Legal Archive

"A new bill backed by movie studios and other large copyright holders takes a novel approach to curbing access to piratical Web sites: an Internet death penalty. That's a good way to describe the approach adopted by the legislation introduced today, which specifies a step-by-step method for making Web sites suspected of infringing copyrights or trademarks vanish from the Internet. It's called the Protect IP Act. The U.S. Department of Justice would receive the power to seek a court order against an allegedly infringing Web site, and then serve that order on search engines, certain Domain Name System providers, and Internet advertising firms - which would in turn be required to 'expeditiously' make the target Web site invisible." ...because the interests of big content are obviously far more important than socialist communist terrorist nonsense like freedom of speech, right to a fair trial, innocent until proven otherwise, and so on. This is exactly what the founding fathers had in mind. Honest.

Nilay Patel has read through the 750 pages of legal filings in the Skyhook v. Google case we have also reported on extensively, and it's one damn fine piece of work. An absolute must-read, with detailed timelines of how Google uses compatibility to push Android device makers into a certain direction. "So what does all this mean? At the very least, it's now extremely clear that Google plays a major role in Android device development, to the point where Andy Rubin himself approves and denies requests from OEMs. It's also clear that Google places tremendous value on collecting location data, and it acted swiftly when it determined Skyhook's deal with Motorola might threaten its ability to collect that data."

"A possible landmark ruling in one of the mass-BitTorrent lawsuits in the U.S. may spell the end of the 'pay-up-or-else-schemes' that have targeted over 100,000 Internet users in the last year. District Court Judge Harold Baker has denied a copyright holder the right to subpoena the ISPs of alleged copyright infringers, because an IP-address does not equal a person."

"The Supreme Court on Wednesday ruled that AT&T - and indeed, any company - could block class-action suits arising from disputes with customers and instead force those customers into binding arbitration. The ruling reverses previous lower-court decisions that classified stipulations in AT&T's service contract which barred class arbitration as 'unconscionable'."

"Amazon today responded to Apple's trademark suit over the term 'App Store'. Interestingly, Amazon's answer made use of quotes from Steve Jobs to prove that the term 'app store' is generic and not subject to trademark protection."

A Texas jury has ruled against Google in a suit that alleged some of its use of open-source Linux code amounted to patent infringement, something that could have big implications for other companies using Linux technology and other open-source systems. In the verdict, delivered last week, the jury decided that Google should pay $5 million for the infringement.

"US patent law will be put in the dock later today (18 April) when the highest court in the land considers a case brought by the world's biggest software company, Microsoft. But at stake is more than just the $290m judgement that a small Canadian firm, i4i, secured against Microsoft for patent infringement. Legal experts have said that the outcome of the US Supreme Court hearing will decide how patent laws protect exclusive technology and impact innovation."

Well. Raise your hands if you didn't see this one coming. Nobody is safe from Apple's and Microsoft's legal crusade against Android, not even Samsung, which supplies a lot of chips to Apple. Apple has sued Samsung for copying Cupertino's look and feel in various Samsung devices. This is about as surprising as the tides rolling in. Update: And Samsung's going to strike back. Hit 'm hard, Samsung. I don't like you anymore than any of these other patent trolls, but maybe we'll finally see it all crash and burn.

Well, it seems like Sony vs. George Hotz has ended pretty much without a bang. Sony announced on its Playstation blog that the two parties have settled the case. Under the settlement, Hotz agrees to a permanent injunction fo his jailbreaking hack, but admits to no wrong-doing. A wise and, dare I say it, mature end to the lawsuit.

Should I be sad or relieved? Groklaw, the website that played a central role in the SCO vs. sanity case, has just announced it will close up shop on May 16 of this year. Groklaw's place in history has been secured, surely, but in recent years, the site became more and more like a relic from the past, clearly stuck in the everyone vs. Microsoft mindset of the late '90s and early 2000s. Even in today's announcement post, Groklaw shows that its time has indeed come.

"The International Trade Commission has ruled in favor of Apple in one of the company's patent disputes with Nokia. ITC Judge E. James Gildea said on Friday that Apple did not violate any of Nokia's five mobile device patents, though the Commission's members must first review the decision before taking any further action." In the vice-versa case, ITC staff sided with Nokia (i.e., Nokia does not violate Apple's patents either).

Yesterday, we linked to a story about the most recent allegations Sony made against George 'GeoHot' Hotz in their ongoing court case. Supposedly, Hotz has sabotaged the hardware he had to hand over, and he had fled the country to further stifle the court case, among other things. Hotz' lawyer, as well as Hotz himself, have responded to these allegations. The gist? They're all nonsense.

"Does $75 trillion even exist? The thirteen record companies that are suing file-sharing company Lime Wire for copyright infringement certainly thought so. When they won a summary judgment ruling last May they demanded damages that could reach this mind-boggling amount, which is more than five times the national debt. Manhattan federal district court judge Kimba Wood, however, saw things differently. She labeled the record companies' damages request 'absurd' and contrary to copyright laws in a 14-page opinion." Wait, this is only five time the US national debt? Fascinating.

There's a scene in American Beauty where Kevin Spacey masturbates in the shower, while his voice-over states: "This will be the highlight of my day. It's all downhill from here." That's how I feel right now. We just had Microsoft suing Barnes & Noble, which was already pretty low to begin with, but Apple just upped the ante by suing Amazon... Over the 'app store' trademark. For the love of god.