On 11/15/2016 08:26 PM, Shawn Steele wrote:
As I understand the issue, the problem is less of whether or not it is legal, then whether or not Paramount might sue. Whether Unicode wins or not, it would still cost money to defend.
There ought to be laws against suits brought just to intimidate. I think there are. But yes, they aren't easy to prove or enforce.
I was wondering like Mark Davis mentioned if there were some sort of companies that sold bonds for this kind of thing (though that might be out of KLI's budget.) Being afraid of a no answer probably isn't going to inspire confidence. But maybe you could do a combination of the above. Get someone to give you a legal opinion and then present that to Paramount with a "hey, they said this was probably legal anyway, but we wanted to ask nicely to be sure."
Not so much "afraid" of a no answer, but would rather not give the sense that we even thought that one was an option. And for a company that makes its living from IP, they usually don't even have to bother listening to the whole question: "Say, can we use your—" "No!" (This is probably also partly due to the way the laws are structured).
Your idea is a good one, though. Get a legal opinion and maybe *inform* Paramount of it, and ask if they'd like to be involved in sanctioning it. If spun right, it could even be sold as offering them the opportunity to get in on this, magnanimously offering them the privilege of giving their blessing...
~mark
