Legal Archive

Well, it's a bit of a Microsoft day today, for better or worse. In any case, the European Commission has announced that it will scale back its monitoring of Microsoft. According to the EC, Microsoft has made progress in complying with the 2004 Statement of Objections - in fact, the company has already provided all the necessary documentation required by the EC's ruling.

Two weeks ago we reported that Canadian company Psion had started an all-out legal offensive to protect its Netbook trademark, a trademark the company gained through its line of portable "Netbook" device, discontinued a few years ago. Dell had already thrown itself into the fight, followed not long after by Intel. Now, Psion has filed a countersuit against Intel.

Thanks to people familiar with PsyStar, we know now that the mediation procedure between PsyStar an Apple, a compulsory attempt at settling out of court, has failed to produce any outcome. It was mostly a going through the motions, according to WorldOfApple.

I recently joked that we might want to rename OSNews to CourtNews, and with each passing day that silly joke seems to become less silly. This week, it became clear that Psion Teklogix, the company behind various small computing devices back in the '90s, has started an all-out legal offensive to prohibit other companies from using the term "netbook".

Intel has filed suit against NVIDIA seeking a declaratory judgment over rights associated with two agreements between the companies. The suit seeks to have the court declare that NVIDIA is not licensed to produce chipsets that are compatible with any Intel processor that has integrated memory controller functionality, such as Intel’s Nehalem microprocessors and that NVIDIA has breached the agreement with Intel by falsely claiming that it is licensed. Intel claims that it has been in discussions with NVIDIA for more than a year attempting to resolve the matter but were unsuccessful. As a result Intel is asking the court to resolve this dispute. Shall we rename OSNews to CourtNews?

Microsoft has achieved a major win in the "Vista Capable" class action lawsuit against the company. The suit, which is about if Microsoft knew the PCs it labelled as "Vista capable" weren't actually capable of running Vista's more advanced features, has lost its class action status.

Practically before the trial is up and running, The Pirate Bay has achieved a major victory over the entertainment industry. On day two, the prosecutor has dropped half of the charges against the bittorrent website. The remaining charges are much lighter than the ones that have been dropped.

In a textbook example of "dweilen met de kraan open", the landmark trial against Torrent website The Pirate Bay will take off today in Sweden. The founders of the torrent website are charged with aiding millions of internet users gain access to illegal content. Basically the entire entertainment industry is amassing against The Pirate Bay, making this one of the biggest trials against internet file sharing in history.

The legal case between Apple and Psystar has just taken another, very small turn. Psystar gained a small victory over Apple today, because U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup allowed Psystar to modify its counter-suit against Apple, after he had dismissed the original counter-suit. However, something more interesting came out of this ruling: the judge hinted at what would happen if Psystar were to win.

There has been a bit of a buzz lately surrounding some indeterminate patent threats going back and forth between Apple and Palm. Palm is about to launch the Pre, which supposedly could infringe on a number of iPhone patents. Both companies have stated that they will defend themselves against any possible patent infringements. Engadget enlisted the help of two patent attornies, and they took a good look at both sides and came up with some interesting results: while Palm could be infringing on Apple's patents, Apple sure as water is also infringing on a number of Palm patents. Still, that doesn't have to mean anything.

Remember when Steve Jobs launched the iPhone, and held it up in the air, proudly proclaiming "Boy, have we patented it", followed by a massive applause of the adoring audience? It may seem like this wasn't just an empty claim, either. During the earnings conference call yesterday, the company hinted at possible legal action against Palm were the Pre to infringe on iPhone patents.

Microsoft has been sued by a small Wisconsin business for allegedly misrepresenting the capabilities of its Live Communications Server product, selling the company more licenses than it needed and not providing a refund or other products to solve its original problem. Imagineering International filed its lawsuit in December in the Fond de Lac County circuit court in Wisconsin, accusing Microsoft of breach of contract and breach of warranties, among other offenses.

And so the court case between Apple and clone-maker Psystar continues. Claims are being thrown back and forth between the two companies, ranging from Apple invoking the DMCA, to Psystar claiming Apple's Mac OS X copyright is invalid. We can add a new one to the list. Court documents reveal that Psystar claims it has bought its copies of Mac OS X fair and square - including some directly from Apple.

Large multinational software companies like Apple, Microsoft, and Google, rarely - if ever - initiate patent infringement lawsuits against other software companies, probably because they themselves infringe on lots of patents too. However, they do get sued themselves by smaller companies. Even though the Christian part of the world is all about forgiveness and love and pink ponies during the holidays (or, at least, they ought to be), Apple, Google, and Microsoft have been struck by a patent infringement lawsuit started by Cygnus Systems.