RE: Willfulness

In paragraph 38 of her declaration in support of the motion for final approval, lawyer A.J. De Bartolomeo tells the court, “Plaintiffs have obtained no … evidence of willful infringement.”

My declaration in support of objections to the settlement blows this statement out of the water in paragraphs 4 through 10 and Exhibits E, F, and H. In paragraph 9 I assert that the evidence I am presenting “raises serious questions with respect to willfulness.” Paragraph 10 states, “The correspondence in Exhibit E also exposes a number of false and/or misleading statements by Thomson,” and concludes, “The persistent and non-trivial nature of these false and misleading statements contributes to the pattern of willful action by the database defendants to continue their infringement unabated.” I discussed these documents in depth in the four-part blog series beginning June 18, “The Crimes of Thomson/Gale/Information Access Company.” The introduction to that series can be viewed at http://freelancerights.blogspot.com/2005/06/introducing-crimes-of.html.