Legal Archive

"Silicon Valley police are investigating what appears to be a lost Apple iPhone prototype purchased by a gadget blog, a transaction that may have violated criminal laws, a law enforcement official told CNET on Friday. Apple has spoken to local police about the incident and the investigation is believed to be headed by a computer crime task force led by the Santa Clara County district attorney's office, the source said. Apple's Cupertino headquarters is in Santa Clara County, about 40 miles south of San Francisco." Update: "We haven't been contacted by law enforcement," said Gaby Darbyshire, chief operating officer of Gawker Media, which owns Gizmodo.

Yes, even more copyright and intellectual property stuff. We have several stories on this one today, so I figured I'd throw them all together. First and foremost, ACTA has finally been dragged out of the shadows and into the light (thanks to the EU parliament), so we can take a look at what's in there. Is it really as bad as everyone thinks it is? Short answer: yes. Long answer: Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees.

A major setback for those that claim piracy is having an adverse affect on the US economy: the US Government Accountability Office, who was tasked with reviewing the efforts to find out what, if any, impact piracy has on the US economy, has concluded that all of these studies - all of them - are bogus. Better yet - the GAO even goes as far as to say that piracy may have a positive effect on the economy.

Happy birthday to you... Happy birthday to you... Happy birthday dear copyright law... Yeah, it's April 10, the birthday of copyright (thanks, Arnoud). In 1710, 300 years ago, England enacted the very first copyright law, cutely named the Statute of Anne, after then-reigning Queen Anne. When reading about those early days of copyright, one can't help but hope we will return to those days - the Statute of Anne has little to nothing to do with modern copyright.

I guess this is what some people would call "karma". Apple may shout off the rooftops that it invented multitouch, and that anyone else using it is clearly stealing it from them - but another company has taken offence to that, and has slapped the Cupertino giant with a patent infringement suit over multitouch.

It's time for bed over here, but before I turn in with a nice cup of tea and a Gilmore Girls episode, we've got some good news for you: SCO has been dealt yet another major blow in its baseless lawsuit against Novell. A jury has ruled that Novell owns the UNIX copyrights - not SCO.

"I am against software patents because it is not reasonable to expect that the current patent system, nor even one designed to improve or replace it, will ever be able to accurately determine what might be considered legitimately patentable from the overwhelming volume of innovations in software. Even the most trivial of software applications involves hundreds, potentially thousands of design decisions which might be considered by those aggressively seeking patents as potentially protectable inventions. If even the most basic elements of these are patentable, as they are currently, the patent system will be fundamentally unable to scale to meet that demand. As it is today."

Finally - after a few weeks, HTC has actually officially issued a statement regarding the patent infringement lawsuit Apple has thrown towards the Taiwanese phone maker. As you probably already anticipated, HTC states it will fully defend itself against Apple. It's on, it's on.

"Following two unsuccessful attempts at forcing ISP Telenor to block The Pirate Bay in Norway, the IFPI and performing rights outfit TONO have abandoned their legal action. The case will not now head to the Supreme Court but instead the entertainment groups will pin their hopes on new legislation."

It's no secret to anyone that while Apple sued HTC, the lawsuit is more about Google than HTC itself. Since Android is open source, and owned by no one, it's kind of hard to go after Google itself, and as such, HTC was the prime target, since it is the number one Android smartphone maker. The New York Times has an in-depth article up about the subject, with a whole boatload of quotes from people within the two companies, and it paints a picture of all this being a highly emotional and personal vendetta - especially from Apple's side.

As most of you will know, Microsoft lost the patent lawsuit filed against the Redmond giant by i4i, while also losing the first appeal. Microsoft was forced to remove the infringing functionality from Word for US customers, but they also filed a second appeal. This appeal, too, has been lost.

In response to Apple's lawsuit against HTC, Jonathan Schwartz, former CEO of Sun Microsystems, has written a very intriguing blog post providing an insight into how major companies like Apple and Microsoft treat patents. He recounts two occasions on which Apple and Microsoft threatened to sue Sun - and how Sun retorted.

"RealNetworks has agreed to pay USD 4.5 million and permanently stop selling its RealDVD software as part of a legal settlement with six Hollywood movie studios, the company said Wednesday. The lawsuits date back to 2008, when the movie studios accused RealNetworks of selling software that allowed people to essentially steal DVDs by making copies of them. RealNetworks argued that RealDVD was designed only to let customers make a backup copy of movies on their PC hard drive. But in granting a preliminary injunction against sales of the product last year, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California said RealDVD violates federal law as well as a license agreement that Real had signed with the DVD Copy Control Association."

"At first glance, it looks as if we're in the middle of a patent lawsuit Super Bowl party. Nearly every large mobile phone player - with the exception of Microsoft, Palm and, so far, Google - has recently been involved in some sort of patent litigation regarding mobile technologies."