Contempt, Jail, and Appeals in ClearOne Trade Secret Matter

We'll start with a definition: contemnor - one who commits an act in contempt of a court order, standard or instruction.

Now, having established that, we'd also respecfully suggest that one does not want the following words written about them by a judge (click on link above to the read the entire order):

"Frankly, given the history of this litigation, the contemnors’s intentional failure to appear to be cross-examined about their conclusory statements, and the court’s findingthat both Mr. Bowers and Dr. Yang have lied under oath during this case, the court is not persuaded by the self-serving declarations they have submitted. Essentially, they have provided nothing . . . ."

We covered this case before here: http://wombletradesecrets.blogspot.com/2009/04/clearone-clears-97-million-in-trade.html. You'll recall the case that was presented to a jury in October and November 2008. The case was against Biamp Systems Corporation and a group of defendants sometimes termed the "WideBand Defendants," which group consists of WideBand Solutions, Inc.; three of WideBand's principals - Dr. Jun Yang, who was a former ClearOne employee, Andrew Chiang, who was previously affiliated with an entity that sold certain assets to ClearOne and Lonny Bowers; and Versatile DSP, Inc. And they lost pretty bad.

Anyway, the court issued an ongoing injunction order that stopped the Yang and Bowers defendants from continuing to repackage certain products. Well, according the court and ClearOne - they have not stopped. And now the judge has issued bench warrants and will have them incarcerated until they prove that they've stopped.

We'll keep an eye on this one. It is believed that Dr. Yang and Mr. Bowers intend to take this issue to the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit. Good luck - you have been found by a respected federal judge to have lied under oath in the evaluation of whether you are in contempt of a court order. That's at least one strike against you as you move on up.