N2H2 (censorware co) on "Edelman v. N2H2" case
The N2H2 (censorware company) recent financial filing makes this interesting statement about the Edelman v. N2H2 declaratory action to reverse-engineer censorware. I like how N2H2 talks about him as being "purportedly a computer researcher". I'm probably "purportedly" chopped liver.
By Seth Finkelstein | posted in censorware , legal | on May 18, 2003 06:00 PM (Infothought permalink) | FollowupsWe have been named as a defendant in an action by the American Civil Liberties Union that could weaken our intellectual property rights and result in substantial costs to the company.
In July 2002, an individual represented by the American Civil Liberties Union filed a lawsuit against us in federal court. The plaintiff is purportedly a computer researcher who allegedly seeks to conduct a quantitative analysis of the accuracy and comprehensiveness of our Internet filtering solutions for purposes of determining whether these solutions exclude some speech on the Internet that is constitutionally protected. He alleges that his activities in conducting this analysis, if he ever does so, would violate our standard license agreement and our intellectual property rights. The plaintiff alleges that the threat that we will enforce our license agreement and our other rights has deterred him from this activity, which he alleges is protected under the "fair use" doctrine of copyright law and other legal doctrines. He seeks a declaration to prohibit us from enforcing the license agreement against him based on his use of our software in his research activities. Our Motion to Dismiss this action has been granted, and judgment was entered in our favor on April 17, 2003. If the plaintiff decides to appeal, he has until no later than May 17, 2003 to do so. If Mr. Edelman does appeal, the litigation could result in substantial costs to the company and divert management's time and attention away from business operations. If the appeal and the claim are ultimately resolved in the plaintiff's favor, it could materially affect our ability to enforce our license agreements and other intellectual property rights against certain users of our software filtering products. In addition, it could contribute to an increase in the number of people who seek to use our software in ways that we believe violate our proprietary rights.
