An additional note

Posted Oct 12, 2007 20:47 UTC (Fri) by sepreece (guest, #19270)
In reply to: An additional note by ajross
Parent article: Patent Infringement Lawsuit Filed Against Red Hat and Novell - Just Like Ballmer Predicted (Groklaw)

My understanding is that the the patent court begins with the assumption that patents are valid (hence the RIM situation, where getting the patents invalidated didn't help them avoid an injunction). With that bias, I would expect the court to similarly accept that knowledge of a patent was sufficient to establish willfulness. But IANAL.

Most of these patents do seem bogus. This one, if it really reaches back as far as 1984, may be harder to invalidate. Windows were relatively new, then. The inventors (as opposed to the company that owns and is prosecuting the patent) do seem to have been in roughly the right place and time, but I have no detailed knowledge on this.

An additional note

Posted Oct 13, 2007 3:16 UTC (Sat) by felixfix (subscriber, #242) [Link]

Yes, but willful I think has a specific legal meaning that you knew about the patent and thumbed your nose at it anyway. IANAL of course, but I suspect there is something to that. Now will they get any damages if they claim willful and can't prove that? There's a question.