THE ROBING ROOM

In my opinion, Judge Mason has far too great a concern about clearing his doctorate and far too little concern for helping parties reach reasonable settlement terms. He ran roughshod over the facts and law and browbeat both sides to accept a middle-of-the-road settlement. Unfortunately for accused patent and trade secret infringers, it is impossible to offer less than zero damages in settlement when the plaintiff's case is utterly lacking in merit, as was the case here. Plaintiff patent and trade secret holders, on the other hand, have great latitude to demand grossly unreasonable amounts, knowing that the judge or jury will be unable to ferret out the truth without considerable deliberation. After hearing the judge cast unwarranted dispersions on our case in a mid-trial settlement conference, our client got cold feet and accepted a middle-of-the-road settlement. The plaintiff ended up with an undeserved windfall, and future holdups by owners of undeserved IP were encouraged. Judge Mason cleared his docket but undermined the goals of the justice system.