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Tragedy and frustration of Edwin Armstrong. | 687 comments | Create New Account
Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.
Tragedy and frustration of Edwin Armstrong.
Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, April 27 2012 @ 10:42 PM EDT
When one needs to make a decision, ones knowledge and skill base is brought use.
However, people have an innate ability to think they know and understand more
than they actually do.

And as IANAL, i so perfectly fit into this category :)

In the linked FM patent case i would not be surprised in the least that a
complex technical issue was not well understood by the SCOTUS judges but the
last call was theirs to make. The ensuing decision, though possibly wrong to
teckies, was the final legally correct decision available. Such 'correct'
decisions can only be undone by government intervention (pardons, etc) or by the
rules of the game being altered by legislation (change of law).

For me, the legal system is portrayed as being judged by a jury of ones peers.
This implies that the judge and jury understands the technical and legal issues
of that under dispute. But juries seem to be gamed and in tech cases we always
see the jury stacked with technically incompetent jurors filling the pool. This
make a just decision rather elusive.

What hope do we have if such serious legal decisions which could/will decimate
the software development industry come down to laymen jurors that may (like the
legals) have difficulty with simple math let alone understanding how APIs work
and what APIs are. One strong willed but technically incompetent juror could
guide others to a wrong decision and spell disaster for us all.

And despite how the law is defined, shouldn't it matter how the industry has
behaved towards API's since it's inception in the 60's. Isn't there some grounds
protecting the masses from being defined as lawbreakers thus making some such
laws unconstitutional?

If left to the jury, i fear it's a crap shoot at best.

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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