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"I am unable to see any difference between the sale of a barrel of oil and the sale of a software license."
It is not clear whether that pronouncement, made during a trial by a former Ontario Supreme Court judge now engaged in private practice as an arbitrator, would cause greater panic in the Oil Patch or in Silicone Valley. Moreover, the judgment he rendered in that trial effectively held that a "credit" is not the opposite of a "debit"--a revelation which would certainly cause panic among accountants.
Not surprisingly, an appeal is under way.
Now all this might be interesting and perhaps even slightly amusing, but so what? Courts make decisions every day, and someone can always be found who doesn't like a particular result. So why even bother reporting this one?
Superficially, the case is appropriate to these pages because of its EDP content. But of more profound importance is the fact that the case took more than two years to get to trial, and that it will have been five years before the appeal is heard.
In short, this case is an example from the EDP industry (and every other industry has their own) that the court system simply...