Taser International vs Linden Lab: Lawsuit dropped!
by Tateru Nino 
May 6th 2009 at 8:45PM
Filed under: News items, Second Life, Legal, Virtual worlds
Quite surprisingly, according to Patent Arcade, Taser International Inc have filed to voluntarily drop their lawsuit against Linden Lab (and numerous others). It isn't often that we get to cover the end of a lawsuit -- they generally tend to drag on somewhat -- but it's possible that this might not be quite over.
Linden Lab hadn't yet filed a response to the original complaint, the suit can be dropped 'without prejudice'. That means the suit can be filed again.
Perhaps Taser International has found some far more interesting or lucrative basis for a case. It is also possible that the changes to Second Life products that now assert the primacy of the TASER trademark have satisfied the company. Or perhaps, at the end of the day, the whole effort met some unknown marketing targets. This could all be on again. Watch this space.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Taco Rubio said on 11:14PM 5-06-2009
Or, perhaps, you're wildly speculating on a case you have absolutely no inside knowledge about?
This was a good article (in that you quoted a sourse) but went wildly off course when you added speculation to it. This is how massively consistently fails.
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Taco Rubio said on 11:16PM 5-06-2009
a source is a source of course of course, sorry for the typo :)
ethereal.wolf said on 12:45AM 5-07-2009
it was probably settled. linden got caught with their pants down.
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FlipperPA Peregrine said on 10:00AM 5-07-2009
I'm fairly certain it was just dropped, and not settled. If it was settled, it would have been dismissed with prejudice so it couldn't be refiled. Otherwise, there's no point in settling. My guess? Taser realized this was rather pointless, and perhaps followed the path they should have initially: DMCA.
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Dale Innis said on 11:22AM 5-07-2009
They can't use the DMCA, 'cause it's a *trademark* case, not a *copyright* case, growl, moan, whine.
(And yeah I know they might be able to use the DMCA *form*, and just cross out the part about copyright or something, but it still wouldn't be a DMCA notification! I know, I'm a pedant.)
My completely uninformed guess is that they filed the lawsuit just to get the Lab to return their calls, and it worked, so they took the lawsuit away again. :)
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Moe Greene said on 2:07PM 5-07-2009
My top two:
1. After further review, Taser's counsel decided they needed additional counsel on how to deal with the nuances of this issue and that counsel will come back with the recommended course of action in the not too distant future.
2. Someone on Taser's team spoke with someone on LL's team, had a quick chat and realized that this was probably going to drag and drag with no result or a result that would result with LL being slapped on the wrist.
Before I get mocked on possibility #2, not all lawyers are looking to jam up the docket just for a paycheck. Especially if two in-house counsel people get together. These types are very aware of the litigation budget and generally seek to avoid filing too many briefs.
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