And I can quote several copyright cases too to add to yours, where the claimants are American. Well obviously, you do not necessarily have to be a local, to sue, if the other party at least, is local. If local copyright law makes something illegal, you can pretty much go and sue the other person in same jurisdiction. If someone stole your entire book verbatim to make a local TV serial or un-authorised film, you will obviously go to that country and sue the culprits there, no matter what your own citizenship is. So let us take your other case then, where a so-called "US company" is defendant. Based on your first case, HGS is apparently bought over by the British company GSK, which is mentioned in your linked court ruling itself btw. So is HGS trying to enforce its patents in Britain or not? If it is, then why on Earth can it not be sued in English courts, since it has sufficient local presence? If the patent dispute is for USA market, then English ruling will hold no water, since Britain has no way of enforcing these in USA in absence of an actual treaty. I can pretty well try to sue Walmarts in Japan(Seiyu does not counts btw), but I will be laughed out of the court. On the other hand, I can go and sue Starbucks in Japan, which does indeed have local presence. Most of the other countries understand this, and acknowledge and respect this fact.

Negative. No company operates across several jurisdictions directly in the first place. You HAVE to create a legal local entity to do business in a country. Almost any country at that. For example, Microsoft Japan or IBM Japan are completely different local legal entities for all legal purpose. This is done, to make it possible to sue such multi-national entities locally. Microsoft China for example, HAS to follow Chinese laws, even if these are contradicting USA laws. It would not matters what Microsoft China conceded or did did not concede regards its identity. By ruling that a US company(Microsoft here) that apparently initially subjected itself to obeying German laws, can go and neutralize and ignore the rulings of German legal system, the judge directly attacked the sovereignty of Germany. If the dispute was indeed between two US companies, how on earth would they have been allowed to file a lawsuit in Germany instead of their own country? German lawsuit and US lawsuit may be related, but are under two different jurisdictions.

Permit me to introduce you and the said Judges to the concept of International law(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_law). You know, the laws which govern the conduct of companies and natural persons in international waters. And you might find that when corporations open subsidiary entities in another nation, the subsidiary always has to agree to obey the laws of the land. They cannot pick and choose and say, that hey we want to obey only US laws, since our owners are US companies. And for all purpose, they actually have to make the subsidiary a separate legal entity. To argue otherwise, will mean that they lied while entering incorporation in the said country. In case of the Union Carbide gas leak incident in Bhopal(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhopal_disaster#Legal_proceedings_leading_to_the_settlement), the very excuse used the said parent US company Dow Chemicals/Union Carbide was that the parent company was a separate entity and as such was not under Indian Jurisdiction. So you can decide up whether these are "more or less same parties" or different ones. Else you are just advocating for opportunistic interpretation of law, on the line of "having one's cake and eating it too".

I don't think you understand.World over, you can sue an entity in a court of your country, only and only if the said entity legally exists in your country, and as such falls under your nation's jurisdiction. You cannot for example, sue the pope in Pakistan. He has no legal presence there, and you have no way of enforcing the verdicts. Sure, you can probably shutdown all the churches and arrest the clergy, based on their association with the Pope, but for all purpose you will be working as the principles of justice, and opening a can of worms. It is only and only USA that seems to think it can enforce its laws everywhere else in the world. What a subsidiary can or cannot do in a country is and should be subject to the courts of THAT country. But here, the moron judge thinks that he can dictate what legal recourse a subsidiary existing as a local entity in another country, has or not has. It does not matters what the parties said. They can only file a case in other countries, if they exist as a local entity there, and for all purpose they would be considered an independent entity no matter who their owner in USA was. If you start dictating what legal options a person/entity in another country has, the other countries will start enforcing their own reciprocal laws, and you will be helpless to even object, without coming out as a hypocrite i.e. persecuted minorities in a country will be forbidden to open a lawsuit in USA(parties are same)... this kind of nonsense leads to breakdown of trade even. So I repeat, the judge is a moron. US courts cannot really dictate what subsidiaries may or may not do in another country. The act of limiting legal freedom in another country, is a violation and challenge to other nation's sovereignty and legal system, and is pretty much illegal itself in first place.

Negative. At bottom it is a private dispute between Microsoft Germany and Google Germany. The fact that these are in turn, owned by US companies is immaterial. If these were really just "US corporations", they could not have filed a case in Germany in the first place. The judge is a moron.

You should wake up and smell the coffee sometime. India has been too controlling of Nepal and in resentment, Nepal has allied itself with China which has begun heavily investing in Nepal. In other words, the "buffer nation"(this was the reason for Nepal and Bhutan not being annexed by India in 40s), is now practically Chinese territory and a buffer no more.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China%E2%80%93Nepal_relations#Economic_and_strategic_relations

You missed the point, I am afraid. But you were not alone. Other folks here arguing that Hitler lost, and you with your focus on WWII analysis too are overlooking the point, that Hitler should have been contained much earlier on, in the first place. USA companies kept supplying it with strategic supplies like oil(the stuff they used for their tanks, you know?) and steel and so on. Romanians were doing the same. And even when Hitler started threatening neighboring countries, USA very conveniently decided to stay "neutral"... till the war was brought to their door finally. It can be pretty much argued that without Standards Oil(Exxon) greedily and generously supplying oil to Germany, there would not HAVE been a World War II in the first place, since Germany would have lacked the fuel for its tanks. And like a true idiot, American companies are doing it all over again. With all of your manufacturing transferred to China, you have already given it the financing for all its future military adventurism, and by transfer of technology as part of said manufacturing(and by allowing Chinese students/employees to steal secrets), you are simply repeating your old mistake again. And if that was not enough, you are failing to contain China's posturing as well towards its immediate neighbors. If India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Japan etc become Chinese colonies(Like India was a British colony earlier on), it gives China complete dominance of Asia, and their next move will be to neutralize Russia, and then move on to Europe(and a financial take over country-by-country will suffice frankly. They do not NEED to invade. None of the European countries can take on China military-wise so there will not be any military resistance to begin with). And then finally when the most powerful opponent has been isolated from all other allies, it can be simply starved based on trade-bans etc. The only slight hope you have of containing them is NOW.

Germany was initially only limited to their own immediate neighborhood in Europe back in World War 2, right? How did that work out last time? China has a huge population that needs more resources. And this being a small planet, your resources are eventually on the menu, whether you acknowledge that fact or not.

I will grant that your analysis is correct as things stand currently. But that kind of short-term thinking is the problem in the first place, isn't it? Intertwined dependent economies just mean that your ability to protect your interests in Asia is heavily compromised. If you actually took any real action whatsoever against China, your economy is toast. They will survive without you regardless, even if they will damage themselves too in the process. I mean isn't this exactly what happened in World war 2? USA was actually supplying Germany for its war machinery and let it grow unchecked. It just stood by and watched, till Germany actually became a serious potential threat. And now you want to do the same thing all over again with China. I mean most of the countries in Asia are already aligned to China, with exception of India, Japan and Korea. And if China starts a war against either, your only real option left is now to either do a Kamikaze with your economy or just let China do whatever it want, in order to buy some more time, at end of which USA status will simply be same as that of Japan, in relation to USA... an unofficial province/lackey. The real solution was to play the good guy card to marshal world support against China, and to shield your economy from Chinese influence. And you guys have already failed on both ends. You do have the option to wait till the end. But problem is that it will by then, be too late and just that for you... the end.

Interpretation is fine. It is the execution that is different. They can indeed classify him as a terrorist in same category as Al-Qaeda and Taliban and yet opt not do anything about him. There is such a thing called world-opinion that determines what you can and cannot do. Plus USA won't DARE to try out stunts that a rival power like China then can try against it. Imagine China declaring the rich and powerful in USA its own enemy of states, using the logic that their patents and policies harm "Chinese interest", and then launching their own drone strikes. Seems unreal? Sure. For now. Thing about tricks and weapons however is, that if they are seen to work, your enemies start using them too. If you are seen as a good guy, who has simply been doing the right thing, the world sides with you. But if it seems like two equally bad bullies duking it out, world simply gets some popcorn and watches. And USA has long since lost the power advantage it used to enjoy. Hell, they are pretty much China's pet dog by now. If you stop giving a damn about "political consequences", you squander the last bit of good will you might have ever had. And USA in its current state could sure as hell, use any good will it has still got left.

If so, then what exactly is the USA case again Assange? He is neither subject to US laws, nor is he as a non-citizen, non-resident owed anything to USA to protect its so-called secrets, since it is a country he owes no allegiance to. Please decide if you want to have your cake or whether you want to eat it.

Yup. They must be very rabid. That is why not only the minority muslims are allowed to have their own set of special laws, *defined by mulims* for them, but they even get special quotas in schools/universities as well as jobs. The hindus are so intoolerant, that they elected muslims to be Presidents repeatedly. The mumbai riots recently carried by Indian muslims were for protesting the prosecution of mulims *outside* India, and for supporting their "brother" illegal muslim immigrant invaders from neighbouring country who were rioting in north-east region and attacking actual Indian citizens. They desecrated Indian equivalent of US air force memorial. The people they targeted in these riots were by the way, non-muslims. Treason is apparently just a "perceived" offense.

GP is right. As an Indian I can tell you that for being majority, Hindus *usually* tend to be surprisingly tolerant of other communities. Not even USA comes close. I mean check out the plight of non-muslims in almost any Muslim-majority nation for example. Minorities, including muslims get reserved quotas in schools/universities and Jobs. Muslims have been even Presidents. And how the muslim usually repay this all, is by going hair-trigger every time they can get the remotest chance to do so. In this case, the illegal muslim immigrants from neighbouring Bangaladesh sneaked in the north-east region and started harassing the native local Bodo populace. Eventually the local populace retaliated, ending in riots. All well and good. You would think that Indian muslims would side with their own country against this wave of illegal invaders. But they actually carried out riots in mumbai to protest prosescution of muslims in Burma(India has nothing to do with this) and of their "brother muslims" in north-east. They would readily put their religion over their country and openly support treason. And the flaw of Hindus is to tolerate this nuisance and allow the minority muslims to have their own special laws and even protect their rights.

I will assume that by nice you mean rational and the competent. Unlike the very top, mid high-level positions are ones filled with people who are actually good at what they do. And these are the guys who left. The ones stepping in, will quite likely be less competent by definition. And you are assuming that the new guy has exactly the same vision, idea and team-relationship. These are people, not cogs. You cannot just pick up the next guy in queue, and fill up the position and expect to have things go on same as before, normally. Normally organizations are designed to deal with occasional such hiccups. But several of these at once, would be the equivalent of multiple cardiac arrests at once. You might pretty much assume that the top management knew something we didn't and decided to cash in, while going was good, since they decided that after that point things would only go downhill. There is no other explanation for the entire IPO fiasco.

The exodus of high level leaders at same time, however can definitely kill a company. Think of it this way, if several generals or even majors of an army quit at the same time, it leads the army directionless for a fair bit. If the competition is shrewd, this will be the perfect time to throw in some innovative twists and come up with something new. And if that happens, cash, which essentially comes from advts. will dry up instantly. And that will lead to even more mass exodus. One way to beat vicious cycles is to not to get into one.