It's always Speed and Cost where I am. I wish it was ever quality.

If they're cases arising from the same allegations, and the original cases were dismissed with prejudice, any competent lawyer should be able to get the suits dismissed due to the doctrine of res judicata . That's much simpler than trying to make any other arguments as to standing, etc.

If the cases are dismissed without prejudice, then of course they can be refiled elsewhere, since there was no final judgment on the cases.

I am not a lawyer, etc.

Well, Robert Half was on the list of companies using Epsilon. Some IT consultants might be an adequate target audience...

Unfortunately, this could, and likely would, go the other way. Having valid Microsoft licenses would likely become a standard contract term for doing business with certain large companies, so the overseas company likely would have to use MS products even if they otherwise would have just avoided them and used FOSS in compliance with the relevant license terms.

It depends on the court, but Hennepin County at least is a little messed up. I live in Dakota County but have had no contact with its court system. I wish for the sake of the defendant in the present case that he'd been able to keep the original judge in the case, John Q. McShane. I've appeared before him in a civil case where I was pro se, and while I do not completely agree with all his rulings in the case, I can say he seemed like a good, fair, and predictable judge to me. I don't think he would have let some of this nonsense go on. I know he had no problem putting opposing counsel in his place when he started making stupid arguments.

Conciliation court in Hennepin County, on the other hand, is a completely unaccountable kangaroo court, but that has nothing to do with the subject of the article.

It's Minnesota, and 5/6 of the jurors in a civil case must agree. They probably ended up with a seven-member jury because, in Minnesota, if there are alternate jurors, and all the jurors watch the whole trial, all the jurors participate in deliberations. So, a six-member jury plus an alternate is probably what happened here.

From reading the document, it appears to have been a proposed order submitted by plaintiff's counsel. This is typical in motion practice. To save time, the Court can just use it.

IANAL, etc.

Yes, it's been that way since 1998. See this and, more generally, this.

Or, Yahoo did. Besides being listed as a sponsor on the NASA TV page, if one looks at the Windows Media link (for instance) and examines the ASX file, one notes a reference to "http://playlist.yahoo.com/makeplaylist.dll?id=1369080&segment=149773". See for yourself (probably using wget).

In skimming through the decision, I noticed that the legislative history of Chapter 149 (the relevant law being overturned in this instance) was discussed. It really looks like Chapter 149 was bought and paid for by the defendant in the case; yet, I did not notice any discussion of that matter. Perhaps someone who read the decision, or its concurrences, more thoroughly could comment. This type of legislative issue tends to be of interest to Slashdot readers, judging by some of their comments.