Case 1:10-cv-04917 Document 15-1 Filed 08/18/10 Page 1 of 12

Exhibit

A
 Case 1:10-cv-04917 Document 15-1 Filed 08/18/10 Page 2 of 12

1 IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS
2 EASTERN DIVISION
3
BERNINA OF AMERICA, INC., )
4 )
Plaintiff, )
5 )
-vs- )
6 ) Case No. 10 C 4917
IMAGELINE, INC., ISLANDVIEW )
7 TECHNOLOGIES, LLC, ) Chicago, Illinois
ISLANDVIEW DESIGNS, LLC, and ) August 9, 2010
8 GEORGE P. RIDDICK, III, ) 9:15 a.m.
)
9 Defendants. )
10 TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS
BEFORE THE HONORABLE MILTON I. SHADUR
11
APPEARANCES:
12
For the Plaintiff: WINSTON & STRAWN, LLP
13 BY: MR. NORMAN K. BECK
MR. MARC H. TRACHTENBERG
14 MR. KEVIN P. McCORMICK
35 West Wacker Drive
15 Chicago, Illinois 60601-9703
(312) 558-5600
16
17 For Defendant MR. GEORGE P. RIDDICK, III, pro se
Riddick:
18
(via telephone
19 conference call)
20
21 Court Reporter:
22 CHARLES R. ZANDI, CSR, RPR, FCRR
Official Court Reporter
23 United States District Court
219 South Dearborn Street, Room 1728
24 Chicago, Illinois 60604
Telephone: (312) 435-5387
25 email: Charles_zandi@ilnd.uscourts.gov
 Case 1:10-cv-04917 Document 15-1 Filed 08/18/10 Page 3 of 12

1 (Proceedings heard in open court:)

2 THE CLERK: 10 C 4917, Bernina versus Imageline. And
3 I need to get Mr. Riddick on the line.
4 (Short interruption.)
5 THE CLERK: Okay. This is 10 C 4917, Bernina versus
6 Imageline.
7 THE COURT: Out on the phone, Mr. Riddick, is that
8 right?
9 MR. RIDDICK: Yes, it is. Is this Judge Shadur?
10 THE COURT: So, do you want to give your name for the
11 record, please.
12 MR. RIDDICK: Okay. It's George P. Riddick, III.
13 THE COURT: Okay. Counsel here in court.
14 MR. BECK: Good morning, your Honor. Norman Beck,
15 Marc Trachtenberg and Kevin McCormick on behalf of the
16 plaintiff.
17 THE COURT: Okay. Mr. Riddick has sent -- and I
18 don't know whether he sent this to you as well -- what he
19 calls some clarifying facts and declarations that arrived this
20 morning. And if you haven't gotten them, I'll have Sandy make
21 copies for you.
22 MR. BECK: We have not, your Honor.
23 THE COURT: Okay.
24 Mr. Riddick, you should understand, however, that, of
25 course, because you're just one of the defendants in this
 Case 1:10-cv-04917 Document 15-1 Filed 08/18/10 Page 4 of 12

1 action and there are two corporate defendants, two limited

2 liability companies, as a non-lawyer, you can't appear for the
3 corporations. Under the regular practice in all litigation,
4 only lawyers can appear for entities other than individuals.
5 An individual can appear for himself or herself, but that's
6 the extent of it.
7 MR. RIDDICK: I'm aware of that, your Honor.
8 THE COURT: Okay. Now, the -- as it happens, it's
9 not a good day to be considering a motion for a temporary
10 restraining order simply because I have a preset hearing on
11 just such a motion that's going to start at 9:30. However, I
12 read over Bernina's presentation, and I have had a chance to
13 look, Mr. Riddick, as counsel have not, at your submission.
14 And the question that I have for you is that you
15 claim ownership of a whole group of items as to which you're
16 claiming and have claimed that Bernina is an infringer, and
17 indeed, the people who are Bernina's various authorized
18 dealers are also infringers.
19 I'd like you -- their complaint has said that the
20 only things that you have asserted copyright interests in, at
21 least as far as properly recognized interests, are some
22 collections of items that do not, under law, give you
23 proprietary interest in the various items that make up the
24 collection.
25 So, you tell me, if you would, just in your own
 Case 1:10-cv-04917 Document 15-1 Filed 08/18/10 Page 5 of 12

1 words -- I recognize you're a non-lawyer, but you tell me what

2 is the basis of the ownership that you're talking about --
3 MR. RIDDICK: Okay. I'd be happy to do that.
4 THE COURT: -- of the various designs.
5 MR. RIDDICK: I'll be happy to do that, your Honor.
6 As I said in the summary, we've been doing this for 25 years.
7 THE COURT: You're going to have to speak up better
8 than that.
9 MR. RIDDICK: I'm sorry. As I said in the summary,
10 we have been doing this for 25 years, and we have never had
11 anyone contest the ownership legally of any one of our images.
12 I personally participated in the design and production of
13 every image, and every image --
14 THE COURT: Wait, wait, wait. Try me again. Listen
15 to my question instead of answering one that you want to
16 answer.
17 My question is: What gives you an entitlement to
18 some kind of proprietary interest in the individual designs,
19 when, as I understand it, checking with the -- with the
20 government office reflects that your efforts at protection
21 have been for collective matters that include a large number
22 of designs, which does not give you, of itself, a proprietary
23 interest in any of those individual designs?
24 Do you understand the question?
25 MR. RIDDICK: Yes, sir.
 Case 1:10-cv-04917 Document 15-1 Filed 08/18/10 Page 6 of 12

1 THE COURT: All right. Tell me.

2 MR. RIDDICK: Okay. Let me answer it in -- directly,
3 if I can. Number one, the copyright in the individual
4 designs, at the moment we do them and affix them in tangible
5 form, so we need to make sure we understand the distinction
6 between copyright and proprietary ownership and registration
7 procedures. The plaintiff apparently does not understand that
8 law, but I've tried to clarify it for you with the document I
9 sent this morning.
10 We own every single individual image, number one. We
11 owned it when we produced it. Number two, we submitted it in
12 registration to the copyright office as individual images.
13 Several of those registrations were also compilations, but not
14 all of them.
15 This issue has been brought to the attention of
16 circuits throughout the country. We've unfortunately been
17 involved in 25 or 30 different federal lawsuits. There has
18 never been a question of ownership of a single one of our --
19 THE COURT: Well, there's a question now, so don't
20 tell me there's never been a question.
21 MR. RIDDICK: There's never previously --
22 THE COURT: They have provided information that says
23 that they have had searches made and that the only searches --
24 the only items that came up in the searches are these
25 compilations; and if that's so, that does not entitle you to
 Case 1:10-cv-04917 Document 15-1 Filed 08/18/10 Page 7 of 12

1 claim ownership in the -- in the items within the

2 compilations, but just the compilations. That's how copyright
3 law works.
4 MR. RIDDICK: But that's just not what the -- the way
5 that the law works for --
6 THE COURT: Is that true? So, now you're -- now
7 you're representing yourself and you're telling me how
8 copyright law works; is that the idea?
9 MR. RIDDICK: If you would look at the ruling in the
10 Fourth Circuit on appeal in 2002, you will --
11 THE COURT: I'll tell you what you better do, because
12 as I say, I can't -- I can't deal with it this morning. But
13 what you're going to do right now is to stop any amount of
14 communication that goes out to any of these people that makes
15 the claim until we have an opportunity to sort the thing out.
16 And what I expect that you're going to -- you do have a
17 lawyer, I trust, do you not?
18 MR. RIDDICK: I personally at this point do not have
19 one. The companies are in negotiations with --
20 THE COURT: But the companies are looking for
21 counsel?
22 MR. RIDDICK: Yes.
23 THE COURT: And how soon do you expect you're going
24 to do that --
25 MR. RIDDICK: Probably within the next --
 Case 1:10-cv-04917 Document 15-1 Filed 08/18/10 Page 8 of 12

1 THE COURT: -- because I expect to have a

2 professional response, not this amateur response.
3 MR. RIDDICK: Probably within -- well, I don't really
4 appreciate that, because I do know what I'm --
5 THE COURT: I'm sorry. I can't hear you.
6 MR. RIDDICK: I said I don't really appreciate that,
7 because I do know what I'm talking about, having worked on
8 this for 25 years. However, I know --
9 THE COURT: You know, I'm glad you've been at this
10 25 years. I guess I had a misspent youth, because I've been
11 30 years at the bench here just last month; and I appreciate
12 your education, but I've got to tell you, it doesn't -- it
13 doesn't seem to work the way you seem to think it does. So,
14 you'd better have something professional in the way of a
15 response.
16 MR. RIDDICK: I will, your Honor. There is a
17 distinction between the underlying work and a compilation that
18 are not owned by the claimant and --
19 THE COURT: Let me -- listen to me again. Okay?
20 You're going to be doing nothing along the lines that you have
21 been engaged in up to now for a very limited period of time to
22 allow you to provide some input in written form, professional
23 input is what I want to emphasize once more, that deals with
24 this question that has been posed by the Bernina complaint.
25 And I'm going to give you -- because I don't want to
 Case 1:10-cv-04917 Document 15-1 Filed 08/18/10 Page 9 of 12

1 knock you out of your business communications, so I'm going to

2 give you a short period of time because I don't want to have
3 you restrained inappropriately for any period of time.
4 The short answer, then, is that -- is there any
5 reason that you cannot get something in hand here by a week
6 from today?
7 MR. RIDDICK: Well, the only answer I could tell you
8 is that I -- my preferred attorney --
9 THE COURT: I'm sorry. You know what, you're --
10 THE CLERK: You're going to have to speak up. We're
11 having a difficult time hearing you.
12 MR. RIDDICK: Okay. I'm sorry. The only answer that
13 I can give you is that I tried to contact our preferred
14 attorney for one of the companies this weekend and was told
15 that he is on vacation for the next two weeks.
16 THE COURT: So, two weeks, you -- that's the -- are
17 you dealing with a one-lawyer lawfirm, or what?
18 MR. RIDDICK: In this particular case, it's a
19 three-lawyer lawfirm, but only one has been briefed on this
20 subject matter.
21 THE COURT: Well, I'll tell you what you're then
22 dealing with. A week ought to be plenty of time. And if the
23 particular lawyer that you're talking about is out of pocket
24 for two weeks, then what's going to happen is that if I don't
25 get something within a week from now, I'm going to have to
 Case 1:10-cv-04917 Document 15-1 Filed 08/18/10 Page 10 of 12

1 consider the entry of a temporary restraining order that puts

2 things in sort of the deep freeze for a limited period of
3 time, which is all that temporary restraining orders do.
4 So, I'm going to provide that anything that gets
5 filed is to be -- is to be here by let's make it Tuesday, the
6 10th, rather than -- I'm sorry, I've got the wrong date,
7 instead of -- instead of the 16th, by Tuesday, the 17th, and
8 then I'm going to set the matter for either Wednesday, the
9 18th, or Thursday, the 19th, at 9:15.
10 So, let me find out from counsel here what -- which
11 of those days might be preferable. And then I'll find out
12 from you, Mr. Riddick, what -- which of those two days you
13 might like or not like.
14 MR. RIDDICK: Okay.
15 MR. BECK: Your Honor, I have a conflict for the
16 18th, but the 19th would be fine.
17 THE COURT: All right. Mr. Riddick, can you make the
18 19th, you and counsel make the 19th, that's Thursday, at 9:15?
19 MR. RIDDICK: Yes, we can, your Honor. And how long
20 of a hearing will that likely be?
21 THE COURT: How long what?
22 MR. RIDDICK: How long of time would you have
23 docketed for that hearing?
24 THE COURT: You mean how long would the proceeding on
25 that day likely take?
 Case 1:10-cv-04917 Document 15-1 Filed 08/18/10 Page 11 of 12

10

1 MR. RIDDICK: Yeah, yes, your Honor.

2 THE COURT: Oh.
3 MR. RIDDICK: Excuse me?
4 THE COURT: Well, you know, here in Illinois, we like
5 to use Abraham Lincoln for some of our quotes, and there's one
6 in which the lady says to Mr. Lincoln, "My, what long legs you
7 have," and his response was, "Yes, ma'am, long enough to reach
8 the ground."
9 I can't tell you. I would not expect that it would
10 be very long. It's going to be -- I would think that morning
11 should be more than enough to deal with issues that are
12 typically involved in a temporary restraining order where
13 there's no formal proof contemplated. Because I really ask a
14 more narrow question, and that is the basis of your claim of
15 entitlement.
16 So, we're set then for a filing in response on or
17 before August 17 and a hearing then set for 9:15 on
18 August 19th. Okay?
19 MR. RIDDICK: Okay.
20 THE COURT: Thank you all.
21 MR. RIDDICK: Thank you.
22 MR. BECK: Thank you, your Honor.
23 MR. TRACHTENBERG: Thank you, your Honor.
24 THE COURT: Sandy, you gave counsel a copy of those
25 things?
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11

1 THE CLERK: I did. And you want that filed on the

2 docket?
3 THE COURT: Yeah, sure.
4 THE CLERK: Okay.
5 (Which were all the proceedings heard.)
6 CERTIFICATE
7 I certify that the foregoing is a correct transcript from
8 the record of proceedings in the above-entitled matter.
9
10 /s/Charles R. Zandi August 9, 2010
11 Charles R. Zandi Date
Official Court Reporter
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