Post Number 38 29 July 2012 Data Points Reflecting The Quality Of Civil Society In Contemporary Russia & America

ca Tomorrow morning two notable trials will begin. One will be in the federal court for the Northern District of California in San Jose, California and the other will be in the Khamovnicheskiy federal court here in Moscow. One is an intellectual property rights jury trial for several billion US dollars in damages plus permanent injunctive relief between Apple and Samsung involving design as well as well utility patent rights in the spheres of smartphones and tablet computers, civil action docket number 11-CV-01846-LHK. The other is a criminal prosecution of three members of a feminist, punk rock music group whose emphasis is heavily political, Pussy Riot, see http://www.pussy-riot.livejournal.com & http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/29/pussy-riot-protest-vladimir-putin-russia. Apple versus Samsung is a crucial element in a far larger legal mlange of IPR claims being pressed byamong othersApple, Google, Microsoft, Oracle, Samsung, HTC, and Motorola. According to thorough and thoughtful commentators, the number of these judicial and administrative proceedings already exceeds 50 and they are being prosecuted in more than a dozen different national fora see e.g., http://www.fosspatents.com/2012/07/android-deviceshave-already-been-found.html & http://www.fosspatents.com/2012/04/list-of-50-applesamsung-lawsuits-in-10.html. At stake are billions of US dollars in penalties, license fees, along with bans on the importation and sale of flagship consumer electronic gadgets. The rapidly evolving collection of adjudication rulings and orders include the blocking of Googles Galaxy Nexus (the flagship Google phone) from being sold in the United States, the blocking of the sale of Samsungs Galaxy Tab 10.1, in the U.S. as well as Germany, and a British judge determining that the Tab is not as cool as the iPad. More specifically, before a civil jury in San Jose, California, a veritable war of words is about to commence between Samsung and Apple as they accuse one another of the theft of intellectual property rights including Apples designs and scrolling technology as well as Samsungs 3G transmission functionality. Yet, highly-regarded legal experts have opined that these legal flaps involve intellectual property that should never have been patented see Apple & Samsung Patent Suit Puts Judge Posners Worldview On Trial By J. Palazzolo & A. Jones in the Wall Street Journal (dated 23 July 2012) http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10000872396390443295404577545052739462384.html. Meanwhile here in Moscow, the criminal prosecution of three of the members of Pussy Riot (Nadezhda Tolokonnikova [22], Maria Alekhina [24], & Yekaterina Samutsevich, [29]) who were arrested while performing within the sanctuary of Christ the Savior Cathedral is scheduled to begin (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/29/pussy-riot-protestvladimir-putin-russia). Wireds blog promises to keep the web apprised of the progress of this civil trial via http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/. But the Russian powers-that-be/organs of State power have announced that they rise to an even higher standard of transparency with a promise to broadcast the live transmission of these criminal proceedings at the official website of that court see http://www.rapsinews.ru/moscourts_news/20120728/263968293.html & http://hamovnichesky.msk.sudrf.ru/modules.php?name=press_dep&op=1&did=11! As was said by Zhenya Lukashins mother in the closing moments of Eldar Ryzanovs 1975 film classic, The Irony of Fate ( ), only time will tell. While, her thought was meant to apply to the durability of the serendipitous love discovered between her son and Nadya, the same notion also applies to whether the copacetic and positive promise of the public transmission of the Pussy Riot trial will also come to fruition!