Judge orders Oracle, Google to disclose paid journalists and bloggers

Should journalists have to disclose when they take money from companies to “report” on issues? As this type of fake journalism becomes more common, one judge appears to have had enough.

In a surprise order, U.S. District Judge William Alsup said “the court is concerned” that Oracle and Google may have hired authors to comment about their ongoing court case. Now, Judge Alsup wants the parties to submit a list of their paid propagandists.

The unusual request comes months after the “World Series” of intellectual property trials in which Oracle unsuccessfully sued Google for billions.

The trial was remarkable not only for the large damage figures but for Oracle’s decision to hire Florian Mueller, a self-described “patent analyst” who also takes money from Microsoft. In his FOSS Patents blog, Mueller wrote a series of one-sided posts over the course of the trial such as “Oracle Java patent rises like Ph0enix from the ashes.”

Despite a lack of legal training, Mueller holds himself out as a patent expert to the media and typically does not disclose that he is paid by the companies he reports on (he disclosed an Oracle relationship briefly at the outset of the trial but did not do so subsequently or to other media). Mueller has also blocked me and other journalists who have questioned his impartiality from viewing his Twitter feed.

Alsup does not provide detailed reasons for his order, which was first reported in a tweet by Reuters reporter Dan Levine, but does state that the information would be useful on appeal:

to make clear whether any treatise, article, commentary or analysis on the issues posed by this case are possibly influenced by financial relationships to the parties or counsel.

In the larger picture, Alsup may be calling attention to the growing phenomenon of astro-turfing — individuals or groups who receive money to pose as voices of the public interest. The Federal Trade Commission has in the past fined a company for failing to disclose paid endorsements. An FTC official told paidContent earlier this year that endorsers must disclose all material facts, including when they comment about a competitor.

Here is Judge Alsup’s order:

Blogger Order

(Image by Imagelabs via Shutterstock)

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Judge in Apple-Samsung case says patent drawings can ‘speak for themselves’

The judge in a highly-anticipated trial over smartphones and tablets sided with Apple on Friday over how a jury should look at four key patents. The ruling means the jury will act as “ordinary observers” instead of relying on detailed legal instructions to understand the patents.

A judge sided with Apple on Friday, saying she would not provide detailed  instructions to a jury about how to interpret patent drawings that lay out claims to the iPad and iPhone. Instead, U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh said it would be up to the jurors to use “the eye of an ordinary observer” to decide if Korean phone maker Samsung copied the drawings.

The ruling represents one of the final skirmishes before a closely-watched trial set to kick off Monday in San Jose near Apple’s headquarters. The California trial is the biggest showdown yet in a global struggle in which Apple is carpet-bombing Samsung with intellectual property claims in the hopes of removing Samsung products from store shelves and forcing it to pay massive damages.

The decision that the drawings can “speak for themselves” is significant because it means the judge will not, as Samsung had hoped, provide detailed legal instructions about how to decipher the patents. Instead, the jurors will be asked to base their decision on the overall design and to give “such attention as a purchaser usually gives.”

The drawings in question are from four Apple design patents. Each patent contains between two and 48 drawings that are used to illustrate how Apple owns features like the shape of the iPad and the black-colored surface of the iPhone (the three iPhone-related patents can be found here, here and here while the iPad one is here ). Here are some examples of the drawings the jurors will consider (note that the judge will, however, instruct them that the dotted lines indicate that Apple is not claiming that part of the design) :

The ruling that the jurors’ should decide based on the overall impression of the drawings may strengthen Apple’s case that Samsung copied its designs. But if they do find copying, Samsung could still be off the hook if the jury (again acting as an “ordinary observer”) decides the patents are obvious based on earlier tablet and smartphone designs. For instance, Samsung is arguing that Apple itself lifted design ideas from these Sony prototypes:

The design patent dispute is just the most high profile part of a case that also features a complicated mix of other intellectual property claims such as utility patents, trade dress and more. The trial, for which jury selection is to begin on Monday, will also address whether Apple infringed Samsung’s patents. Apple claims Samsung’s claims fail because they are based on so-called FRAND patents which companies must license because they part of an industry standard.

Koh on Claim Construction
(Image by nokhoog_buchachon via Shutterstock)

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