Some five-employee company you’ve never heard of is bullying the US International Trade Commission in order to ban the importation of certain devices from the likes of RIM and Nokia. Why, you ask? Because this company thinks these foreigners have violated one or more of its patents. Just who is this knave? Find out, after a few words from our sponsor. → Read More
The RIAA has decided to stop filing pointless lawsuits against John and Jane Doe for alleged copyright infringement. Rather, the bullying cartel will work with ISPs to get you kids to stop downloading Fallout Boy, the All American Rejects and other self-described popular music. → Read More
After suing tens of thousands of customers to no avail, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has decided to change tactics. Instead of dragging music downloaders and file-sharers into court, it has somehow convinced ISPs to take on the role of digital policeman (and jury and judge). The WSJ reports:
The decision represents an abrupt shift of strategy for the industry, which has… → Read More
Wikipedia’d A recently filed lawsuit (which is seeking class action status) claims that Microsoft knew all about the disc scratching problem that affects its Xbox 360 game discs. As such, Microsoft should be required to pay a boatload of money to people whose game discs have been damaged. → Read More
Oh dear, I think Apple’s legal department is getting paranoid. After suggesting that people taking their ad literally were irrational, they’re now suggesting that a shadowy unknown may be behind the whole Psystar drama. The suits and countersuits have been going on for months and months now (all I care about is that it works), and in an amendment to their suit today, Apple added the… → Read More
This is great. There’s something to be said for the defense of exaggeration or idiom in advertising — for instance, Red Bull doesn’t literally give you wings. Of course, nobody’s suing Red Bull for false advertising. But when the statement is the totally believable “Twice as fast, half the price,” and you support the ad with fraudulent video showing the product… → Read More
When this legal melee began earlier this month, I guessed that the judge was simply taking IBM at its word and ordering Papermaster to stop work essentially at their whim. Well, you can’t blame me for underestimating the Judicial Branch, can you? Recently revealed records show that the judge had pretty solid reasoning for believing Papermaster was a serious threat to IBM in his new position… → Read More
A month after being granted U.S. patent No. 7,441,196, a company in Los Angeles called EMG Technology is suing Apple for “the way the iPhone navigates the Internet,” according to a press release. The suit did not specify the damages EMG is seeking, but the company has hired a serious gun: Stanley Gibson, one of the lead trial attorneys who won the $1.35 billion patent infringement… → Read More
Remember SCO? Yeah, me neither. But the company that once made a name for itself by existing solely to sue people now owes it’s biggest victim, Novell, $2.54 million plus interest. The story breaks down like this: SCO believed that Novell and other companies who used Linux were actually using UNIX SVRX source code illegally inside the Linux kernel. After independently verifying the code, SCO… → Read More
Good lord, sir. There are so many lawsuits about that you can’t swing a cat without hitting a lawyer. IBM is suing Papermaster, Papermaster is suing IBM, Apple and Psystar are suing each other, the US is suing LCD makers, Spansion is suing Samsung, and god knows what else just from the last couple weeks has escaped my memory. And now Kodak is getting in on the feeding frenzy, and is suing… → Read More
Papermaster doin’ it for his self! Well, his lawyers are helping. They’ve produced a somewhat scattershot countersuit against IBM, which if you don’t remember, sued the man for supposedly breaching a non-competition agreement in his contract. Papermaster’s corner says that not only is the non-comp clause “unreasonably broad,” but the statute of limitations is… → Read More
This probably won’t come as a surprise to many of you, but Apple (and AT&T) has been hit with a class action lawsuit because of the cracks that develop in the iPhone 3G’s casing. The lawsuit was filed in a Long Island court by a someone named Avi Koschitzki. The suit also alleges that, in so many words, AT&T’s 3G network is a piece of garbage. Dropped calls, spotty 3G… → Read More
Yeah…a play on “Boston Legal” probably would have been better (and easier) The ongoing drama between Apple and IBM in which would-be iPod and iPhone division head Mark Papermaster is charged with breaching a non-competition contract with IBM is getting more complicated. On the Apple side, it’s no great surprise to find out that he was considered rather a “long… → Read More
I’m thinking a little of column A, a little of column B. The story is this: Huang Jin, a student in China, bought an Asus laptop that was having a lot of hardware trouble. She sent it back a couple times and eventually they replaced the CPU, which then started overheating. Examining it, she found it to be an “engineering sample” — an early run CPU made for testing purposes… → Read More
Like Achilles, it looks like RealDVD has lived a short but glorious life. Its name will echo for eternity. And so on, and so forth. Right, so that judge that RealNetworks was so confident would rule in its favor did the exact opposite, ruling in favor of the movie studios. The temporary injunction on the sales of RealDVD will go on indefinitely; the odds of RealDVD coming back, especially before… → Read More
The RealDVD saga continues, quickly becoming one of the more interesting tech stories of the past few months. As we already know, both RealNetworks and the MPAA have been suing each other left, right and center over the past two weeks. Well now Real has issued an official statement, one sure to send shivers up the spines of the MPAA’s lawyers. We are confident that the Court will determine… → Read More
Most people who get threatened by the RIAA with a lawsuit opt to settle out of court. Maybe they should go to trial instead. Jammie Thomas of Minnesota did just that. She was found guilty of sharing 24 music files over the Kazaa network and ordered to pay $222,000 – that’s $9,250 per track. The decision came from a federal jury last year and marked the one and only trial win for the RIAA. → Read More
Timberland, makers of boots and outdoor wear, and GSI Commerce, the e-commerce company behind the online presence of Timberland and many other companies, might just owe you some money. After a heap of unauthorized ad-filled text messages were sent out between January 2003 and August 2008, frustrated recipients banded together for a class action lawsuit. Though the companies insist that the blame… → Read More
I’m just going to refer you to the excellent diagram above for your lesson in force feedback lawsuitology. The outcome is basically that Sony ended up paying a bunch of money, Immersion came out on top for the most part, and Microsoft is still richer than Croesus. It’s finally been settled, as Microsoft got their ounce or so of the pound of flesh that Sony had to deliver to Immersion. → Read More
“Son of a submariner!” That’s what we imagine a huge nerd working at Nintendo said when he learned about a lawsuit from Hillcrest Labs. The lawsuit contends that Nintendo is infringing on four of Hillcrest’s patents, three of which are in some way related to the Wii. Worst case scenario, Nintendo would have to stop selling the Wii in the U.S. until it fixes the offending patents. → Read More
When I heard about LG’s “Scarlet” line of HDTVs and its misleading ad campaign, the first thing I thought of was the real Scarlet and then “Is RED going to sue these mothers or what?” And so, four months later, they have. A post at the RED forums by Jim Jannard reveals that the legal gears are turning in Orange County and they’re going to be doing a little more… → Read More
It has been reported that Motorola is suing Michael Fenger, a former executive who is now working for Apple. According to the complaint, Motorola is accusing Michael of telling Apple their trade secrets for global marketing. Michael was the VP of mobile business in Europe, the Middle East and Africa when he was at Motorola for six years. He is now Apple’s VP in charge of taking the iPhone… → Read More
Apple has filed suit against Psystar in the northern district of California. Apple, Inc., manufacturer of the well known line of computers and software, filed suit on July 3 in the federal district court for the northern district of California against Florida company Psystar, Inc. The suit alleges counts for violation of its shrink wrap license, trademark and copyright infringement. While we love… → Read More
EBay was found today to not be responsible for allowing the sale of counterfeit items. Tiffany and Company initially filed the lawsuit in 2004 after a study they conducted determined a high rate of fakes being sold under the Tiffany brand. The ruling issued by Judge Richard Sullivan of the Federal District Court in Manhattan is a major victory for the online giant, as they do not have to actively… → Read More
Flickr’d, a real rock band Konami has sued Harmonix, alleging that Rock Band infringes on several of its music game-related patents. Karaoke Revolution first came out in North America in 2003, several years before both Guitar Hero and Rock Band. Now Konami wants Harmonix to pay up. Apparently Harmonix hasn’t received the official complaint yet, so it hasn’t said anything in its… → Read More
Flickr’d Oh man, the Last Man Standing match, the nail-biting drama that is the ConnectU v. Facebook showdown is over, and Facebook won! Let freedom ring! Right. Well, the highly publicized legal brouhaha between ConnectU and Facebook—the former accused the later of ripping it off (hoo hoo, Robin!)—should be done and done. A Federal judge in California yesterday enforced a… → Read More
I don’t know whether these guys are technically on solid ground, but to everyone involved this has to look like just the most egregious money-grab of all time. So this company, Clear With Computers, holds a patent describing something like an electronic configurator akin to the one pictured. Of course, the patent is ridiculously broad to begin with, but that’s a whole other ball game. → Read More
Trouble at Tecmo? The Japanese video game house, already facing one lawsuit from ex-exployee Tomonobu Itagaki (the strange-looking fellow who always wears sunglasses and thinks Dead or Alive sold well on the merit of its gameplay), now faces another lawsuit. Two employees filed suit against the corp yesterday, claiming that it illegally placed them on something called “flexible hours”… → Read More
Sleep easy now, friends, for the T-Mobile-AT&T-Starbucks lawsuit has been settled for an undisclosed sum, thought to be in the neighborhood of several venti ice coffees and a couple bottles of Ethos. Yup, the lawsuit that captured the imagination of dozens is now over. You’ll remember that T-Mobile threw a fit over Starbucks’ handling of turning over Wi-Fi responsibilities from it… → Read More
New York judge Joseph Teresi has found Dell to be guilty of fraud and false advertising, saying… “Dell has engaged in repeated misleading, deceptive and unlawful business conduct, including false and deceptive advertising of financing promotions and the terms of warranties, fraudulent, misleading and deceptive practices in credit financing and failure to provide warranty service and… → Read More
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