A Texas court is finally ready to hear arguments in a high-profile patent lawsuit that names tech giants Google, Amazon and Yahoo among a list of defendants. The companies are attempting to defend themselves against a suit filed by a patent holding company, Eolas Technologies, that accuses the group of violating several patents related to "interactive web" technology.
Apple has initiated a massive expansion of its lawsuit against Samsung in Australia, according the The Australian. Its lawsuit now encompasses 278 claims across 22 patents that cover 10 Samsung devices, some of which are yet to go on sale locally. In its initial claim against Samsung, which had resulted in a temporary ban on the sale of its Galaxy Tab 10.1, Apple had chosen to test only three of its patents.
Two online petitions that look to address issues around claims of factory worker abuse among the Chinese suppliers of Apple and other electronics firms have been launched online, while accessory maker Mophie has won a case against a counterfeit case producer in Texas.
An unusual arrangement between Apple, a nearby train station and the contractors who did work on both has resulted in a lawsuit from Colony Insurance against Apple, the Chicago Transit Authority and contractor Petter Construction Company over liability on an accident claim that originated when a woman slipped and fell in the construction area between the then-in-progress Lincoln Park Apple Store and the also-renovated subway station next door.
Amazon has reportedly settled a patent infringement lawsuit that had focused on touchscreen technology used in the Kindle Fire. Court documents suggest the retailer and the plaintiff, Smartphone Technologies, have resolved the dispute and moved to have the lawsuit dismissed, though the terms of the deal remain unclear.
Cablevision on Monday said it would drop a lawsuit it filed earlier this month against Verizon over allegedly releasing misleading ads about the speed of Cablevision's Internet services. A Monday report maintains the two companies have reached an agreement in the matter outside of the courts, though the details weren't made public. Verizon ran ads that stated Cablevision delivers only 59 percent of its advertised Internet speeds during peak hours, which were based on an FCC study.
The Authors Guild has reportedly asked a New York federal court judge to certify the class of authors in a lawsuit against Google. The move is an essential step in transitioning toward a class-action lawsuit, which will push the longstanding dispute back into the courts after the search giant and trade group failed to reach a settlement agreement.
Microsoft has tried to dismiss the lawsuit that alleges its Windows Phone handsets illegally collect location information on its users. A Thursday WithinWindows report revealed that Microsoft back on November 18 filed a motion to dismiss the complaint on the grounds that plaintiff Rebecca Cousineau hasn't shown any inflicted damages to her or those she represents. The motion to dismiss (PDF) is full of quoted precedent cases that possibly support Microsoft's claim.
The US Department of Justice has reportedly received permission to share internal AT&T documents with outside parties. The ruling essentially enables government lawyers to establish a deeper level of collaboration with civilian consultants and outside lawyers in its lawsuit aiming to block AT&T's proposed acquisition of T-Mobile.
Software company Basis International has filed a lawsuit against Research In Motion, accusing the latter company of trademark infringement. The dispute centers around the term "BBX", which RIM uses as a label for its latest mobile operating system. Basis claims it has been using the same term for software that runs on desktop platforms, such as Windows and Mac OS, and products that are used by developers who create apps for iOS and Android.
Apple has opted to settle a long-standing class-action lawsuit brought about by the change in pricing to some songs in the iTunes Store and the wording on gift cards that were available for purchase at the time, AppleInsider reports. Originally filed by Gabriel Johnson in July of 2009, the lawsuit charged Apple with deception by distributing cards that stated songs cost 99 cents, when it then raised the price of some songs to $1.29. Participants will receive $3.25 in iTunes credit.
The Department of Justice lawsuit against the proposed AT&T buyout of T-Mobile has finally received a solid schedule, with trial proceedings to officially begin on February 13. Judge Ellen Huvelle allocated six weeks for the trial, however lawyers representing both sides reportedly claimed that such a length would not prove necessary.
Fifteen Democrat members of the House of Representatives have sent a letter asking President Obama to find a quick resolution to the Department of Justice lawsuit against AT&T's proposed T-Mobile buyout. The group, headed by North Carolina Representative Heath Shuler, argues that a settlement and approval of the deal will have a positive effect on the economy and job creation.
Apple has initiated a new lawsuit against Samsung, this time in Japan. Reuters reports that Apple is suing Samsung for similar patent violations relating to the iPhone and the iPad as it has in several other countries around the world. It is the latest in a string of lawsuits and counter-suits between the two companies in an ongoing and increasingly acrimonious battle unfolding across several continents.
A federal judge has reportedly scheduled a status conference for the Department of Justice lawsuit against AT&T and T-Mobile. All parties have been asked to be prepared to "discuss the prospects for settlement" at the hearing, which is slated for September 21, while a case management and scheduling plan must be presented by September 16.
MP3tunes has lost a copyright infringement lawsuit originally filed by EMI, however the judge tossed many of the record label's DMCA claims that were viewed as a threat to other music locker services. Judge William Pauley agreed that MP3tunes violated EMI copyrights by failing to remove pirated tracks from its customers' music lockers after pulling the same listings from Sideload.com, a music search engine that operated alongside the locker service.
Various music publishers and the National Music Publishers Association have agreed to settle their lawsuit against Google's video sharing site, YouTube. The class-action lawsuit originally claimed YouTube was actively encouraging copyright violations, as users uploaded content that included music videos, album tracks, movies and television programs.
Former rap artist Korvel Sutton has filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court in California against Apple's iTunes service, charging that they are selling copyrighted tracks from his former group Pretty Boy Gangsters in other compilations without permission. Apple has already responded that license to sell the recordings, which were made in the early 1990s, came from a Dutch record label -- which has been in trouble before for distributing songs illegally.
Online DVD movie rental service Zediva has been temporarily banned from running its service by a federal judge. The step follows an MPAA lawsuit filed in April and is a preliminary injunction until the case concludes. Hollywood studios and the MPAA saw its service as trying to exploit a loophole in copyright law, one which Judge John Walter said didn't exist.
Ultimate Electronics, a consumer technology chain that shuttered its stores and went out of business in April, is in court trying to recover money it paid Apple for products it received and re-sold -- a technique known as "preferential transfers" that could see the defunct chain recover as much as $420,000 from Apple, AppleInsider reports. It is normally used only to try and recover the last payments a company sent its suppliers.
US District Jude Loretta Preska has allowed a class-action lawsuit against RIAA music labels to continue forward. The lawsuit, which accuses major labels of conspiring to fix prices for digital music distribution, will be pursued under the Sherman Act to explore potential antitrust violations of federal law. Similar antitrust actions under New York state law will also be investigated, as well as other claims related to consumer protection and unjust enrichment.
A new lawsuit has been filed against Apple and a senior store manager in St. Louis, Missouri, accusing the store of failing to promote an employee with otherwise high marks due to racial and gender discrimination, as well as retaliation when complaints were made, AppleInsider reports. Although the store does have other African-American workers, the plaintiff claims that only eight of 100 store employees are black, and that none of them have been offered management-level positions.
The International Trade Commission (ITC) has made a preliminary ruling (PDF) that Apple has infringed upon two of four patent claims against the company made by S3 Graphics. The initial ruling made by an administrative law judge will go before a six-member commission, which will deliver its final verdict in November. S3 Graphics first filed its current patent suit with the ITC in June last year, claiming that Apple copied its graphics texture compression technology in its Mac and iOS product lines.
At a hearing today in San Jose, Apple's attorney Harold McElhinny revealed that executives "at the highest levels" of Apple and Samsung have been meeting and talking about ways to resolve their various patent-infringement lawsuits. Despite the close relationship between the two companies, they have been locked in various patent claims and counter-claims for several months.
A lawsuit has been filed against Apple in U.S. District Court in the southern district of New York state charging infringement over the trademark for "iBooks," which publisher John T. Colby says was purchased by him from another publisher in 2006 and 2007, Bloomberg is reporting. The previous publisher, Byron Preiss, had put out more than 1,000 hardcover and paperback books under the "ibooks" name starting in late 1999.
The producers of the Academy Award winning motion picture The Hurt Locker are suing a record 24,583 BitTorrent downloaders. Voltage Pictures hopes to recoup millions of dollars it claims it has lost through illegal downloading activities. The company has hired a group of lawyers known as the US Copyright Group to undertake the action what is the biggest lawsuit of its kind to date.
Sony Ericsson has announced that it has dropped its lawsuit against Clearwire. Sony Ericsson had filed suit in January claiming that Clearwire’s logo looked too similar to its own. An injunction was sought to stop Clearwire from using its swirl logo as the company had decided to enter the smartphone space. Clearwire recently told the court that it has dropped its plans to release its own phone, which has prompted Sony Ericsson to withdraw its suit.
Rambus has destroyed documents that relate to patent cases it filed, a US appeals court said. Despite this, judges asked a lower court to review its decision to throw out a lawsuit. Memory chip makers Micron and Hynix Semiconductor, both of whom were involved in a lawsuit against Rambus, accused Rambus of destroying documents that were relevant to the case.
A second lawsuit over the Unique Device Identifier (UDID) number in Apple's iPhone -- and how certain third-party companies are illegally using it to track users' online activities and location -- has been filed in southern New York State, according to AdWeek. Orange County resident Jarret Ammer has filed a class-action, suit naming Apple, Pandora Media and Backflip Studios (best known for the popular game Paper Toss), charging that the latter two companies illegally obtain and use the UDID code to track users and uniquely identify them in order to serve targeted ads, and that Apple is aware of the problem and will not correct it.
Oracle faced a major setback in its Java patent lawsuit versus Google on Thursday after the court forced it to scale back the number of claims. Judge William Alsup ordered the company to drop the number of claims leveled against Android from 132 to just three as it was simply "too much." Oracle would also be banned from bringing any of those claims back except for a new product, which could exempt Android altogether.
The lawsuit filed against Apple, Facebook, Google, Yahoo and more companies by Paul Allen and his former Interval Research lab is proving to be tough for the court to handle. A federal judge in Seattle, Marsha Pechman, is faced with managing eleven defendants and Internet-related technology along with intellectual property issues that date decades back, GeekWire reported. The hearing is also expected to see many industry and technology experts take the stand.
With the Sony lawsuit behind him, George Hotz has taken some of the money donated to him for a legal help and donated it to the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). The EFF is a nonprofit digital rights advocacy and legal organization that relies on donations to keep operating. Hotz was sued by Sony for cracking and distributing his code to crack the PS3's software and allow it to run non copy-protected games and movies.
Internet provider Clearwire is facing a lawsuit filed by 15 of its subscribers over its controversial throttling of connection speeds. The plaintiffs said Clearwire isn't delivering the advertised high-speed Internet services it promises, and when unhappy customers leave, charges them early termination fees. The complaints began in the summer of last year, when users said home connection speeds were dropped as low as 256Kbps.
Amazon.com has been sued for allegedly infringing on a patent in its instant search suggestions. The plaintiff is MasterObjects, which offers Ajax and Flash-based software that automatically posts search suggestions before users even finish typing their queries. Amazon uses such a function in its browser, add-ons and toolbars, as well as mobile apps.
Another hearing this week in the ongoing Sony versus George Hotz case has seen the defendant being ordered to hand over his hard drives after all by the Northern California district Judge Susan Illston. Sony wants to examine the contents of the hard drive to see exactly how Hotz circumvented the PS3's software to allow for running copied and homebrew games. The 21-year-old was the first to fully break down Sony's protection system.
After winning a restraining order against PS3 hacks in its court case, Sony is now taking the next step and threatening to sue anyone else posting or distributing the jailbreak code for its gaming console. The electronics giant is also requesting a judge to order Google to surrender IP addresses and other information of those who viewed or commented on the jailbreak video hosted on YouTube. A similar order is request for Twitter users tied to the hack.
Apple has teamed up with Rosetta Stone, Autodesk and Adobe to file a civil action against a south Florida man they claim is selling pirated copies of software from them and other companies. The lawsuit against Edy Jean Dollisme of Coral Springs and his website ultimatepcrepairs.webs.com alleges that Dollisme sold home-burned CDs and DVDs of software on Craigslist and through the "Ultimate PC Repairs" website, reports AppleInsider.
Apple now faces yet another lawsuit involving the iPhone, as a California-based plaintiff accuses the company of violating privacy and business laws. Attorneys argue that Apple provides private data to third-party companies that can be used to identify specific iPhone users, without ever asking the user to agree to release the information.
LA Weekly is report that a class-action lawsuit has been filed in Los Angeles County Superior Court by a person named Donald LeBuhn, claiming that Apple's marketing of the glass used in the iPhone 4 as "20 times stiffer and 30 times harder than plastic" is deceptive and that the glass is in fact defective. LeBuhn claims that the company knows about the defect, but refuses to warn customers that "normal use" -- which in LeBuhn's case involved dropping the iPhone from a height of approximately three feet -- will cause the glass to break.
Sony has won its request for a temporary restraining order (PDF) in its PS3 jailbreak case against Geohot and fail0verflow, despite a jurisdictional technicality. At the same time, the judge at the US District Court for the Northern District of California has allowed Sony to keep the lawsuit in San Francisco.
Microsoft is facing a class action lawsuit in Italy over how difficult it is making getting a refund for copies of Windows that are bundled with new PCs. Filed in Milan by the Associazione per i Diritti degli Utenti e Consumatori (ADUC), the lawsuit (statement) aims to have Microsoft make changes to its end user license agreement (EULA) that assumes users agree to it by using the software when first turning on their PCs. Those who opt to replace the software with another OS such as Linux are forced to try and get a refund from the hardware vendor rather than Microsoft itself, a process that's proven hard before.
LG and Vizio have settled several patent-infringement disputes in the US and Taiwan regarding flat-panel TV sets. The litigation spanned some two years, though the terms of the settlement weren't revealed. Three cases in front of the International Trade Commission have been dropped as a result.
Intel has paid out a settlement to Canadian firm WiLAN after being one of the many companies sued over key technology for Wi-Fi and DSL power management back in 2007. This puts an end to the litigation between the two companies, but the value of the settlement hasn't been revealed, according to a Friday report. Intel has paid for use of the patented technology.
The list of potentially affected notebooks has now gone up in the class-action lawsuit NVIDIA is facing. Owners of 15- and 17-inch notebooks from Apple, HP and Dell with NVIDIA graphics hardware that malfunctioned. The potentially affected Apple models are those MacBook Pro models made between May of 2007 and September of 2008. Dell and HP notebooks made between 2005 and 2010 may also be affected.
Patent holder Intellectual Ventures has initiated lawsuits against a long list of tech companies that failed to establish licensing agreements. One of the suits targets security software makers Symantec, McAfee, Trend Micro and Check Point. A second suit is aimed at memory manufacturers Elpida Memory and Hynix Semiconductor, while a third suit has been filed against component makers Altera, Lattice and Microsemi.
WiLAN, a Canadian company that, in its own words, is charged with "developing, protecting, and monetizing technology intellectual property," has filed another ambitious lawsuit, this time against cable companies Charter, Comcast and Time Warner. The Eastern District of Texas complaint claims that the three allegedly infringed patented technology through their use of cable modems. The 1998 patent covers the broadcasting of data to a number of remote networks and computers.
The University of New Mexico has filed a lawsuit accusing Intel if illegally using technology protected by a university-held patent. The institution's technology-licensing arm, UNM.STC, has accused the company of infringing on a patent related to double patterning lithography technology, which is used to manufacture semiconductor components.
Regarding a class action lawsuit that dates back to the start of the year, AT&T today sent text messages to subscribers letting them know they may have the option of claiming a portion of the settlement in the case. AT&T was accused of illegally charging mobile data taxes and thus violating the federal Internet Tax Freedom Act and other laws. A settlement agreement was reached in July.
A lawsuit targeting AT&T and Apple over the iPhone exclusivity agreement has been granted class-action status by Judge James Ware of the US District Court in the Northern District of California. The plaintiffs now represent all individuals who have purchased an iPhone tied to an AT&T contract in the US.
AT&T has proposed a settlement over a class-action lawsuit dating back to the company's time as AT&T Wireless. The company still denies any wrongdoing, however it has agreed to finally settle the dispute in an attempt to minimize costs of continuing litigation.
