July 2 - 6:25pm EDT   Jammie Thomas-Rasset plans to appeal the recent court decision ordering her to pay $1.92 million in a case involving the RIAA. The legal battle has followed several twists, with the initial filing only leading to damages totaling $222,000 before the decision was thrown out. The federal jury present for the retrial, however, tacked on another $1.7 million. [full story]

July 1 - 10:55pm EDT   Despite a recent Chapter 11 filing and the continuing legal battle, Psystar has introduced a new Nehalem-based clone. The company distributed an e-mail introducing its "fastest and most quiet computing configuration available," while reminding customers that the bankruptcy proceedings will not put an end to its continuing operations, according to ChannelWeb. [full story]

June 26 - 12:40pm EDT   Apple has been deceptive with regards to iTunes gift cards, knowingly or not, a new lawsuit alleges. Filed in an Illinois district court by Barbara and Daniel Owens, the suit charges that even as Apple transitioned to variable iTunes song pricing on April 7th, the company continued to sell cards describing every song as costing only 99 cents. Such advertising is potentially misleading, the Owens say, suggesting that people can get more songs per card than may realistically be possible. [full story]

June 24 - 3:00pm EDT   RIAA member Universal Music Group this past weekend was forced to settle a music file sharing lawsuit it had filed against New Hampshire resident Mavis Roy. The label dropped its case after evidence provided by anti-piracy snooping firm MediaSentry was successfully challenged by the defense's expert witness Dr. Sergey Bratus. Among other key problems with the data, the defense pointed out that Roy didn't own a computer at all at the time of the supposed infringement and that it wasn't until a letter appeared that she was aware of any possible action. [full story]

June 23 - 11:45am EDT   The judge overseeing Psystar's bankruptcy proceedings has granted an Apple motion calling for the resumption of a copyright infringement lawsuit, reports say. By entering bankruptcy, Psystar gained a temporary reprieve from charges of illegally distributing PCs running Mac OS X Leopard. The lawsuit is now likely to resume immediately, at least if Psystar chooses not to appeal, an attorney familiar with similar cases claims. [full story]

June 12 - 9:30am EDT   Psystar already owes Apple $75,000, documents from the former's bankruptcy proceedings indicate. Psystar recently submitted a filing mentioning Schedule F debts, those to creditors with "unsecured nonpriority claims." Though Apple is on the F list, it is unknown what the money may be owed for. The only other explicit information from the filing is the phrase "litigation pending" under the section citing Psystar's consideration for the claim. [full story]

June 5 - 3:10pm EDT   The Garden City Group has filed a Notice of Class Action Settlement, based on a case alleging that Intuit's QuickBooks 2006 software can cause the loss or damage of important data. As a result of Create-A-Card v. Intuit Inc., affected QuickBooks users may thus be eligible to claim an award. The settlement proposes reimbursement of both monetary recovery as well as a free upgrade to QuickBooks Pro 2007. [full story]

June 4 - 9:50am EDT   Legal costs account for the bulk of Psystar's outside debts, court bankruptcy documents reveal. Having filed for Chapter 11 protection late last month, the company has been forced to disclose what it owes and to whom. While the greatest amount of debt is situated in a $120,000 loan from the company's founder, Rudy Pedraza, another $88,000 is due to Carr & Ferrell, the lawfirm that has represented Psystar in its battles with Apple over Mac cloning. The firm has intellectual property experience and has successfully dueled with Apple in the past. [full story]

June 2 - 3:55pm EDT   NVIDIA on Tuesday announced that the US Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has initially rejected 41 patent infringement claims regarding seven patents Rambus has filed against NVIDIA back in July of 2008. NVIDIA challenged these claims in November of 2008, when Rambus filed a complaint in an International Trade Commission (ITC) action. All patent infringement claims from Rambus relate to memory controllers in graphics processors. [full story]

May 29 - 2:30pm EDT   Intel and Psion are said today to have reached a settlement in their mutual lawsuits over the use of the term "netbook." The latter company is reported by BlogEEE as having agreed to drop its claims to the word and would let Dell and other PC makers use the word to describe their PCs without demanding royalties or threatening lawsuits. What, if anything, Intel would offer in compensation hasn't been detailed. [full story]

May 28 - 11:15am EDT   A federal District of Washington court yesterday rejected (PDF) objections to a class action lawsuit that accuses the carrier of abusive behavior in transition customers to its service. The plaintiffs can now bring their complaints, which center on what they claim are unfair practices in moving customers to its network in 2004 when it was still called Cingular; those from the then-smaller, separate AT&T were allegedly not only pulled off a network that was "dismantled" in favor of a poorer Cingular network but were forced to move to more expensive cellphone plans, replace phones and to pay early termination fees if they didn't want to remain on the network. [full story]

May 26 - 1:55pm EDT   Psystar has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection through a federal court in Florida, documents show. Although a sign of serious financial trouble, the move will also grant the Mac cloner a temporary reprieve from an Apple lawsuit, charging Psystar with breaking the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the license agreement for Mac OS X Leopard. All legal actions against Psystar have been put on hold while bankruptcy proceedings get underway; the hold may be lifted within a few months, at the discretion of the judge. [full story]

May 22 - 1:30pm EDT   Lawyers are now challenging some of the basic tactics of the RIAA's campaign against filesharing, reports note. The most powerful allegations have been put forth in the defense of college student Brittany English, whose pro bono lawyer, K.A.D. Camara, has asked courts to declare RIAA damage requests unconstitutional. The group has asked for unreasonable statutory damages in a ratio as high as 150,000:1, according to Camara, and moreover used the potential judgments to bully individuals into settlements. The RIAA should be made to return the $100 million or more it has accrued through illicit methods, Camara insists. [full story]

May 21 - 4:55pm EDT   After being granted two extensions to respond to anti-trust allegations against it in Europe regarding its web browser, Microsoft has now cancelled its oral hearing scheduled for the start of June. In a Thursday blog post, Microsoft's Associate General Counsel David Heiner explains a number of the key decision-makers in the matter won't attend, as the date coincides with the International Competition Network (ICN) meeting in Zurich. [full story]

May 14 - 3:45pm EDT   Apple and AT&T are two of several companies being targeted in a new patent infringement lawsuit, court documents show. The case was initiated by Tune Hunter, a company which owns a patent titled Music identification system, granted in September of 2005. The patent describes "a method for marking the time and the name of the radio station in portable device such as a key holder, watch, cellular phone, beeper or the like which will allow the user to learn via internet [sic] or regular telephone the name of the song, artist and/or music company by matching the stored data with broadcast archive." [full story]