California Case Update

[Caelum]

James, you just made my day posting that.

 

[Green Cat]

Boggles my non legal mind as to how such rubbish can go before a court.
I mean really, it makes you wonder if they plan to sue MyBB next, given how very similiar the products are

They already tried that before

 

[Onimua]

42-2 Exhibit J is a joke.

Feature - vBulletin - XenForo
Hook System - Yes - Stolen
Theme System - Yes - Stolen
[etc]

Are they seriously claiming every single feature on that list is completely innovative and never used before by any platform except vBulletin?

For everyone else's pleasure:
View attachment 16018
You'll also notice versioning is copyrighted by VBSI too, game's over guys.

I was chuckling a bit when I saw the list, but when I got to the last one I just starting laughing at the absurdity of it. Even now it's ridiculously hilarious.

 

[dutchbb]

I don't see how VBS can see that list James posted as evidence even if XF did copy or steal features that were originally invented by the VBS team. If VBS hasn't patented those features it really doesn't matter AFAICT.

 

[AdamD]

In other news, vBulletin sues every site on the internet for infringing on their amazing 'content management' feature.

.

Well, it IS the "most powerful community software", so anything else, is clearly a stolen/copied version of it and all should be sued!

 

[Forsaken]

Well, it IS the "most powerful community software", so anything else, is clearly a stolen/copied version of it and all should be sued!

I was thinking more along the lines that editing any content clearly would infringe on their 'trade secrets'.

 

[jadmperry]

http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ61.pdf

"Extent of Copyright Protection
Copyright protection extends to all the copyrightable expression embodied in
the computer program. Copyright protection is not available for ideas, program
logic, algorithms, systems, methods, concepts, or layouts."

Seems someone does not understand these concepts.

 

[AdamD]

They already tried that before

Interesting, I didn't know that
Did a bit of digging and found this post by Scott MacVicar

We've exchanged lawyers letters with MyBB in regards to earlier versions which contained vBulletin code, they cleaned up the code and removed the bits we objected to.

Though I'll say the code is somewhat inspired by vBulletin code, anyone who knows the vBulletin code base can see that.

Interesting how they approached things in different ways back then.

Jelsoft days: Someone steals actual code, Jelsoft asks via their lawyers for code to be removed, all is well

IB days: Someone doesn't steal code, IB sue for the hell of it, they refuse to put "witnesses" on the stand and claim everything but the kitchen sink was "copied" or "stolen"

 

[Peggy]

http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ61.pdf

"Extent of Copyright Protection
Copyright protection extends to all the copyrightable expression embodied in
the computer program. Copyright protection is not available for ideas, program
logic, algorithms, systems, methods, concepts, or layouts."

Seems someone does not understand these concepts.

Apparently IB missed this little dittie.

 

[Digital Doctor]

42-2 Exhibit J is a joke.

Indeed.

I corrected the Court Document to reflect reality, as everyone and their dog but IB sees it.

 

[Kevin]

Apparently IB missed this little dittie.

It is likely why there was some early flak about the non-compete agreement instead and the issues about when exactly "xenforo.com" was registered & by whom. From what is available so far to the public IB's approach is the shot-gun approach... shoot a bunch of scatter to see what hits.

 

[Kevin]

I corrected the Court Document to reflect reality, as everyone and their dog but IB sees it.

You get a "Like" for including the "Spaghetti Code" check.

 

[AdamD]

I corrected the Court Document to reflect reality, as everyone and their dog but IB sees it.

Brilliant, hehe.

 

[Digital Doctor]

I think the Like should be for having the spaghetti code as possibly still on the vBulletin Roadmap (aka "???" ).

 

[dutchbb]

I guess to point out the stupidity even more you could add UBB.classic in front of the vBulletin column.

 

[pk698]

sigh... when is this stupid case going to end??? we all need to move on with our lives, don't we?

 

[DSF]

However, this claim is the biggest ******** I ever see.

 

[yavuz]

I watched this movie couple of months ago called "Howl", inspired by a true story in which a famous poem was brought to trial. I don't know if anyone matches the level of obscenity of this case, but it reminded me of it. The movie was not good, kind of boring but every time this thread bumps up I think of it

 

[Kim]

Actually a lot of the vB list is copied from IPB too...

Personal Conversations - IPB had it first
IPB had a Hook System before vB

God the rest of it is funny.....

Permissions LOL ahahahaha

Content... heheheehe

Theme System...

Versioning?!?!?!?! LOL

OMG too too funny - or rather it would be if it wasn't costing KAM a fortune to defend against this utter utter shyte.

 

[James]

I was chuckling a bit when I saw the list, but when I got to the last one I just starting laughing at the absurdity of it. Even now it's ridiculously hilarious.

You wasn't aware that if XF has the same amount of lines of code as vB then they are seriously going to lose the case?! I think we need to reduce it, quick! No more curly braces on new lines, no more tabtabtab:

class Not_Stolen_From_vBulletin extends XenForo_In_General{ public function doSomething(){ } }

That should save us 5 lines.