I believe I read (maybe in that article) that it was due to the fact that Gibson waited 40 years to complain about it.
Very likely.
Consistently defending against intellectual property or copyright infringements is important to the court otherwise they’ll look at it as either being selective, which is being prejudiced, or lackadaisical, which is telling the court that Gibson didn’t really care enough.
In other words, you sue ‘em all and you do it as soon as you find out. Gibson failed to do both, many times, over the years, so the courts are probably tired of them. Besides the judge staring at Gibson’s lawyers and executives and telling them what the court thinks about repeatedly failing to do that, the court can also reduce the asked-for award to make the rebuke sting even more. I’m thinking they had a rather stern and pointed message thrown at them by that and they walked away with their tails between their legs.
I think it’s pretty funny; Gibson has been down this path too many times yet they tried it again. Maybe they figured it was a quick way to get a cash infusion.
I think the fact that Dean had to pay something in spite of Gibson’s failure to make a timely response was because the court doesn’t want those who engage in infringement to think that the courts don’t care. They do, very much, they just wanted Gibson to do a much better job of respecting how the system works so Gibson got penalized.
That’s what makes sense to me. In a previous life I had an Intellectual Properties lawyer help set up a company for me, and he carefully explained how those things are
really important. “You
will immediately tell me if someone infringes, right Greg?” “Yessir.”
