[Joky]

I've always wondered if there is not a general conspiracy of lawyers to protect their "industry". They have all interests to keep the current patent system, as well as extending copyright protection to anything: it keeps the demand for lawyers high.

Of course you have the same view of software and/or system engineer, who build broken systems just to justify billing more maintenance :)

[rhino369]

Judges are pretty far removed from the actual legal industry to give a shit.

But there are definitely lobbies that exist to further the legal industry. The trial lawyers lobby is HUGE in the democratic party. Probably the most influential because they have money but also direct connections. They were sorta behind killing the patent reform act from 2013 because it had "fee shifting.

The more appropriate charge is that lawyers overvalue the law and litigation as a whole and it creates a bias. But the recent courts have given away a lot of power that they didn't' have to. Courts uphold arbitration terms in contracts, SCOTUS made it harder to sue in a series of civil procedure cases, they give deference to administrative agencies.

I work in the patent industry, mostly on the defense side, and a lot of my coworkers really really hate patent trolls. They see first hand how shitty these trolls behave. I recognize their behavior is paying off my student loans, so I don't get so angry. I'm sort of shocked how personally they take it.

But professionally they attack patent troll ferociously. Many big firms wrote amicus briefs supporting crack downs on the trolls even though they'd lose a lot of money if it actually works.

[arfar]

Personally, I find it hard to blame lawyers on the whole for this.

A lawyers job is to represent their client as best as they possibly can (within the rules of the law). The best outcome for Oracle here is copyright is valid for APIs, it's then the lawyers job to try to get that outcome. It is illegal (i.e. disbarred) for a lawyer (in New Zealand at least) to refuse instruction without a good enough reason.

It should be judges/the law which stops these silly verdicts from occurring.

[the_watcher]

Many judges are former trial lawyers. I don't think there is some vast conspiracy, but many of these laws are in the interest of trial lawyers, so many judges probably have at least some subconscious bias towards interpreting laws in their direction.

[ahallock]

No more a conspiracy than lions hunting a gazelle. It's just in their nature.