legal
VMware Agrees To Pay $75.5M To Settle Illegal Pricing Allegations
In a significant settlement that could embolden American employees who witness company misconduct, VMware and government contractor Carahsoft Technology Corporation agreed to pay the $75.5 million today to settle illegal pricing…
Zhiguoguo, Which Lets Chinese Companies Register Trademarks For Free, Raises $3.7M Series A
Protecting intellectual property in China is notoriously difficult, even though the country is trying to set up legal safeguards to aid emerging industries. Zhiguoguo wants to help businesses preserve their…
Venture capitalists may have rested their case for investing in legal startups, according to data from CrunchBase. Investments in law-related startups declined sharply this year, after peaking last year with…
Inside Jobs: What Loudr’s In-House Attorney Loves About Digging Into Legal Docs
Lawyers are infamous for having jobs that are hard to understand. There’s a reason why “legalese” is a term, after all. But Annie Lin, the senior counsel at music licensing…
Pintrips Files A Motion To Dismiss Pinterest’s Trademark Suit, Says ‘Pin’ Is Too Generic
Pins, pins everywhere! Back in October, we reported on a trademark infringement suit filed by Pinterest against planning travel startup Pintrips, accusing it of trademark infringement, false designation of origin, unfair…
Apple Awarded $290M By Jury In Patent Case Retrial Against Samsung
Samsung has been ordered to pay out $290 million to Apple in a retrial of the major, over-$1 billion patent infringement case that made headlines last year. Samsung won a…
UK’s BSkyB Wins Case Against Microsoft Over Use Of “SkyDrive” Name In Europe; May Have To Drop Name Or Pay Fines
Microsoft went big on pushing cloud services this week at its Build conference, but today it was dealt a blow for how it might get to market them in Europe.…
SAP Becomes First To Test New Patent Rules In The America Invents Act, Gets Window Of Hope In $345M Versata Case
SAP, the enterprise software behemoth dealt a $345 million penalty in a patent case brought by Versata Software, has a window of opportunity in getting that case overturned, thanks to…
Europe To Formalize How Consumers, Companies Can Sue Big Fish Like Google Over Antitrust Damages
Feeling slighted by Google’s dominance in search? In Europe, you may soon be able to sue for damages. A new proposal published today by the European Commission proposes to spell…
U.S. Court Rules For Facebook In Its Case Against Typosquatters On 105 Domains; $2.8M In Damages
A victory for Facebook in its case against typosquatters — those who own domain names that are similar to those of a popular site, which they use to confuse people…
CEO Elop: Nokia Will Make $653M In Patent Licensing Revenues This Year, ‘Watching Closely’ For More Targets
Nokia today posted Q1 earnings that show the Finnish company still trying to recover from a fast-declining legacy handset business. But in the meantime, it is continuing to play another…
It’s no secret that most lawyers are not on the cutting edge of technology. And while the internet has been great for many businesses, it’s buried lawyers in an avalanche…
Apple Appears In Court In China To Defend Against Siri Patent Infringement Claim
Apple is in court again in China, defending another of its products from attack based on pre-existing claims from a Chinese company. This time around it’s Siri, Apple’s virtual assistant,…
Zynga And EA Settle Legal Battle Over ‘Unmistakable Copy’ Of The Sims And ‘Anti-Competitive’ Practices
According to InsideSocialGames, Zynga and EA have settled their legal dispute over the former’s alleged copying of EA’s popular game “The Sims.” It was clear to many that once Zynga…
Keen On… Injustice: What The Aaron Swartz Case Says About The American Criminal Justice System
The Aaron Swartz tragedy has unleashed an intense debate about computer “crime” and the US criminal justice system. Heavyweights like Lessig, Doctorow, Greenwald, Masnick, Wu and Kerr have all written…
Facebook’s Stance On Protecting User Data Challenged In Oregon Murder Case
Facebook has been cooperating with law-enforcement officials for some time when it comes to handing over user data as evidence in court cases. But the situation is less clear when…
With DoJ Suit Still In Play, Apple And Four Big Publishers Settle Price Fixing Probe In Europe
Good news for Amazon, and for consumers on the lookout for bargain prices for e-books in Europe. Apple, along with the publishers Simon & Schuster, Harper Collins, Hachette and Holtzbrinck (Macmillan),…
Nokia Says Class Action Lawsuit Over Windows Phone Is Now Dismissed, No Compensation Paid
Nokia may be struggling to reach a critical mass of users to adopt its Windows Phones instead of Android or iPhone devices, but today it got a little light relief…
Goatse Security’s Auernheimer Convicted In iPad Website Hacking Case
Tuesday afternoon in federal court in Newark, NJ, a jury convicted Andrew “Weev” Auernheimer for his role in a 2010 exploit that caused an AT&T account maintenance website to leak…
Does Apple’s HTC Agreement Indicate A Softening Of Its Approach To Patent Litigation?
Apple and HTC today announced jointly a settlement of all ongoing patent litigation between the two, in a licensing agreement with a 10-year term, any further terms of which were…
Ellen Pao Is Out At Kleiner Perkins: Tells Quora That She Was Fired, As Discrimination Case Continues (UPDATED)
Another dramatic turn of events in the case of Ellen Pao, who has been suing the VC firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers over gender discrimination. Pao was fired on…
More Problems For Apple In Portugal? Apparently It’s Getting Sued For 40M Euros By A Reseller [Report]
Another legal tangle for Apple in Portugal? Just days after a consumer rights group in the country said it was preparing to bring legal action against Apple over the wording…
![More Problems For Apple In Portugal? Apparently It’s Getting Sued For 40M Euros By A Reseller [Report]](https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/screen-shot-2012-07-22-at-03-01-10.png?w=580)
You might not think that something like a website’s Terms of Service would be all that interesting, but you’d be wrong. After that post about how awesome 500px’s Terms of…
Indie Music Agency Merlin Scores Another Settlement: $1.6 Million From Sirius
On the heels of a payout from the owners of P2P filesharing site Limewire, another claim finally settled for Merlin, the group that represents independent music labels in licensing negotiations…
Facebook Threatens To Sue TechCrunch Commenter
Last year, Alexia covered a funny Chrome web browser extension called “Defaceable” that allowed you to comment anonymously on Facebook and on other websites using Facebook Comments. Instead of having…
Updated: T-Mobile USA Sued By OTI Over NFC Patent In Nokia, HTC Smartphones
Here we go again: today brings another mobile patent infringement suit — this time against T-Mobile USA, and over a technology that has had very little use to date, but…
Yahoo vs Facebook: Not The Next Mobile Patent War?
The lawsuit filed on Monday by Yahoo against Facebook over alleged infringements of certain “method” patents was a high profile step for Yahoo to take in the lead-up to Facebook’s…
Ahead Of Today’s Apple News, Samsung Files Yet Another Suit In Korea Over iPad 2, iPhone 4S
Just hours before Apple is due to unveil what many think will be a new version of its best-selling iPad tablet, Samsung has tried to steal a little thunder by…
Proview Thwarted In Chinese iPad Trademark Suit, Brings Case To U.S. Shores
The dispute between Apple and Proview over the “iPad” trademark has just gotten a lot more domestic. Proview, which owned the “iPad” trademark in several countries until they sold the…
Federal Judge Rules You May Be Forced To Provide Decryption Password
In July, we wrote about an ongoing case wherein a woman accused of fraud was being asked by the prosecution to provide the password to access her computer’s data, which…
