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| An IP Lawsuit over Water -- A Parody by Lloyd Hanson |
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Wednesday, February 04 2004 @ 11:59 AM EST
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Groklaw reader Lloyd Hanson sent me a parody he actually wrote a couple of years ago but has buffed up. As you will see, it seems to have a modern-day relevance, bottled water being all the rage, I hear. Enjoy.
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SCHLO Sues Wrestlé Waters of North America in IP Dispute
For Immediate Release: Today, Superior Cold-Hot Libation Organization (NASDAQ Symbol: SCHLOX) announced that it has filed suit in its home state of California against Wrestlé Waters, a division of the Wrestlé Corporation for unlicensed use of SCHLO's Intellectual Property (IP) and patented technology for the use of water in various Wrestlé products. The suit seeks combined actual and punitive damages of 2 trillion dollars from Wrestlé.
In the suit, SCHLO claims that proprietary technology and trade secrets have been misappropriated and re-sold under up to 12 different brand names within the U.S. alone. SCHLO claims to have the patent on water, which it says it perfected countless years ago. According to their company history, SCHLO claims that their invention of water pre-dates the invention of dirt, a product that is now in the public domain.
In an interview with SCHLO CEO and President Snarl McSnide, McSnide stated, "It has long been erroneously thought by scholars and the general public alike that water was a commodity that could be used, reused and manipulated at will. That is not the case, as we at SCHLO through both mergers and acquisitions have come to own the intellectual property used to make water. Further, we have patented and copyrighted the process and chemical combinations necessary in order for water to exist. All we are doing with this suit is asserting our rights of ownership to the chemical compound our corporate predecessors developed, the rights to which we now own."
When asked why SCHLO had taken so long to launch such a suit, when water has been available for eons, in many cases without any associated costs, McSnide responded, "At first we at SCHLO were a little slow to realize that what Wrestlé was doing was bottling and selling a product which was derived from the use of our intellectual property. As soon as we realized they were making billions from something which rightly belonged to us, we elected to file suit to protect our rights as the owner of the intellectual property and chemical process used to manufacture water. These are the steps we took in order to protect the value of our company and to protect the investment of our shareholders. Anything less would be a dereliction of duty by the officers of SCHLO."
SCHLO has been a long time manufacturer of water coolers, water fountains, ice machines and water filtrations systems. In fact SCHLO's largest customers have been the twelve companies who make up the Wrestlé Waters of North America brands. Most of the water coolers rented by the Wrestlé brands to consumers were manufactured by SCHLO. Other water distributors have charged that since SCHLO knowingly sold their own water coolers to Wrestlé and in fact made their coolers according to the industry standard 5-gallon water bottle specifications, they have not only encouraged the use of water but in fact granted an implied license to the use of water without the need for any monetary compensation to SCHLO. "Are you nuts?" McSnide bristled, "We never gave away any of these rights by selling coolers. We didn't know what Wrestlé was going to do with them. Do you think this stuff just falls from the sky? We own the intellectual property for this chemical process."
McSnide continued, "When we discovered that Wrestlé was selling bottles which were literally filled with our intellectual property, we felt we had to protect the value of our stock. Since we filed suit, we have discovered that every other manufacturer and distributor of bottled water is using our patented chemical composition for their profit and without compensation to SCHLO for use of our IP. When it was all broken down, we found that in spite of some other trace minerals found in the solutions of all manufacturers, or the addition of fruit flavorings, the underlying chemical formula was identical to ours. It is obvious to us that by the traces of other minerals and flavorings we found in the products of the other manufacturers, they were attempting to obfuscate the fact that this was our IP they are selling."
"Since we discovered this, we have notified every manufacturer and distributor of bottled water in North America that they are unlicensed users of our product and intellectual property. As a gesture of good faith, we will allow anyone with a legitimate interest in the case to view our chemical makeup for water, alongside the comparative chemical make-up for all 12 of the Wrestlé brands, as well as those from a number of other manufacturers' products, whom we haven't decided if we'll seek compensation from yet or not. You understand, that this is all under non-disclosure agreement. All who have seen the chemical composition of each of the exhibits have agreed that they are if not identical, they are virtually identical to our chemical composition." Analyst, Laura MeIdiot, says: "I am no lawyer, but from what I was shown, the resemblance is striking and obvious. I'd say Wrestle would do well to take this seriously. At a minimum, they need to indemnify their customers. The market demands it. You can't just sit around the campfire drinking water and singing Kumbaya any more."
"Going forward," McSnide says, "we will be sending letters informing the largest 1500 companies in the U.S. that by not only using the bottled water of Wrestlé, but by using a filter, chiller, container or any dispenser from any manufacturer other than SCHLO, they are in violation of our IP rights, patent rights and copyright rights. This includes every soft drink bottler and beer brewer in the U.S., as soda and beer are obviously derivative works based upon our IP. But it goes beyond that.
"We are sending notifications to all water parks in the U.S. We also intend to put the government of the United States of America on notice that the National Parks Service is also appropriating our IP without license or approval at such places as Yosemite Falls in California, and Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming. The National Parks Service derives significant revenue from admissions to those parks and I believe that our shareholders are due a portion of those proceeds. We believe we are entitled to a royalty for every gallon of water that flows over Niagara Falls. We will also seek to license fire departments throughout the world in order to allow them to continue using our products and IP to fight fires within their own communities."
"Within the same letter, we will offer to license for an as-yet-undetermined fee, which will allow them to continue using our products so long as they provide SCHLO with adequate compensation. But lest someone miscontrue our letters as mere marketing hype, we will make clear in the letters that we reserve all our legal options and rights with respect to those who continue to use the products created with our IP without an appropriate license in place." When pressed on what SCHLO's longer term plans might include, McSnide offered his view of SCHLO's future. "SCHLO wants to ensure that its shareholders investments are protected. What do I care about the world's water drinkers? I answer to my shareholders. After we win the lawsuit against Wrestlé, we'll go forward, armed with legal precedent and aggressively pursue any and all companies and individuals who attempt to make use of or derive monetary gain from the unlicensed use of our IP.
"For example, the human body is approximately 75% water. Nowhere do we have even a single license in place for the use of that water. We haven't yet actually removed the water from a human being, but it is on our agenda to do so very soon. We expect analysis to prove that human beings are inappropriately using our IP for their own gain from birth! With approximately 6.3 billion unlicensed users of our IP, we believe there is a balance that can be struck which ensures that the people of earth can be licensed at a reasonable rate. If you drink, bathe, or wash the dog, you owe us. Beyond that, we intend to seek a licensing arrangement with God Almighty to license his use of our IP in the form of rain, ponds, lakes, rivers and oceans."
God could not be reached for comment. Deutsche Bank released a report today setting a $54 target for SCHLOX. "The sky's the limit," DB analyst Brain Seema said.
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| Authored by: OK on Thursday, February 05 2004 @ 02:20 AM EST |
I seriously started to read it as an official press statement... ;-) I guess I
need to get some more sleep...[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: RedBarchetta on Thursday, February 05 2004 @ 02:22 AM EST |
That's ok... if I have to pay a royalty for ordinary
water, I'll just
switch to royalty free heavy water. I'm
not sure what kind
of
coffee it makes, though...
:-P
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| Authored by: RSC on Thursday, February 05 2004 @ 02:26 AM EST |
Thanks very much for a good belly laugh on a thursday avo..
Great work Lloyd. And thanks PJ for posting it.
:)
RSC
---
----
An Australian who IS interested.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Arg on Thursday, February 05 2004 @ 02:28 AM EST |
| A great analogy, thanks P J. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, February 05 2004 @ 02:29 AM EST |
I suppose you also need to look out for M$
http://www.theonion.com/onion3311/microsoftpatents.html
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| Authored by: Fruny on Thursday, February 05 2004 @ 02:30 AM EST |
"With approximately 6.3 billion unlicensed users of our IP, we
believe there is a balance that can be struck which ensures that the people of
earth can be licensed at a reasonable rate."
See! Reasonable And
Non-Discriminatory licensing terms. I knew they were fundamentally good people. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, February 05 2004 @ 02:41 AM EST |
| Not to be outdone by the U.S. press, a Canadian paper just published an
article
demonstrating talents similar to some of their colleagues to the
south and so
out of touch it's almost a parody itself. It's in Thursday's
Globe and Mail
and can be read
at:
http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/story/
RTGAM.20040204.gtkapica0205_H
P/BNStory/Front/
Here's the letter I sent to the article's author. I tried
to be nice, but I'm
afraid I didn't succeed very well. How can you be gentle
with someone
who, while pretending to be a authority on a complex legal case,
can't
even get right the distinction between a patent and a
copyright?
Jack Kapica,
Get ready for some flack. Your
SCO/MyDoom article was filled with
inaccuracies, some laughable in their
simplicity.
The debate between SCO and Novell, for instance, is over
copyrights not
patents. (SCO isn't even claiming to own any patents to Unix.)
I've read
the contracts in that dispute and the wording, though muddled in
places, comes down heavily on the side of Novell retaining the
copyrights and
only selling marketing and sales rights to a chain of
owners leading to SCO.
Also, experts now think the weak attacks
MyDoom made on SCO and Microsoft are
simply a cover for more
dangerous activities having nothing to do with OS wars.
Though you don't mention it, SCO's dispute with IBM is a contract
dispute
hinging on SCO's highly dubious claim that software IBM wrote
for AIX and that
SCO has never seen is a 'derivative' owned by SCO. Their
public charges against
Linux users, yet to be taken to court, hinge on
the absence of copyright
notices in a few header files that are said to
have been required by an
out-of-court settlement involving the
University of Berkeley and BSD Unix (not
Linux). No court is going to
hold those who weren't a party to a private
agreement to that agreement
and virtually any court would dismiss it as "de
minimus"--meaning too
small to matter.
Though I'm a writer and Mac user,
I've followed this case quite closely.
It's been fascinating to see how many
pundits in technology and finance
aren't taking the time to sort the issues
out. Many in the media develop
what I call "The Story" and continue to repeat
it to one another in
defiance of the facts. The SCO case is a good example.
It's going to be
funny to see how they respond if, as is likely, the judge
dismisses "with
prejudice" SCO's lawsuit against IBM. They're already in
defiance of a
court order to define their charges "with specificity."
If
you'd like to read the relevant documents in this case from all sides
and build
your articles on facts rather than hearsay, check out
GrokLaw.net. You might
also read up a bit on IP law. Confusing patents
with copyrights says, "I know
nothing."
Until then, your remarks will simply amuse all those who know
better.
--Mike Perry, Inkling Books, Seattle
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, February 05 2004 @ 03:02 AM EST |
mindboggling article at the BBC:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/3457823.stm
this has been one of the top stories on the BBC news site for most of today. It
says that it is certain that MyDoom was written by a member of the Linux
community to target SCO, and goes on to brand the entire Linux community as
"vandals" and "like arsonists"[ Reply to This | # ]
|
- An IP Lawsuit over Water -- A Parody by Lloyd Hanson - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, February 05 2004 @ 03:09 AM EST
- LinuxInsider - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, February 05 2004 @ 03:14 AM EST
- LinuxInsider - Authored by: PJ on Thursday, February 05 2004 @ 03:37 AM EST
- An IP Lawsuit over Water -- A Parody by Lloyd Hanson - Authored by: Scriptwriter on Thursday, February 05 2004 @ 03:19 AM EST
- I found a feedback page - Authored by: Scriptwriter on Thursday, February 05 2004 @ 03:46 AM EST
- An IP Lawsuit over Water -- A Parody by Lloyd Hanson - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, February 05 2004 @ 03:55 AM EST
- "Mindboggling" is precisely the right term - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, February 05 2004 @ 05:58 AM EST
- An IP Lawsuit over Water -- A Parody by Lloyd Hanson - Authored by: old joe on Thursday, February 05 2004 @ 08:22 AM EST
- More feedback to the BBC - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, February 05 2004 @ 09:06 AM EST
- More feedback - Authored by: swengr on Thursday, February 05 2004 @ 09:49 AM EST
- An IP Lawsuit over Water -- A Parody by Lloyd Hanson - Authored by: rc on Thursday, February 05 2004 @ 10:36 AM EST
- An IP Lawsuit over Water -- A Parody by Lloyd Hanson - Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, February 05 2004 @ 11:39 AM EST
- An IP Lawsuit over Water -- A Parody by Lloyd Hanson - Authored by: Pyro on Thursday, February 05 2004 @ 12:45 PM EST
- An IP Lawsuit over Water -- A Parody by Lloyd Hanson - Authored by: DaveF on Thursday, February 05 2004 @ 07:44 PM EST
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, February 05 2004 @ 03:17 AM EST |
| Linux cyber-battle
turns nasty.
I'm afraid this reporter - Stephen Evans - needs educating.
He's got a track record of biased reporting:
OT: BBC
at it again [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, February 05 2004 @ 03:26 AM EST |
I found this in MX (a free daily Melbourne newspaper).
"Microsoft Corp appeared to have survived the worst the MyDoom worm could
hurl at it.
Experts say the virus, a variant of MyDoom.A that knocked out another company's
website on Sunday ..."
It made me smile to see SCO mentioned as no more then a side note, and referred
to as 'another company'.
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, February 05 2004 @ 04:22 AM EST |
Hi,
I wanted to call to attention this recent article from the BBC.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3457823.stm
I was horrified and insulted.
I wrote a letter (following the **'s) to the Feedback. This article says
nowhere 'opinion' or anything, and it is one of the most extreme cases of
un-researched, propagandish, biased reporting I have seen. Honestly.
Especially coming from the BBC, which I (until now) had a higher opinion of.
The BBC should be reprimanded severely, if they claim to be dishing out true
journalism.
-ryan weh
Did I say anything unfounded? I sure hope not, but i'd like to know if so.
*************
Stevan Evans is clueless. This must be the most blatantly presumptious, biased,
un-researched article I have ever read, or is it propaganda?, and from the BBC
nonetheless! In an opinions column, this would be only slightly less insulting,
but nowhere do I see that this is 'merely' an opinion. It's of course obvious
this guy sides against Linux 'geeks'. Fine, who cares. But that this article
is written as written-in-stone fact, to a public audience, again from the
BBC!-that is unacceptable. I am extremely insulted and angered at the BBC for
this poor excuse of an article.
Since this guy hasn't done his homework, the current theory behind the MyDoom
attack (actually since its first appearance) is that the SCO DoS attack is
merely a front for spammers, possibly (see, I can use a term 'possibly', rather
than spouting misinformation off as fact), or seemingly, from Russia. This is
NOT simply new information, and is and was available to Mr. Evans, had he been a
good reporter and searched around before spouting his biases. A certain Bruce
Perens called it from the start: http://perens.com/Articles/SCO/DOS/
If Evans has been following Mr. Darl McBride at all, he should see immediately
how hypocritical this character has been. This guy has spouted inconsistency
after inconsistency since the very start, and even his accusations have never
been substantially verified to justify his 3-billion dollar lawsuits. IMHO,
MOST of the Linux people openly dislike the fellow not because they are angry
that someone is claiming Linux has stolen code (which might be the case in some
instances), but because of the sheer number of illogical arguments and
contradictory claims the guy has made.
Granted, IF code was stolen from SCO, and/or IF someone within the Linux
community was responsible for this virus, this would be very bad indeed. In
the case of stolen code, I would want SCO to be compensated, but not in the
manner they have been trying for. As for the virus, it is no cause for anybody
in the Linux community to 'celebrate' over SCO's problems--although Bill Gates
himself says that "competing vendors -- such as SCO -- were courting danger
by sitting back..." and not taking their network's security in their own
hands. Read for yourself:
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/internet/security/0,39020375,39143723,00.htm
SCO even kept claiming they weren't being hit by the virus at all until much
later into the attack!
But for this 'reporter' to instantly jump to these conclusions, to offer no
alternative theories, no evidence other than heresay, THAT is HORRIBLE
reporting.
If you want further discussion of the SCO case, I suggest looking at Groklaw. I
will say it is certainly of a Linux bent--but at least every major point is
spiced with true-to-life evidence, and general opinions tend to be labeled as
such.
As for the term 'geek', while I can't claim to be directly of the Linux
community per se, I do tend to take the term as one of endearment. However, not
in the case of Stevan's article, in which it is a clear insulting attack.
The BBC should be deeply embarrassed and regretful, Mr. Evans should be
disciplined, and he and the BBC owe a huge apology to the Linux community at
large.
-ryan weh
This is on behalf of myself and not the Linux community nor Groklaw or
anything/one else.
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, February 05 2004 @ 06:45 AM EST |
"For example, the human body is approximately 75% water....."
The percentage of water in the body varies... Please see:
http://www.seps.org/oracle/oracle.archive/Life_Science.Biochem/2001.06/000991410
254.7589.html
or
http://www.worldbank.org/depweb/english/modules/environm/water/[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Electric Dragon on Thursday, February 05 2004 @ 08:51 AM EST |
| This, combined with jachim'
s comment inspired me to write this:
Man Page for SCO-FUD
(1)
SCO-FUD (1)
Generate Fear, Uncertainty and
Doubt.
SYNOPSIS
sco-fud --pressrelease [--subject
name]
sco-fud --sue [type] name
sco-fud --shill name
[--publication publication|--company name]
sco-fud --motion
[type] lawsuit
sco-fud --ddos virusname
website
DESCRIPTION
This man page documents the command
sco-fud. sco-fud will generate actions in order to spread fear,
uncertainty and doubt amongst users and potential users of the GNU/Linux
operating system. It can produce lawsuits, press releases, favourable articles
in the technical and/or financial press and create Distributed Denial of Service
Attacks.
OPTIONS
--outputfile filename
For any of the
below options, write the output to filename instead of standard
output.
--pressrelease [--subject name]
Produce a press release
in favour of SCO on the topic of subject. If subject is omitted, a random
subject will be selected. Subjects can be defined in the sco-fud.conf(5) file:
default ones include "Open Source is Anti Capitalist", "The Viral Nature of the
GPL", "Tree Hugging Hippies", "We own millions of lines of copyright" and
"Threat to Sue End-users". The press release will be written to standard
output.
--sue [type] name
File a lawsuit against name. If
type is not specified, one will be selected at random from the /etc/lawsuits(5)
file. The Complaint will be written to standard output.
--shill name
[--publication publication|--company name]
Produce an article
or analysis report that is favourable to SCO. The article will appear to be
written by [name]. Suggested values include "Enderle", "DiDio" and "Skiba". With
the --publication option, the article will appear in that publication. With the
--company option, the item will appear as a financial analyst report from that
company.
--motion [type] lawsuit
Make a spurious
type motion in (previously established) lawsuit.
--ddos
virusname website
Launch a Distributed Denial of Service
Attack against website. The virusname will be the identifier of the virus in
major news channels. Previous names have included
"MyDoom".
WARNINGS
Use of this program will produce large amounts
of output, but there is no guarantee of any of it being meaningful. It is
incompatible with IBM architectures and Red Hat distributions and may crash if
run on them. The --sue option can be used against system users, but this has
never been tried (even though the use of --pressrelease "Threat to Sue
End-users" is very common). Also untried is --sue "copyright breach" [target].
While sco-fud(1) may temporarily increase share price, overuse can lead
to reduction of this effect as the stock segment becomes increasingly
short.
This program may cause system regulatory problems if linked with the
director-share-dump(2) modules and if so may be shut down by the SEC
daemon secd(8) without warning.
BUGS
Use of the --sue
option makes heavy demands on system resources and should be used sparingly.
Ideally extra resources should be acquired beforehand by use of
baystar(1) or rbc(1). Process output can be examined carefully
through groklaw(1) or trashed via slashdot(7). sco-fud is
unstable and is likely to crash in the future, but timescales are uncertain. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: lpletch on Thursday, February 05 2004 @ 10:22 AM EST |
| Here are some pictures. Some are of Chris and
Darl trying to sell bottled water.
Caution..
Parody
---
lpletch@adelphia.net [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: zjimward on Thursday, February 05 2004 @ 10:48 AM EST |
I don't know how many people seen the report from Barron's saying that Red Hat
stock was over inflated because people can pick up Linux for free off the
internet. I post this here becase I liken Linux to water myself with a friend
the other day. My comment to this friend was why then do we pay utility
companies for water when we could freely go to a river or dig a well to get our
own water? The reason is we don't want to spend out time the day to day things
we would have to make it usable. We pay utility companies to provide us a
service. This is what companies like Red Hat, Mandrake and other do for us. They
package Linux in a way that the masses and not just the techies can use. They
provide help lines, consulting and other services to back the product. Isn't
that a business? Why is it that the people who don't want to except open source
have to make it sound like it's just not capable of being a business. For my 23
years of development I've worked for consulting companies and that has been all
that we've done. Provide support through program modifications, training and
installation, not any different than Red Hat's solution. These type of comments
come from the result of some one not wanting to see the forest for the tree limb
that slapped them in the face.
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| Authored by: josmith42 on Thursday, February 05 2004 @ 11:27 AM EST |
Until now, Groklaw has done an excellent job on commenting
on legal claims made by SCO. Simply pointing out the
details of every statement SCO made has been enough to bang
SCO on the head with a hammer. In the reporting on the
SCHLO case however, it seems that we all need to tell the
world that the SCHLO case is just a parody of the SCO case.
This is well below the standards that made Groklaw famous.
SCHLO may well have a legitimate case against Wrestle, and
their IP rights may be legitimate. But in reporting this
case as simply a "parody" does not disprove anything SCHLO
has claimed. [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Thursday, February 05 2004 @ 12:00 PM EST |
Went and let the cat out-of-the-bag! When SCO reads this, expect to receive a
lawsuit for using water. Afterall, they're just protecting IP rights for their
sister company SCHLO (headed by Darl's brother-in-law, Snarl). Like I needed a
lawsuit in my life! And I can't possibly afford to pay extortion prices, even to
stay alive.[ Reply to This | # ]
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