private company can't prosecute criminal violations in a civil suit.
The proper claim here is probably "collusion", not "conspiracy".
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Lockerbie
Yeah, that'd be like the families of the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing victims trying to sue the government of Lybia for something than happened over Lockerbie, Scotland, for example.
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But hey, let's not let facts get in the way of a good story, right?
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