| MacUpdate Weekend Sale | :This weekend MacUpdate has slashed prices on Painter 12 and Painter Lite. Painter 12 retails for $429, but has been reduced by 54% to $199. Painter Lite has seen a 58% price cut from $69 to $29. Hurry, because these deals are only available until May 19th 2013. |
A Japanese court has ordered Google to censor terms used in autocomplete that relate to one specific person. The ruling by the Tokyo District Court also awarded the unknown person 300,000 yen ($3,100) for the "mental anguish" endured, caused by the association of his name with various criminal acts in autocomplete-derived searches.
Apple has been ordered to pay Samsung's costs in its UK legal battle. The Court of Appeal made the order under an "indemnity basis," typically higher than the normal "standard" basis of legal costs, due to the "false and misleading" information placed by Apple in the first court-ordered statement on its website.
Apple has updated its website in order to follow a court ruling for a second time. After the UK Court of Appeal attacked the original attempt, deeming it non-compliant, Apple has put another notice up for UK-based website viewers. While toned down from the original attacking-style of the first version, the new statement forces users to scroll down in order to see it in the first place.
Apple has published its first printed "apology" statement, as mandated by the UK Court of Appeal. The statement appears at the bottom of page five of The Guardian, and is seemingly more restrained in its wording compared to the version that appeared on its website, which has since been removed from view.
Apple has been attacked by the UK Court of Appeal over how the company worded its acknowledgment that Samsung did not infringe on iPad design patents. The original statement was considered not to be compliant with the court order, and Apple has been instructed to republish a more appropriate statement on its website.
Apple has updated its website to comply with a court order in the UK. A small link at the bottom of apple.com/uk titled "Samsung/Apple UK judgement" takes visitors to a seperate page, explaining that the High Courty of Justice of England and Wales found the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, Tab 8.9, and Tab 7.7 do not infringe one of Apple's design patents.
A South Korean court has ruled that both Apple and Samsung are guilty of patent infringement, bringing an end to two lawsuits filed last year. A three-judge panel outlined the split decision, which finds Apple guilty of infringing two Samsung patents and, conversely, Samsung has been found guilty of infringing one Apple patent. Both companies will be affected by product injunctions, though the monetary damage awards are minuscule.
In a court filing by writer's advocate group The Authors Guild, the motivation for Google's nearly decade-long scanning of books and documents was revealed to be contrary to its stated purpose. Rather than creating a massive "card catalog" of out-of-print books, the internal Google documents show that the primary goal of the scanning was making money.
Saying "Samsung apparently believes that it is above the law, and that it -- not this Court -- should decide what evidence the jury should see," Apple has petitioned the US District Court hearing its case against Samsung to impose a severe sanction on the South Korean smartphone maker for its stunt of releasing to the press (with an obvious intent of influencing the jury) evidence that was barred from the trial for being inaccurate.
Samsung saw yet another procedural setback today at the opening of its trial against Apple in US District Court in San Francisco. An attempt by Samsung to frame an early iPhone prototype labeled "Jony" by Apple designers as copied from Sony -- thereby implying that stealing designs is okay if others do it also -- has been quashed. Samsung will not be permitted to present exhibits to the jury that allege Apple was inspired by Sony. Apple produced design documents from an earlier prototype also resembling the iPhone 4 design but without the Sony influence, demonstrating to the judge that the iPhone design process was done completely in-house.
Magistrate Judge Paul S. Grewal entered an order potentially complicating Samsung's legal battle against Apple in Judge Lucy Koh's court next week. The jury will receive a notification that informs them that Samsung failed to comply with its obligations to preserve e-mail evidence, and jurors may—but don't have to—presume that relevant evidence supporting Apple's claims was destroyed.
US District Court Judge Lucy Koh spend her afternoon dealing with some details of the upcoming Samsung and Apple intellectual property patent trial. In rulings that most favored Apple, Koh ruled that Steve Jobs' statements to his biographer were an "inadmissible distraction," and likewise limited discussion of Apple's Chinese manufacturing efforts to exclude any reports of human rights issues.
Samsung's request to expedite its appeal of the preliminary injunction against the Galaxy Nexus phone has been granted in the US Court of Appeals. Samsung has until July 16 to file its court brief starting the process. Apple has until July 30 to respond to Samsung's filing, with final comments due on August 6. Additionally, Apple's response to the temporary stay on the sales injunction of the Galaxy Nexus was accepted by the court on time, and will be considered.
The US Federal Court of Appeals for the First Circuit has reversed a lower court's decision, and found Ocean Bank (now People's United) at fault for a $588,000 "virtual robbery" in 2008 against Sandord, ME-based Patco Construction Company. Calling the bank's security systems "commercially unreasonable," the Boston-based appeals court returned some specific aspects back to the original court and judge for review, but is encouraging both parties to settle the matter out of court.
As previously reported, Internet service provider Comcast attempted to quash "John Doe" subpoenas in an adult video pirating case. The company had argued that the case was about "shaking down" its customers and pushing for settlements out of the 264 potential infringers rather than any interest in actually stopping the piracy. The company has now been handed a victory in court, as Judge Gary Feinerman ruled that Comcast was not in contempt of court for ignoring subpoenas from four adult video companies. The civil case was also dismissed.
Thursday afternoon, Apple filed a lawsuit charging antitrust claims and "fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory" (FRAND) abuse on standards-essential patents against rival smartphone maker HTC in a Virginia court. The counterclaim, which involves patents covering the "4G" LTE protocol, comes in the middle of an ITC investigation into Apple filed by HTC. The patents have been described by HTC itself as standards-essential in its complaint against Apple last summer, and claimed in court that Apple devices contain baseband chips that implement the LTE standard, thus proving the standards-essential nature of the HTC-held patent in question.
On Tuesday, US District Court Judge Michael Posnor decreed that Netflix and other public online services are subject to provisions of the Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA). This decision could require Internet-streamed media to include accommodations for the deaf or blind, such as captions or descriptive text. The judge wasn't hearing the case proper, but was ruling on a motion to dismiss by Netflix, who argued that it wasn't accountable to ADA guidance due to the streaming service's online-only presence.
Judge Richard A. Posner heard the preliminary injunction arguments from both Apple and Motorola on why each should get an injunction against the other's infringing technology in his Chicago courtroom Wednesday morning. No ruling was offered -- the two-hour hearing was used to receive clarifications on briefs filed by Motorola and Apple since Posner resurrected the trial after dismissing it last week, but product sales injunctions seem unlikely.
Further announcements have come from Judge William Alsup's courtroom in the Google versus Oracle case today. The judge has decreed programming APIs to be non-copyrightable. The ruling comes in accordance with existing copyright law declaring "a utilitarian and functional set of symbols, each to carry out a pre-assigned function" non-copyrightable under Section 102(b) of the Copyright Act. Alsup's court is the first court, district or appeals, to have specifically addressed the separate matter of API copyrightability, instead of the complete codebase copyrightability issue.
[Update: judge denies Oracle motion, reduces Google liability] As expected, Google has petitioned Judge William Alsop for a mistrial following the jury's refusal to rule on a crucial matter in phase one of its trial versus Oracle. Near-simultaneously, Oracle filed its response to suggest that the judge rule on the "fair use" question that the jury couldn't agree on. Neither Google nor Oracle has responded to its counterpart's filing with the court.
United States district court Judge Liam O'Grady declared today that Megaupload owner Kim Dotcom's trial may never happen, as criminal charges were never formally filed within or by the United States. Prior to shutdown, Megaupload was the world's biggest file repository on the internet, and was allegedly responsible for up to 4 percent of Internet traffic. Megaupload's headquarters and a Virginia data center were raided on January 19 of this year.
Apple's licensing infringement lawsuit against Psystar is progressing again, with the trial now scheduled for January 11, 2010. The proceedings had been delayed due to Psystar's bankruptcy filing, which the company recently moved to drop after the Florida court decided the Apple suit would still be allowed to continue.
Sandisk on Tuesday introduced the "WORM," or "Write Once Read Many" SD card for professional uses such as storing evidence in police investigations, court testimony, medical records and electronic voting. Sandisk claims original data written to WORM cards are "effectively locked" and there is "no physical way to alter or delete the files." If stored properly, the company claims, WORM SD cards have an archive live of up to 100 years.
The Supreme Court of Canada on Friday ruled that the $52 billion purchase of Bell Canada is valid, allowing the Canadian telecommunications firm to be owned by the Ontario Teachers' Pension Plan. CBC reports that BCE stock jumped almost 10-percent as a result, rising $3.35 to close at $37.45 in New York. The deal overturns a previous court decision in the Quebec Court of Appeals, who ruled that the company must consider interests of bondholders.
In response to the ruling against the Dish Network, the company writes that it is disappointed with the court's rejection for an appeal, but that it will not affect current or future customers. According to the note, EchoStar has already developed and deployed a new version of the DVR software to customers as an automatic download. Dish claims the new software does not infringe on patents held by Tivo Inc.
Nuvio today announced that is has filed a trademark infringement suit against Garmin International in the U.S. District Court of Kansas. Nuvio claims that Garmin's recently announced Nuvifone infringes upon a prior Nuvio tradmark that the company uses on phones as well as its own telephony services. Nuvio attempted to reach a "mutually satisfactory resolution" with Garmin, but no resolution was reached. That led to Nuvio filing a legal complaint against Garmin to protect its rights.
Two Detroit-based pension funds sued Yahoo and its board today, the latest event in the escalating Microsoft-Yahoo buyout drama. Yahoo – who shocked investors by rejecting a $44.6 billion bid from Microsoft – frustrated the Detroit Police and Fire Retirement System, and General Retirement System organizations to the point where they are threatening litigation, because it is holding out on Microsoft's astounding offer, according to Reuters.
