John Galt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > See Wollensak v. Reiher, 115 U.S. 96, 99 (1885). See also USC Title 17, > section 507 > > * (b) Civil Actions. - No civil action shall be maintained under the > provisions of this title unless it is commenced within three years > after the claim accrued. > > I think the claim's been sunset.
This only applies to the particular defendant; it does not apply to others. Since the FSF isn't ever suing Debian, the point is moot here. The point is that by failing to pursue action here, the FSF might be granting implicit permission to anyone to do something similar. Debian probably isn't harming anybody, but EvilCorp might, and it's that one should be worried about. The section cited has nothing to do with the question of whether delay in prosecuting one defendant means that you are estopped from action against other similarly situated defendants, which is what I'm talking about. Similarly, the case you cited (Wanlass v. GE) is about laches in a patent case, and again, addresses whether a failure to sue a defendent promptly estops a later suit of that defendant. The answer the court gave was "yes", but that's not relevant here, because I'm talking about an inability to sue a different defendant, not the one you delayed in acting against. In fact, a patent case is totally not relevant here. The doctrine I'm citing is that if you ignore it when person A breaks your copyright, then you might lose the right to sue person B when they do. This is a general rule, not just one of copyrights. However, it is a rule that specifically does not apply to patents. If you ignore the fact that person A infringes your patent, you might lose the right to sue A, but you will never thereby lose the right to sue B. Thomas