Xerox wins Palm handwriting case
Posted by configure on 21 December 2001 - 05:56 · no comments & 132 views
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Palm and majority shareholder 3Com could be in for an even bigger caning if the court rules that they wilfully infringed Xerox's intellectual property. The judiciary has the power to ratchet payments by three times as a penalty.
We feel an appeal coming on: too much is at stake for Palm and 3Com to let this decision go by without demur. As Christina Clayton, Xerox general counsel, points out, Palm will either "have to cease production of its handheld organizer or license the technology from Xerox".
It may have been more politic for Palm to settle when the legal first reared its ugly head. This case has been rumbling since April 1997, when Xerox filed suit against Palm and then owner USR (in turn subsumed into 3Com). It alleged that Graffiti infringed its Unistroke writing technology, patented a few months earlier in January 1997, a position now vindicated.
Xerox is the tech equivalent of the UK: good at inventing stuff, crap at translating this into proper money. The glory years of Xerox PARC, its Californian research powerhouse may be long gone - the company is in hock to the banks and has more pressing matters to consider. But there's life, and income, yet in those dusty patent drawers.
Sklyarov plans to return to Moscow with his wife and two young children in time to celebrate the New Year at home, ending tense months of involuntary exile. "It was very difficult to wait," Sklyarov said. "I was away from my friends and parents. It was really bad for me and them."
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) organized the party. The cyber-rights group has stood at the center of the fight to free Sklyarov since his arrest.
"There's a real sense in the community of empowerment and victory," said EFF attorney Robin Gross. "All the activists who protested and mailed in letters should really celebrate that Adobe and the government backed down."
At the 21st Amendment bar and restaurant, once the scene of lavish IPO parties in the heart of multimedia gulch, a crowd of about 50 geeks took her advice and partied like it was, well, 1999.
The revelers toasted their successful fight to free a man they thought had been the victim of a misguided application of an unjust law. They even treated him to cake and song in honor of his 27th birthday on Wednesday.
"I'm pleased Dmitri gets to go home," said Len Sassaman, an expert in e-mail security. "The case never should have been brought in the first place."
Sklyarov's saga began last July when federal agents arrested him at the Defcon hacker convention in Las Vegas. They charged him with writing a program that allowed users to make unauthorized copies of Adobe e-book files. If convicted, he could have faced up to 25 years in prison.
The hacker community erupted in outrage following the arrest. The case inflamed simmering resentment over the DMCA's prohibition of software that cracks encryption: a clause that critics of the law say is a gag on code that amounts to a violation of free speech.
Street protests broke out in several cities, including a gathering of over 100 agitated geeks in front of Adobe headquarters in downtown San Jose who chanted, "Free Dmitri" and "Code is speech."
Seth Schoen, an EFF staffer who started the mailing list that led to the Adobe protest, said the case had galvanized those concerned about the DMCA's controversial regulations. "When people heard a man had been thrown in jail just because a company didn't like a program he had written, they took it personally," he said. "It became a lot more meaningful to them."
The vocal gathering helped EFF negotiators to convince Adobe to drop its case against Sklyarov immediately. But it took five months of tense waiting after the company backed down for the Justice Department to do the same. Released from jail on $50,000 bail three weeks after his arrest, Sklyarov was not permitted to leave Northern California. He has been staying with his wife and two children in San Mateo, a San Francisco suburb.
Under his agreement with federal prosecutors, Sklyarov can go home to Russia but must return if called to testify against his employer, ElcomSoft. The company still faces charges for trying to sell the program that Sklyarov wrote.
Sklyarov dismissed the insinuation in the Justice Department statement about the deal, that he had cut a deal to avoid prosecution in return for testimony against his employer. "I didn't agree to say anything against the company," he said. "This is just a way for the government to save face."
His boss, Alex Katalov, joined in the festivities as well. He has been supportive of Sklyarov, working from the beginning to shift the focus of the prosecution away from his employee and onto the company. Katalov said his company had done nothing wrong.
"From the company's standpoint, Dmitri's agreement serves ElcomSoft well," Katalov said at a press conference earlier in the day. "It provides us with the freedom and flexibility to pursue our best legal strategy without worrying about the possibility that Dmitri could face jail."
It's the outcome supporters here fought hard to achieve. Gross, the EFF attorney, attributed prosectors' decision to the public outcry. When she heard Sklyarov had been cleared, she was elated. "I was thrilled that the government was willing to recognize its mistake," she said. "I'm so happy he can go home."
EFF and its supporters vowed to continue the fight against the DMCA. "It's not over," Sassaman said. "This case has brought home how dangerous this law can be."