research: correct source and posture defects in key U.S. license cases

[zackees]

Preliminary adversarial-audit finding for attorney review. This issue repairs source and procedural-posture records; it does not establish any general GPL/AGPL remedy.

Context

Three frequently reused U.S. case records contain source/posture conflicts that can cause an AI to overstate holdings or finality:

1. Artifex v. Hancom (AUTH-0003): the linked official GovInfo document is Doc. 54, filed September 12, 2017, and resolves partial summary judgment. The card metadata instead describes an April 25, 2017 motion-to-dismiss posture, while dependent memos use propositions from different procedural stages.
2. Neo4j v. PureThink (AUTH-0036, AUTH-0038, PR-0003): the Ninth Circuit memorandum describes and affirms a preliminary injunction, while PR-0003 calls it permanent. AUTH-0036 links Doc. 70, a May 21, 2020 Rule 12(c) order concerning trademark counterclaims/defenses, but titles and dates it as a later liability/injunction ruling.
3. SFC v. Vizio (AUTH-0005 and dependent memos): the card remains complaint / none-allegation, while PR-0003 acknowledges later court orders. The record needs separate entries for the complaint, 2023 summary-judgment denial, 2024 partial adjudication, 2025 limited adjudication, and current nonfinal status. The 2025 reinstall-functionality ruling is especially relevant to source-scope routing.

Proposal

Rebuild these as posture-aware procedural histories. Split cards when one source cannot accurately support all cited propositions. Each entry must identify the direct order, docket/date, requested relief, actual ruling, precedential weight, later history, and narrow limit.

Acceptance criteria

• AUTH-0003's date, docket document, posture, holding, and URL agree; distinct Artifex procedural orders receive separate sourcing or cards.
• Every dependent Artifex memo identifies which order supports claim viability versus commercial-license valuation.
• PR-0003 contains no unsupported permanent injunction description for Neo4j/PureThink.
• AUTH-0036 is retitled/split to match the actual Rule 12(c) order, and the preliminary-injunction order has its own direct source chain.
• AUTH-0005 contains a per-order procedural-history table covering the complaint and located 2023-2025 rulings without implying a final source-delivery award.
• Vizio's narrow reinstall/functionality ruling is routed to PR-0009 or the appropriate source-scope matter.
• All affected memos preserve the conclusion that these records do not establish an automatic AGPL source-publication remedy.
• Current docket/finality uncertainty and party-hosted source limitations remain explicit.

Decisions

• Confirmed source/posture defect, P1. The correction concerns what documents decided, not whether a party should win.
• Cluster by remediation. All three require order-level source separation and later-history routing.
• No LICENSE edit and no final-merits inference. Trial/interlocutory rulings remain limited accordingly.

Open questions

• Can the official district preliminary-injunction order in Neo4j be retrieved directly?
• What is the authoritative current Orange County docket status for Vizio after the last public party update?
• Which Artifex Rule 12 order is the best direct source for the pleading-stage propositions currently reused?

Related issues

• Parent: audit: adversarially review the paralegal research corpus #19
• AGPL remedies tracker: Research: judicial remedies for AGPL-style source noncompliance (no license decision) #15
• Corpus creation: docs: build a license-agnostic copyleft enforcement research corpus #17

[zackees]

Sol adversarial review - 2026-08-25

Verdict: leave open. The core source/posture defects are real, this is not a duplicate, and no default-branch change or PR resolves them. The issue should be narrowed in two places, but not closed.

Confirmed claims

• Artifex v. Hancom: AUTH-0003 combines incompatible metadata and source. The actual Document 32 is the April 25, 2017 motion-to-dismiss order: it found the contract theory adequately pleaded and not preempted (pp. 4-7), declined to dismiss requested source-specific performance at pleading stage while calling ultimate imposition of those terms “extremely dubious” (p. 9), and denied the motion (p. 11). The card instead links the official GovInfo package for Document 54, filed September 12, 2017, which denied Hancom's motion for partial summary judgment. Document 54 says Hancom conceded breach only for that motion and permits a jury to consider commercial-license value as damages evidence; it does not award that amount or impose a commercial license. The case then ended in a confidential settlement announced December 5, 2017, not a final judicial merits/remedy determination.

• Neo4j v. PureThink: AUTH-0036 links Document 70, filed May 21, 2020, but dates/titles it as a later liability-and-injunction ruling. Document 70 is a Rule 12(c) order dismissing trademark-cancellation/abandonment counterclaims and corresponding defenses; it is not the source for later software-license liability or injunctive relief. The Ninth Circuit's official March 14, 2022 amended memorandum expressly reviews and affirms a preliminary injunction (pp. 2-5), not a permanent injunction. Thus AUTH-0038 and dependent prose must label the appeal as preliminary-injunction review and unpublished/nonprecedential.

• SFC v. Vizio: AUTH-0005 remains a complaint/none-allegation card even though later orders materially changed the procedural record. The federal May 13, 2022 remand order, Document 30 held only that the claim was not completely preempted and expressly did not decide third-party-beneficiary success (p. 6 n.4). The state court's December 29, 2023 order denied Vizio summary judgment because beneficiary status presented triable issues; it did not finally establish status, breach, liability, or a source-delivery remedy. Its March 26, 2024 order denied SFC's source-duty issue and granted only adjudication against Vizio's preemption defense. The December 23, 2025 order is narrower still: it held the licenses do not require reinstallation on the same televisions while preserving all features/ensuring functionality. That is a scope ruling, not final beneficiary/liability relief.

Corrections and narrowing

• PR-0003's bare statement that Neo4j produced a permanent injunction is not simply false; it is mis-sourced and chronologically conflated. A separate Document 248, July 22, 2024 findings/conclusions after the damages trial, awarded $597,000 and converted earlier preliminary injunctions to permanent injunctions (pp. 29-31), followed by Document 251 final judgment on August 15, 2024 (reproduced with Document 248 in this USPTO record). The 2022 Ninth Circuit memorandum did not affirm that later permanent relief. The permanent terms also concern trademark/false-advertising conduct and the Sweden Software License/commercial license; they should not be generalized as an AGPL source-publication remedy. An appeal was opened as Ninth Circuit No. 24-5538, but I could not verify its current disposition from a freely accessible official docket.

• In Vizio, allegations and requested source relief remain allegations/requested relief unless an order actually decides them. A December 4, 2025 tentative ruling is not a final order. A secondary docket scrape reports a July 9, 2026 summary-adjudication ruling concerning a separate direct-contract/consideration theory, but that is only a lead until the actual court order/register entry is obtained. The official Orange County public site exposed the register only behind verification/CAPTCHA and document fees during this review. The party's case page is not a substitute for the current court register, and its scheduled August 2026 trial date has now passed. I found no primary post-trial judgment or settlement source and therefore make no claim about current finality.

Missing acceptance criteria

1. Split/map Artifex Documents 32 and 54 by exact date, motion, holding, and treatment; tag source-specific performance as requested relief and commercial-license value only as possible damages evidence. Record the confidential settlement separately from judicial holdings.
2. Replace AUTH-0036's source/date/title; map Neo4j Documents 70, 118, 216, 248, and 251 separately; label the 2022 appeal as preliminary and the 2024 permanent injunction/final judgment as later district-court events. Verify No. 24-5538's current status before assigning finality.
3. Add per-order Vizio history for the 2022 remand, December 2023, March 2024, and December 2025 orders. Obtain the current Orange County register, the actual July 9, 2026 order, any final disposition of the December 2025 tentative, and the post-August-2026 trial/judgment status. Route the reinstall/functionality holding to PR-0009 scope analysis.
4. For every proposition, explicitly tag allegation/requested relief, interlocutory or preliminary ruling, final merits/remedy, or settlement, and carry source-access limitations into the memo rather than silently inferring finality.

Attorney-review questions

• How narrowly should the later Neo4j permanent injunction be described given that conversion was unopposed/consented to and its operative terms arise from trademark, false-advertising, DMCA, and Sweden-license facts rather than a general AGPL disclosure holding?
• Which Vizio interlocutory rulings, if any, may support a practical proposition before a verified final judgment, and how should the direct-contract theory be separated from the third-party-beneficiary theory?
• Should Artifex's pleading-stage refusal to dismiss requested specific performance and its summary-judgment discussion of damages evidence be included at all without an adjacent warning that neither became an adjudicated remedy?

All substantive adoption decisions remain subject to the repository's attorney-review gate.