Not true. Even if you believe your client, you must have evidence. The client in this case admitted, under oath, he had no personal knowledge and no evidence (to back up his contention that "Zubitskiy" created the photo). But the lawyers did NOT believe his statement he had no evidence, like you say they should believe their client, and stop the litigation.

The claim of unjust enrichment against me was not based on ANY testimony from the client, and was dismissed as "purely speculative". Is pure speculation "probable cause"?

The other party tried to quash a subpoena to the phone company. The judge asked at the hearing, "What is your standing? You don't represent the phone company." Their answer: "Well, we have no standing."

The phone company did not object to the subpoena, so they tried to interpose an objection on behalf of the phone company. That is not standard at all, and they lost.

It's willful ignorance because I showed early on that "Michael Zubitskiy" did not exist, and they never so much as opened the phone book to see if he was real.

In Minnesota, they consider the application of law to facts. If a case is dismissed on summary judgment for lack of a genuine dispute, they consider whether the facts on the record amount to a material dispute or not.

One potential error of law they did not speak to: one of the claims against me was dismissed as "purely speculative".
Is that ruling by the first court sufficient, under the law, for me to go to trial on a claim it lacked probable cause? If not, then probable cause includes "pure speculation".

Agreed, ain't that the truth. At the same time, there is such a thing as a bogus case. What is the "check" on lawyers who take such cases, victimizing innocent defendants? The ONLY real check is a subsequent lawsuit for malicious prosecution. If there was no fear of such lawsuits, a lawyer can take very comer, swear he has a case, and bring a lawsuit for "looking at me wrong at church".

How about rapists sue their victims for speaking up? If the rapist has $60,000, should lawyers be able to take the case without fear of loosing all that money to a malicious prosecution lawsuit by the victims? How about Mike Nifong? He's being sued for bring a bogus case.

When I had lawyers represent me, I lost 50% of the time. When I represented myself, I've won about 7 out of 8 cases. Plus, I save $100,000 or so in legal fees. At times, the attorneys and judges were less familiar with the law than me, since I'm devoting myself to one area of law, and one case, while they have many.

And I did have several lawyers advise me. I just didn't have them write my briefs or make oral argument (represent me on the record).

The corporation's lawyers filed a sales agreement with the court that was signed by a person who did not exist...obviously forged. That's a criminal offense under Minnesota statue. After the notary public lost his commission for having notarized the forged document, they still did not withdraw the document from evidence because it was forged.

The other party claimed I did not create the photo I had a copyright registration for, and his attorneys claimed the real owner was a man the client met in a sauna and paid $850 in cash. This mystery seller had no address, no phone number, and was completely untraceable. When I subpoenaed the phone company for any unlisted phone number for this man, "Micheal Zubitskiy", the other side's lawyers tried to quash the subpoena. This is called "willful ignorance" under the law. The federal judge in the case ruled there was "no credible evidence to support the belief that Zubitskiy existed".

If you bring a suit with no evidence, no personal knowledge of who created the photo, no basis to deny the other party's legal title of ownership, you lack "probable cause". If you didn't know if at first, they had 2.5 years to figure it out. Even after the notary lost his commission for notarizing the fraudulent sales agreement with Zubitskiy, they did not drop their claim he was a real person.

I, for one, do not care about my DNA being private. But, as you wrote, I might care about an abuse (telling me I can't live in my neighborhood because my DNA says my ancestors once lived in a certain part of the world, etc).

The most abused information -- age, race, gender -- is public. We can't keep it private (in a one-on-one personal encounter) if we wanted. The only solution is to reduce unfair treatment based on that information. Why is that not the same with DNA or other personal information (that has public health and scientific uses)?

My DNA can be used to find cures to disease, and I would provide it. I don't want to micro-manage how my DNA benefits science or is arguably mis-used. Unless you grow my DNA into a bullet and shoot it at me, it's not important to me.

Public health is important. Finding a cure for Parkinson's, alzhiemers, diabetes, autism...I really, really, really, really care about those things. If some moron arguably misuses my DNA to learn what-not I just am not interested.

There's the court costs and disbursements (which are awarded as a matter of course), and the much larger expense, attorney fees, which are only awarded upon motion by a party. Attorney fees are not usually recoverable. But either way, if the other party is broke, you're right -- you can't recover.

One possible option is to bring a claim against SCO's attorneys for malicious prosecution. Such suits are difficult to win if they can argue any reasonable attorney would have considered the claim to have merit.

I'm 10 months into exactly such a suit (Gregerson v. Boris Parker, Bassford Remele, et. al.) against two attorneys and three firms. It also involves copyright; after I produced a certificate of copyright registration (and abundant other proof) they continued to sue me for two years based on a denial of my copyright.

I used MECC via a teletype terminal around 1978, when I was in fourth grade at Marcy Elementary in Minneapolis. We had to dial the phone and stick the handset into the modem coupler. I don't remember any adults involved, just kids (even then). It was a good early experience of a multi-user system with a dumb terminal.

I think much of the argument about infringement being called "stealing" is the fact people use "stealing" rhetorically for lots of things that are understood not to be the literal theft of property. For example:

"You stole my joke!" is not an allegation someone took custody of a piece of paper with a joke written on it. It does not deprive you of still telling the joke (perhaps to lesser effect).

"You stole my girlfriend!" is not an allegation of kidnapping your girlfriend.

"You stole my seat!", etc. etc. I think it's clear that infringement of intellectual property and theft of physical property are very different on many levels. But the word "stole" can be used to loosely refer to infringement (in a rhetorical sense) in a way that's understandable and potentially reasonable.

"A court ordered a corporation to pay me 20K for stealing two of my photos for use in their advertisements". The actual lawsuit was for copyright infringement. Most people will understand the use of "stealing" in that sentence to mean "using without paying the rightful owner the customary fee".

Libel per se, in Minnesota, does not require proof of damages. This hypothetical would also fall under Minn. Stat. 325D.44 DECEPTIVE TRADE PRACTICES.:

A person engages in a deceptive trade practice when, in the course of business, vocation, or occupation, the person:...(8) disparages the goods, services, or business of another by false or misleading representation of fact;...Subd. 2.Proof....In order to prevail...a complainant need not prove competition between the parties or actual confusion or misunderstanding.

I was sued under this statute in 2006 for allegedly misleading members of the public, whom were never identified by name or testified to being misled. It went to trial (I won).