Tech Companies Swimming In Lawsuits 147
conq writes "A new survey shows that the tech industry places third after healthcare and energy companies in the number of lawsuits it deals with. It states that an average tech company faces 42 lawsuits currently, more than the insurance industry!" From the article: "An average U.S. technology company currently faces 42 lawsuits vs. 37 lawsuit for an average company. The tech industry places third, after healthcare and energy companies, in the number of lawsuits it deals with ... Needless to say, that's quite expensive. Nearly a third of these companies spend more than 2% of their gross revenue on legal expenses, according to one of the largest surveys of corporate counsel in America."
Lies, damned, lies, and... (Score:5, Insightful)
The firm asked 354 companies in various industries about their top legal concerns.
Which 354 did you ask? There are thousands of tech companies! Define "tech company". Or is this just the 354 you could think of who'd pick up the phone?
That probably has something to do with tech companies having by far the greatest number of in-house attorneys managing litigation - an average of nine per company.
Nine lawyers per tech company - w0w! That's amazing considering that the overwhelming majority of tech companies that I can think of don't even have nine employees. Do you have any idea how many startups there are in California alone? Do six PHDs in a small lab working on, say, the next medical laser breakthrough not count?
Nearly a third of these companies spend more than 2% of their gross revenue on legal expenses
Which companies? What about the other two thirds? Are we supposed to think that 2% is a lot to spend on total legal expenses? What's the distribution?
Olga, your numbers are a crock of shit, and they stinketh. If you're going to give us stats, try starting with something like "of the 100 highest-grossing telecom service companies".
Re:Lies, damned, lies, and... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Lies, damned, lies, and... (Score:3, Insightful)
The point here isn't that the average is higher than one would expect, it's that the standard of deviation is so wide that the statistical information applied for the average is useless except as a "market gauge".
Re:Lies, damned, lies, and... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Lies, damned, lies, and... (Score:5, Informative)
Giving the median would be a bad idea, as in your example, the median is 0. But we know darn well that we shouldn't report that sort of information, it's perhaps even more misleading and alarming than 17 per company.
Reporting that the average is 17, but that the standard deviation is 537.033803405335 (an extremely highly high value) would work in the sense that it would be accurate, but wouldn't work in the case that most people wouldn't know or understand what the hell that meant.
Re:Lies, damned, lies, and... (Score:2)
I'd like to know that relation specifically for SCO
Re:Lies, damned, lies, and... (Score:2)
Re:Lies, damned, lies, and... (Score:2)
Good call though.
Re:Lies, damned, lies, and... (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyway, my main point is a question. I understand why in traditional media you would not want to take the space for indepth analysis of the actual numbers (preferably alongside the numbers themselves). Why the hell though, on the web where extra information means adding a line under a word, do they refuse to ever show the actual numbers? Is it really just laziness? It seems like it would be so easy....
Re:Lies, damned, lies, and... (Score:1)
Hello, folks!?!? This is what you get when you watch news for entertainment and ego massaging value.
Re:Lies, damned, lies, and... (Score:2)
wooosh, right over your head.
Reread the grandparent please.
Re:Lies, damned, lies, and... (Score:3, Interesting)
But, the basic premise still stands.
1. Private Corporation: Why should they sink tons of money into in depth studies for less profit when they can rake it in with cheap "reporting" of shiney object stories and adlibed press releases.
2. The Bigots: There are some people that think facts are biased, items of evidence are forgeries, and will lash out at any media that does not conform to their own personal views. So, naturally, a media company will shy away from stories. And, wh
Re:Lies, damned, lies, and... (Score:1)
that's because you don't hear about the average company, you hear about big ones. the aformentioned 9 PhD, no lawyers, one project companies would likely fall appart if they had anywhere near this "average" number of lawsuits to deal with. and there are a lot of companies like that.
again, the ones that are high enough profile to frequently make the news tend to get a number of lawsuits just because they are well known enough and are taking on enough projects that so
Re:Lies, damned, lies, and... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Lies, damned, lies, and... (Score:1)
Re:Lies, damned, lies, and... (Score:2)
Re:Lies, damned, lies, and... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Lies, damned, lies, and... (Score:1, Interesting)
Do you really think that lawyers would sue small startup companies at the same rate as large, rich ones?
Re:Lies, damned, lies, and... (Score:2, Informative)
"Tech Companies Swimming in Lawsuits!!!"
turns out to be a survey taken by Fulbright & Jaworski Lawfirm. [businesswire.com]
I bet they just felt horrible when they figured this out. "Time to stop litigating, we've become TOO successful."
The fact that it was written by a bunch of lawers explains why Olga [businessweek.com] had such a hard time blogging it.
The fact that her blog made it into slashdot is still a mystery.
Re:Lies, damned, lies, and... (Score:2)
I imagine that whatever the number, it's probably pretty huge. I recently met someone who was just entering law school in Ontario (Canada) this fall, and through her, I found out that apparently "Intellectual Property" law is the big money-maker for lawyers right
Frivolous patents (Score:5, Interesting)
The reasons for high number of suits in healthcare are somewhat different that that for tech companies lawsuits, which are more dependent upon a broken patent system which allows frivolous patents.
It's called... (Score:1)
It's called the Lawyer Tax. Attorneys get their cut of everything, good or bad, for seeing to it that you're protected against greedy, unethical
Re:It's called... (Score:1)
Would that be the ultimate protection racket then?
Re:It's called... (Score:2, Insightful)
I've heard several comments to that effect, over the years.
Certainly does make you wonder how we got from the US Constitution to some of the crap people used it for today.
Re:Frivolous patents (Score:2)
Re:Frivolous patents (Score:2)
Re:Frivolous patents (Score:2)
Re:Frivolous patents (Score:1)
Re:Frivolous patents (Score:1)
1. It doesn't have enough manpower to do what it's being asked to do
2. It has quotas
3. It doesn't have the money to expand
An idea on how to fix this would be make all pending patents public. They are clocked on submission, and the public is allowed to point to prior art and post thoughts on the obviousness of the patent. By the time some Einstein gets arou
Re:Frivolous patents (Score:3, Insightful)
2. It has quotas
3. It doesn't have the money to expand
1. This comes down to money, see your #3.
2. This comes down to the huge number of patent applications and in particular large number of "continuations" something the Director has said he'd like to see cut down. Approximately 1/3 of all patents last year were continuations. This means 1/3 of the work is "re-work".
3. This is the fault of congress, who only release more of the mone
Then there is Apple (Score:2)
Re:Then there is Apple (Score:1)
If I were apple, I'd give them a $10 credit on the newly released Apple branded iPod nano carrying case, and a complementary download of Stevie Wonder's "My Eyes Don't Cry".
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Then there is Apple (Score:2)
Now that's just begging for more stock fraud. When the penalties for falling stock prices are too great, naturally there will be more fraud to prop them up. But hey, I guess the lawyers benefit from fraud too. I think I chose the wrong profession
Re:Then there is Apple (Score:2, Insightful)
There are still many competing MP3 players out there, you didn't have to buy the Nano.
Re:Then there is Apple (Score:1)
Re:Then there is Apple (Score:2)
This screen scratching issue (unlike the screen cracking issue.) Is just a bunch of legal profiteering, they are suing apple and don't want just their money back, but they also want a cut of ipod sales. Yes you read right, they are asking for more money in return for having a screen that blemishes too easily. (Despite it
When the average is 37 lawsuits... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:When the average is 37 lawsuits... (Score:2, Funny)
I read EULAs:
with my lawyer
with deep suspicion and paranoia
with due care and attention
with my scroll wheel
with CowboyNeal
I Agree
42 is the answer. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:42 is the answer. (Score:1)
Re:42 is the answer. (Score:1)
*ponders*
Overdue Justice (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Overdue Justice (Score:1)
Reminds me of the traveller who didn't pay attention to the numbers on the bill he signed for martinis in Germany about 20 years go. $10,000 each.
bottoms up!
Re:Overdue Justice (Score:2)
Probably extortion (Score:2)
The ultimate question (Score:2, Funny)
--
Get free domains here [ezyrewards.com]
Re:The ultimate question (Score:2)
Clearly what we need here are... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Clearly what we need here are... (Score:2)
Except that most of the suits in mid-sized tech companies I know are all about contracts, billing, employment, office space, ADA compliance, hiring/firing... that sort of thing. Which explains why the non-tech company number is almost as high. Every business is pecked to death by this crap.
Re:Clearly what we need here are... (Score:1)
Re:Clearly what we need here are... (Score:2)
With the energy company... (Score:1)
Re:With the energy company... (Score:2)
Re:With the energy company... (Score:2)
Crap, we're already back to lawsuits!!
Other Story (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9645594/ [msn.com]
Yes, I do realize the source is from M$NBC...
Re:Other Story (Score:2)
Did you hear about the little old lady? (Score:5, Funny)
It's a good time to be a lawyer (Score:1)
Re:It's a good time to be a lawyer (Score:2)
This is easy fixed. (Score:1)
We not only do we get rid of our growing legal problem we also get a nifty reality TV we can watch with all our new found free time not spent in court or legal offices.
Question (Score:4, Funny)
Just curious.
Re:Question (Score:1)
average vs. mean (Score:5, Interesting)
It's just the beginning (Score:5, Interesting)
These are inherently and fundamentally incompatable. An anti-thesis to each other, and while you can't contoroll information with force - you can certainly attempt to bully, threaten, decieve, and sue - and this is exactly what is happening.
So the suits that are happening now, I'm sure are just barely scratching the surface - as companies on the "intellectual property" side start to loose real money, and real market share, and loose out technology wise to the "freedom is free markets" side. You can be sure they will almost certainly freak, and "pull a SCO" across every industry and every sector.
Also, as a note, a parrallel situation is also happening in the financial markets where industries and government are trying to controll and manipulate information on value and money for unlmited growth and profit too. This is about to explode as well.
So watch out, and go offshore if you can, becasue all freakin hell is about to break loose.
is 2% swimming (Score:3, Insightful)
And what else might be done with 2%. An small increase in R&D. Perhaps retail prices would magically decrease 2%. Or drug abuse might marginally increase.
If software companies at a number 3, I think this shows how the entire lawsuit thing has been overblow, and how most of the players are two faced. Even the republican party owes the ambulance chasers. It was they that got all the cig money for texas, which allowed Bush to balance the texas budget while cutting taxes, and helped him get elected to the big house. of course he thanked these lawyer by suing them for excessive billing, even though the billing had been agreed to, and they developed these cases with thier own money in the true spirit of entrepenurism, unlike other people we could mention.
The other issue is how many of these are squabbled over IP, and how many are individual get rich quick schemes. I also have no sympathy for the drug companies. Roche is about to make a killing on Tamiflu, probably several billion in the next few years, much of it direct profit from licensing. Will they have to set some of it aside for lawsuit resulting from charges of gauging and the like. Probably. But if they would sell it to certain countries at cut rate, and deduct the good will, they might be able to save the lawyer fees. But they apparently have made the choice.
Rules of Combat for the New Warriors Class (Score:5, Interesting)
My ex wife is a very successful barrister. She's a brilliant, talented woman. Through her I came to know the various subcultures of the legal world. One of the recurring analogies among the lawyers I've known is that they are hired guns. They are the new warrior class.
During WWII a combat soldier, I can't recall his name or rank, noted that among his comrades only a few (~15%) actively engaged in combat and were responsible for most of the damage done to the enemy. Recently on the Discovery channel a U.S. Army Lt.Col. was shown trying to instill a 'killer instinct' in his troops. The show referred to the earlier WWII report that only a few combat soldiers did the actual wounding/killing. The Lt. Col. on the Discovery show said it was like having 85% of librarians illiterate.
Following WWII tribes in New Gunea were introduced to rugby. The tribes took to wearing war gear to the rugby games and rugby substituted for tribal warfare.
Remember the TOS episode where warfare had become virtual and those areas marked as 'hit' had to have it's citizenry report for euthanasia. In real combat losses are not that great in terms of the overall number of combatants. It may be because only a limited number of people are able and willing to kill or be killed. In a world overpopulated with 6 billion the amount of homicidal acts are not that great.
Now with money substitutable for anything, the inclination to combat among individuals and corporate tribes, can be translated into litigation. The amount of litigation might be an index to our willingness to 'kill' oneanother, the more so when money substitutes for one's own blood.
Lawyers are the new esquired warriors. What a horse and armour were to knights and warring lords, a law degree is to the corporate world.
The question arises if, in an evolutionary context, the litiguous 'mortal/capital' combat effects a beneficial path.
One of my favourite authors G. Bateson spoke to... "adversarial systems are notoriously subject to irrelevant determinism. The relative 'strength' of the adversaries is likely to rule the decision regardless of the relative strength of their arguments."
Re:Rules of Combat for the New Warriors Class (Score:5, Interesting)
warfare and his troops:
"Of every 100 soldiers, 10 do not belong there and should be sent home. 80 are just targets. Nine are the true warriors, and we are glad to have them, for they make the battle. But one, he is the leader, and he brings the rest home."
Re:Rules of Combat for the New Warriors Class (Score:2)
Re:Rules of Combat for the New Warriors Class (Score:2)
MOD PARENT UP OR I'LL SUE YOU (Score:1)
Re:Rules of Combat for the New Warriors Class (Score:1)
Only peripherally relevant to the topic. And you meander a bit and bring in several points that aren't strongly related to one another. But overall the most interesting and insightful set of ideas I've read on this whole thread. You deserve a +6. :-)
Re:Rules of Combat for the New Warriors Class (Score:1)
Re:Rules of Combat for the New Warriors Class (Score:1)
Re:Rules of Combat for the New Warriors Class (Score:4, Interesting)
Hi, my post was prefaced as loose conjecture. The post amounts to a few points taken from a notebook given over to a study I hope, time permitting, to undertake.
The general course of the notes goes to the relationship between war and trade, and, further, ritualized war/contest. Loosely, in answer to your question, if commerce incorporates the territorial imperative and equally primitive drives sublimated from open warfare, then, in my terms, commerce is war and the handmaiden to evolutionary drive.
Example, the historian Fernand Braudel [wikipedia.org] notes in one of his work that the term robber baron, now used to refer to a 19th century captain of industry, originally refered to robbers who seized by force strategic mountain passes in the Alps between the mediterranean and northwestern europe. Robbers, once in control of a pass, built castles and imposed an arbitrary tariff on traders taking goods to and fro. Wealth garnered by force perhaps led them to see themselves as Barons. It's not a stretch to see commerce as contest, and to see contest as an abstraction of war.
Britan from, more or less, the time of Drake profitted from piracy, and, the British Empire, at it's zenith, was enforced by 'gunboat diplomacy' and the machine gun. Yet, in part, the object of Empire building was increased trade and access to raw/rare materials.
As I posted, only ~15% of combatants are effective. It's further interesting to note among feral rutting males mortal wounds are rare. Usually a show of force is sufficient for the combatants to size oneanother up and break off with the weaker male giving way. (As an aside OTOH try taking the young of a feral, predatory mother.) I'm suggesting our genetic makeup might have given us pause to find something like trade as preferable to war, but to carry with it the impetus, strategy and tactics of war.
I simply hold that where commerce and war become intermingled by implementing convention, protocol, law and litigation, there, lawyers are the new warrior class.
Even law has violent beginnings. Trial by Ordeal [wikipedia.org] was as brutal as Hammurabi's law of an eye for an eye. And even though we've managed to reach protocols of goverance like Robert's Rules of Order [robertsrules.org], it's instructive to remember that the rows of seats separating the governing party from the opposition in Britan and Canada are two and one half sword lenghts apart.
Lastly, (aren't you sorry you asked :)) I'm interested in knowing if ritualized combat in the form of litigation promotes more reckless and predatory attitudes than would mortal combat.
cheers
It's about envy (Score:2)
Re:It's about envy (Score:2)
"They're just jealous because they're not as successful as us" is, more often than not, a dodge used by those who find themselves facing legitimate criticism and/or charges.
If it was really about envy, IBM and Google would be as much despised as Microso
I wouldn't doubt it (Score:4, Informative)
Re:I wouldn't doubt it (Score:2)
There are certainly big costs to our system of law, but when you look around the world, you will probably come to the conclusion that those costs are greatly outweighed by the transactions that we are able to accomplis
Re:I wouldn't doubt it (Score:2)
Most lawyers that I have ever the unpleasant opportunity to deal with (other than through social connections completely unrealted to the legal profession) were usually such horrible jackasses (that is the kind polite
Re:I wouldn't doubt it (Score:2)
The fact is that poor behavior has been too often tolerated in the legal profession, and bars should be much tougher about cleaning up their image by throwing out the bad apples. Only then will the common perception of the profession begin to improve again.
There are sanctions, but as you say
My experience (Score:5, Informative)
I run Technical Video Rental [technicalvideorental.com], and I've had - literally - dozens of legal threats over the simple fact that I buy DVDs, then rent them out. Despite the fact that this is deeply settled [wikipedia.org] case law, I've gotten everything from a legal cease-and-desist from one firm's CEO (who has a degree from Harvard Law School and was formerly Chief Counsel of the United States Senate Committee on Labor and Human Resources) to a threat to - ahem - anally rape me (from a guy who think's he's anonymous, because he doesn't know what website logs and IP addrs are).
I spend about $2,000 - $3,000 per month on attorney fees trying to explain to people what the First Sale Doctrine is.
This is money that could be spent growing the business, and delivering more interesting videos to my customers...but it gets squandered because so many folks (a) don't understand what the copyright law says; (b) don't understand that exposure increases sales (see also: MP3s and the RIAA).
Bah.
It'd be nice to spend more time doing business, instead of doing meta-business (lawsuits).
Re:My experience (Score:2)
Not only is it deeply settled case law, but haven't these lawyers ever been to a video store? I really want to know how anyone, anywhere, could actually even think they could win that lawsuit?
Re:My experience (Score:2, Insightful)
Why do you bother? Wait for them to actually sue, then countersue. You can get damages for filing frivolous and vexatious lawsuits.
Re:My experience (Score:2)
I spend about $2,000 - $3,000 per month on attorney fees trying to explain to people what the First Sale Doctrine is.
I find it interesting that our legal system has no filter for lawsuits that cannot win on their face, that is, even if all of the alligations were absolutely 100% true, the plaintiff wouldn't recieve anything. Those should be thrown out and the lawyer disciplened without the defendant even hearing about it (or perhaps a notification after the fact). Likewise, sending various demand or C
Re:My experience (Score:2)
Another lawsuit
It is a neat game that lawyers have got themselves into, divirting money and resources from useful and productive activities.
Or like the classic legal saying: One attorney will go broke in town. Two will both become rich to no end.
Re:My experience (Score:2)
There is a legal term for that... it is called barrity, and it is illegal as well. The problem with trying to enforce this common law idea:
That's exactly the problem. The proper time to deal with barritry is before the defendant even gets involved. In other words, it should be a carefully enforced criminal matter. If a totally baseless C&D letter could be forwarded to the DA for prosecution there would be a LOT less of them.
Re:My experience (Score:2)
In Norway, it's perfectly legally established that "free" or "gratis" means *without*compensation*.
Buy 2 gadgets, get third one free. That's not free, nor gratis. It may be *included*, but it sure as hell ain't free.
What bugs me even more is that not only does this blatant lying shit slip trough the truth in advertising laws, but even worse: Advertisers still believe (correctly or not) that there's people out there wh
42! (Score:4, Funny)
42!
When a number say it all. Lawsuits are the final answer!
And they've been talking... (Score:1)
In other news...... (Score:3, Funny)
U.S. only (of course) (Score:3, Interesting)
In most jurisdictions (e.g. Canada), it's fairly common that the defendant is awarded legal costs. The instigators of frivolous or exploratory civil suits have to reimburse those they attacked for lawyer and court costs, on top of any damages.
Re:U.S. only (of course) (Score:2, Insightful)
Face it, gentlemen, the rule of law is long dead in the US, the ship is sinking, and the rats are gorging themselves before jumping ship.
Only two jobs in the US in 2050 (Score:2)
i mean - there's not going to be anything else to do by that time. If you're not getting sued, the only way to make money will be to sue someone else.
Swimming in lawsuits? (Score:3, Funny)
More like sinking in lawsuits, maybe. When innovation is replaced with litigation, What other eventual outcome is to be expected?
Re:Swimming in lawsuits? (Score:2)
thank you microsoft (Score:1)
you never heard the word IP before microsoft started using it in their defense against linux.
that is their only defense too - they can't write better software - so just sue them.
'Lerached' (Score:2)
Law suits against tech companies were so prevalent in the 90's, that Neal Stephenson made it part of a sub-plot in his brilliant novel 'Cryptonomicon'.
so it took 10 million years to figure out that (Score:2)
Not surprising - or even shocking (Score:2, Insightful)