Ron, I think the liberal use of alleged, allegation, allegedly is because people are scared of being found guilty of defamation. Calling Nokia a bunch of GSM Guild slimey hagfish patent bandits could lead people to end up in hot water if there's no basis for doing so. The fact that QCOM has alleged such a thing [patent banditry] and is prosecuting Nokia for patent infringement doesn't mean it's true, so people can't really say it's true and allege so in public fora unless they are prepared to back it up in court. [Being an international legal expert, I know these things and can offer my usual double your money back guarantees to people who depend on my legal advice which is freely given]. They risk being slapped with a SLAPP. thefirstamendment.org
So, people tip-toe around, inserting alleged here and allegedly there and circumlocutionarily prevaricating about what they think is true. Ironically, the use of alleged seems to me to lend greater credibility to the allegations than if the outright statement was made by some raving person who thinks what they are saying is true. "Alleged" lends an authoritative considered air to the statements, whereas bald accusations of criminality are fairly suspect as being the rantings of a misguided and confused maniac with an axe to grind.
The fact that Silicon Investor is a trivial forum which almost nobody reads and has zero impact on the public perception of Nokia wouldn't necessarily be a complete defence as SI is available to the public via the click of a mouse. It's copyright protected so such rantings can't be uplifted by "The Media" and broadcast [without the permission of the SI proprietors], but there is still a few of the public who blunder into the SI swamp.
Any harm to Nokia would be at about 0.000000001 on the Richter Scale. But they could still argue harm due to assertions of factually incorrect statements such as the alleged patent-pinching. Being upset, or offended, isn't defamatory harm, but if they could find somebody who saw and believed a false claim, they would perhaps have a minuscule claim against the person alleging the false accusation.
But Nokia factually is a member of the GSM Guild of Slimeball Hagfish, who have been conducting slimey manoeuvres against honest-Injun QCOM for over a decade. If being a slimey hagfish is considered to be a negative thing, then that's their problem and they should leave the Guild and stop being slimey hagfish. They should stop bottom feeding on carrion, captive Euroserfs [who were not allowed to buy 2GHz CDMA2000], and innocent passersby and start inventing their own CDMA, or OFDM, or Pulsed Monocycle Photon Phragmenters, or GSRS [TM], or maybe even something in the realm of unknown unknowns.
******
I hasten to say that I have nothing against slimey hagfish. Some of my best friends are hagfish and like all Go-'s creatures, should be treated with admiration and respect. Anyone denigrating hagfish is obviously not up with Buddhist mantras.
Mqurice
PS: I note in passing that I have not seen the claim that 1xEV-DO is a fraud prosecuted. That defamatory assertion was made by ... oh, I forget who, but I think it might have been somebody in the GSM Guild. Nor that "CDMA would collapse under load", made by a bloke in 1996 who was at the time in the employ of King Ericy [who was shown in 1999 to be as naked as the day he was born]. Nor that "The GSM Guild does not need any QCOM patents" which was enormously damaging to QCOM if the alleged patent banditry turns out to have been true. It would be great to see some prosecutions of the people responsible for factually incorrect defamatory statements about CDMA and the people involved.
****** Edit... highly defamatory expletive-containing statements of malicious falsehood deleted here to protect the innocent [me]. |
