<story><title>A pound of flesh: how Cisco&apos;s &quot;unmitigated gall&quot; derailed one man&apos;s life</title><url>http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/07/a-pound-of-flesh-how-ciscos-unmitigated-gall-derailed-one-mans-life.ars</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>grellas</author><text>The win-at-any-cost mindset of modern litigating is here on display at its very worst:&lt;p&gt;1. Disregard truth when it gets in the way of the advantage you seek to attain with the aid of law.&lt;p&gt;2. Say whatever it takes to get judges to go your way, even if you not only omit important facts in making your petition but also affirmatively misstate whatever inconvenient fact gets in your way.&lt;p&gt;3. Disregard your duty as a prosecutor - which ultimately is to ensure that justice is done even as you pursue alleged criminal wrongdoing - and place the formidable powers of your office at the disposal of a private civil litigant with whom you want to cozy up.&lt;p&gt;4. Don&apos;t give a second thought to wasting the legal and judicial resources of two governments to help put on a charade that is wholly unnecessary to any legitimate goal of the legal system but that serves the interest of a private litigant only.&lt;p&gt;5. And, perhaps worst of all, don&apos;t hesitate to misuse the law to try to ruin the life of an innocent man in order to protect the market dominance you once had but now see as slipping to the point where it can be upheld only by resort to vicious legal tactics aimed at crushing potential competitors.&lt;p&gt;One recoils at the thought of it and can only wonder who within Cisco would have countenanced it all.</text></comment>
<story><title>A pound of flesh: how Cisco&apos;s &quot;unmitigated gall&quot; derailed one man&apos;s life</title><url>http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2011/07/a-pound-of-flesh-how-ciscos-unmitigated-gall-derailed-one-mans-life.ars</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>Create</author><text>Earnest urged a lawsuit and even raised the idea of criminal charges against Bosack. He e-mailed colleagues: &quot;The fundamental problem is: how do you negotiate an equitable agreement with crooks?&quot;&lt;p&gt;&quot;1985-88  Back at Stanford as associate chair of Computer Science and also involved in parallel processing research, I discovered that the founder of Cisco Systems, who I was supervising, was selling Stanford technology.  I prepared for legal action and induced him to resign but later discovered that the Stanford administration avoids suing corporations whenever possible, thinking of them as potential donors.  After a couple of years, during which Cisco illicitly made millions, Stanford gave them a sweetheart licensing deal.  A few years later I ran across an endowed chair at Stanford in the name of the chief crook and funded by Cisco.  There was additional dirt beneath the surface of these transactions but that story will have to wait till later.&quot; -- &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.stanford.edu/~learnest/net.htm&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http://www.stanford.edu/~learnest/net.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Hewlett-Packard_spying_scandal&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Hewlett-Packa...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>