Landmark Open Source Lawsuit Ends with Settlement | New Media and Technology Law Blog

A dispute between a proprietary software company and the Java Model Railroad Interface (JMRI) open source project has ended with a settlement, the JRMI project announced on February 17. The dispute yielded a ruling in the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Jacobsen v. Katzer) that warmly endorsed the open source approach to software development. We blogged about that ruling when it was issued in August 2008, referring to it as "a highly significant opinion that will greatly bolster the efforts of the open source community to control the use of open source software according to the terms set out in open source licenses."

The matter was remanded by the Federal Circuit to the District Court, and, as we blogged in December, several additional pre-trial rulings again favored the JMRI project, including a ruling on the eligibility of software code that is distributed for free for copyright infringement damages. The settlement was reached with a trial date on the not-too-distant horizon.

With the settlement, the Federal Circuit and District Court rulings will not be subject to direct appeal. Given the rarity of litigation over open source software, it seems unlikely that the reasoning of these two rulings will be questioned judicially in any other open source litigation for some time.

The settlement agreement is here, and the permanent injunction is here.

The explanation of the settlement on the JMRI site indicates that the proprietary software company has agreed, among other things, not to misuse the JMRI software at issue, or to register any domain names incorporating certain terms attributable to the JMRI project, and will make a payment of $100,000. Future disputes will be settled by mediation or arbitration.

http://www.trainpriority.com Matt Katzer

This case was a very complex case. KAM is a small 2 person company, composed of my wife and myself. I was sued by Jacobsen who used a free attorney appointed by the EFF.
The copyright portion of the case was factually reduced – to a tool a software contractor wrote that omitted all comments (one of the many comments was the copyright/attribution notice and the source code check in string). The source code check in string would later become the basis for the DMCA claim.
Note: There is no excuse for the copyright notice/attribution missing in the converted file. This was a simple mistake and should never have happen. All issues in the case should have been resolved in November 2006. There was published a lot of mis-information by Jaconsbsen, such as the fact that JMRI came before KAM. The truth is KAM was started in 1991, and KAM’s client server software was released in 1997. JMRI did not exist until 2001. (see timeline http://www.trainpriority.com/jmri_kam_legal_settlement.htm).
I was notified of the copyright infringement in Sept 2006 (I was surprised), and I fixed it within 59 days and released new product. This was in Nov 2006 (see timelines : http://www.trainpriority.com/court_docs/kam_jmri_timeline/).
What is dangerous about this case is the basis of the CAFC 2008-1001. This case is about a text file that contains manufactures specification, no different than an excel spread sheet. No programming code was involved in any form.
Why I responded to your post so your readers will understand the fact basis of this ruling how low of a standard that the basis of the CAFC 2008-1001 ruling (or read 407 court docket)
As you look at the copyrights in this case, your readers should think in terms of a text file containing manufactures specifications when you look at copyright infringement under a license breach.
So. 4 years, 407 Court dockets, 2 federal appeals. The case settled with all documents public, and no requirements on KAM to change its software. The release (aka license to steal) that was granted in settlement was terminated on March 5, 2010.