Legal Archive

Since competing on merit is looked down upon in the computer and software world, companies in this business usually go for the blindfolded chick with the scale and sword. Up until recently, Microsoft didn't go for the whole patent litigation thing, but now that they've tasted some, they want more. They just sued Barnes & Noble, Foxconn, and Inventec for patent infringement because they use Android.

Microsoft is claiming that Android infringes its patents, and has chosen Barnes and Noble, which is using Android for its e-reader, as a target for its ire: "The Android platform infringes a number of Microsoft’s patents, and companies manufacturing and shipping Android devices must respect our intellectual property rights."

"So many countries in need of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, so little time! The US government, still trying to secure final passage for the drafted-in-secret Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, has already turned its attention to a new multilateral trade agreement that will bring the wonders of the DMCA to countries like Australia, Brunei, Chile, Singapore, Malaysia, and Vietnam. The new Trans-Pacific Partnership, like the ACTA before it, had its intellectual property chapter drafted by the US. Once again, the chapter was drafted in secret and has been classified for at least four years after negotiations end. The agreement exports (nearly verbatim) the DMCA's rules on digital locks, ISP liability, and subscriber disconnections, with a few extra goodies on the side." Sigh.

Well, how about some positive news to end this day? How about annoying the heck out of the Business Software Alliance? There's a new proposal for a directive on consumer rights in the EU, and in it, digital goods - software, online services, and so on - are explicitly defined as goods that are no different than any other good - like bread, watches, or cars. In other words, you would suddenly own the copies of software you buy, effectively declaring the EULA as a worthless piece of paper. Surprise - the BSA is not happy about this.

Well, this rumour, coming from the reputable Wall Street Journal, isn't entirely unsurprising. Apparently, the omnipotent people familiar with the matter have told the WJS that the US Department of Justice and the California State Attorney General's office are investigating the MPEG-LA for possible anti-competitive practices regarding VP8.

"Oracle has claimed that Google derived its Android code from the specifications for 'hundreds' of Oracle's copyrighted Java files, and that at least eight Android files are actually decompiled Oracle object code. Last week, Google asked a federal court to consider dismissing the copyright portion of the patent and copyright infringement suit that Oracle brought against Google and Android last August. But Judge William Alsup rejected Google's request, following a letter from Oracle strongly defending the copyright claims." Also - wait, are we already back to A? Didn't Alsup do the Apple vs. Psystar case?

"The FBI yesterday executed 40 search warrants around the US to gather evidence on the Anonymous distributed denial of service attacks in defense of WikiLeaks last year - attacks which targeted Visa, MasterCard, PayPal, and Amazon. And when the FBI comes a-knockin', the whole house starts a rockin'."

"Sony has won its request for a temporary restraining order 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. The restraining order forbids the jailbreak team from distributing or linking the jailbreak procedure, or encouraging others to jailbreak or hack their PS3 or PSN. They've also been ordered to turn over any computers or storage media used to create the jailbreak to Sony's lawyers." Land of the free fail.

"Florian Mueller has been killing it these past few months with his analysis of various tech patent suits on his FOSSpatents blog, and today he's unearthed a pretty major bombshell: at least 43 Android source files that appear to have been directly copied from Java." Update: ZDNet provides some compelling evidence that it's not so.

The target of attacks has shifted from traditional infrastructure to mobile users and endpoint devices. As the security of mobile networks has improved, mobile devices are increasingly the target of attacks, while social networking sites are quickly becoming cybercriminals' platform of choice to expand and propagate destructive botnets. Anti-virus software is losing the battle against malware - the new breed of malware is virtually undetectable by current scanning software.

"Early in December Microsoft, Apple, EMC and Oracle notified the German regulator that they planned to form CPTN Holdings with a view to purchasing 882 of Novell's patents. But the filing was withdrawn (Rucknahme) on Dec. 30. No reason was given for the withdrawal by German authorities, but it is likely voluntary as authorities would not yet have had time to investigate the proposal."

"A sampling of only 22 brands revealed that websites offering pirated digital content and counterfeit goods generate more than 53 billion visits per year, according to a study released today by MarkMonitor. It is estimated that the annual worldwide economic impact of online piracy and counterfeiting reaches $200 billion. Among the study's findings were that 67 percent of sites suspected of hosting pirated content and 73 percent of sites categorized as 'counterfeit' were hosted in North America or Western Europe."

When it comes to the Wikileaks saga, we've been trying to only report on it if it crosses into the realm of technology. It was revealed yesterday and today that the US Justice Department has sent subpoenas to Twitter, demanding the personal information of several Wikileaks supporters who use Twitter. One of them is a member of the Icelandic parliament.

Google sued the U.S. Interior Department late last year and a judge has sided with Google. The WSJ reports that the judge of the case ruled the USID violated the Competition in Contracting Act by requiring all bids to include Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite. No word if the USID will appeal the ruling.