Practice Areas
Technology
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February 22, 2012
FCC Chief Pushes Cos. To Adopt Cybersecurity Standards
The head of the Federal Communications Commission said Wednesday companies should voluntarily adopt new cybersecurity standards designed to maintain consumer privacy while combating the growing threat of hackers and spammers, rather than relying on government regulations.
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February 22, 2012
Microsoft Hits Motorola, Google With EU Antitrust Action
Microsoft Corp. on Wednesday lodged a competition complaint with the European Commission against Motorola Mobility Holdings Inc. and its soon-to-be parent Google Inc., alleging Motorola is trying to block sales of Microsoft products that allow wireless viewing of video via the Internet.
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February 22, 2012
State AGs Skeptical Of Google's New Privacy Policy
Three dozen attorneys general on Wednesday joined the chorus of government officials voicing concerns over Google Inc.'s new privacy policy, the same day a media reform group filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission aiming to halt the changes.
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February 22, 2012
Calif. AG, App Giants Unveil New Privacy Blueprint
California's attorney general announced an agreement Wednesday with Apple Inc., Google Inc., Amazon.com Inc. and three other mobile app platform operators that effectively establishes a nationwide, legally enforceable standard for app privacy policies.
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February 22, 2012
Comcast Dials Up Another Patent Suit Against Sprint
A Comcast Corp. subsidiary on Tuesday accused Sprint Nextel Corp. of infringing four more of its communication patents, continuing Comcast's recent litigation offensive against its telecommunications rival.
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February 22, 2012
Sharp, Toshiba, Others Caught In Flat-Panel Patent Blitz
Graphics Properties Holdings Inc., formerly known as Silicon Graphics Inc., filed six separate lawsuits in Delaware federal court on Tuesday accusing Panasonic Corp., Sharp Corp., Toshiba Corp. and others of infringing up to five patents for flat-panel electronics display technologies.
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February 22, 2012
Judge Narrows Jaco's Targets In LCD Price-Fixing Case
A California federal judge on Wednesday refined Jaco Electronics Inc.'s antitrust claims in multidistrict litigation against a slew of liquid crystal display panel makers, clarifying that Jaco is only allowed to recover damages from entities directly involved in the massive price-fixing conspiracy.
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February 22, 2012
T-Mobile Wants FCC To Block Verizon's $4B Spectrum Buys
T-Mobile USA Inc. told the Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday that Verizon Wireless' efforts to snatch up wireless spectrum licenses from Comcast Corp., Cox Communications Inc. and others for about $3.9 billion would harm competition and consumers.
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February 21, 2012
Garmin Scores Win In Triangle GPS Patent Row
A Virginia federal judge has ruled that two kinds of Garmin International Inc. GPS navigation devices do not infringe five navigation technology patents held by Triangle Software LLC, Garmin announced Tuesday.
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February 21, 2012
Federal Needn't Cover IBM's ERISA Settlement: NY Court
New York's highest court on Tuesday ruled that an excess insurance policy Federal Insurance Co. issued to IBM Corp. didn't cover the settlement of class claims over the company's alleged violations of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act.
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February 21, 2012
Google Wants Authors Guild Deleted From Books Action
Google Inc. on Friday asked a New York federal court to dismiss The Authors Guild Inc. from the class action challenging its project to archive the world's books, saying the association cannot litigate copyright claims on behalf of its members.
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February 21, 2012
Plaintiffs' Experts Will Testify In LCD Screen MDL: Judge
A California federal judge has greenlighted the testimony of two expert economists in multidistrict litigation alleging a major price-fixing conspiracy in the liquid crystal display panel industry, ruling Tuesday the LCD makers failed to establish that the experts' findings should be barred.
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February 21, 2012
Google Accused Of Secretly Tracking Apple Browser Users
Two proposed class actions were filed against Google Inc. on Friday in the wake of a controversy over the company's alleged efforts to bypass an Apple Inc. Web browser's privacy settings and secretly track users' Internet activity.
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February 21, 2012
Hynix Denied Review Of Rambus Patent Row By High Court
The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to review a petition from Hynix Semiconductor Inc. arguing that Rambus Inc.’s participation in a group that set industry standards disallowed its patent infringement claims against semiconductor producers.
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February 17, 2012
Google Slams Oracle Expert's Damages Report In IP Row
Google Inc. on Friday urged a California federal court to strike portions of the third damages report by an Oracle America Inc. expert in Oracle’s intellectual property suit over Google’s Android smartphone operating system, contending that it was “riddled with fatal errors.”
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February 17, 2012
Settlement OK'd In Apple IPhone 4 Antenna MDL
A California federal judge on Friday granted preliminary approval to a multimillion-dollar settlement ending multidistrict litigation claiming that the antenna on Apple Inc.'s iPhone 4 didn't function properly, hampering the phone's reception.
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February 17, 2012
Apple Didn't Step On HTC Smartphone Patent: ITC
The U.S. International Trade Commission on Friday handed Apple Inc. victory in a suit brought by HTC Corp., upholding an administrative law judge's initial determination that Apple hadn't infringed one of HTC's patents covering smartphone technology and ending its investigation.
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February 17, 2012
Harbinger Investors Sue Fund, Falcone Over LightSquared Loss
An investor launched a putative class action against Philip Falcone and his hedge fund Harbinger Capital Partners LLC on Friday, claiming they misled investors by sinking $3 billion into wireless network startup LightSquared Inc., whose conditional operating license was yanked by federal regulators Tuesday.
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February 17, 2012
IBM Defeats Inventor's Trade Secrets Suit
A California federal judge ruled Thursday that an inventor's trade secrets suit against IBM Corp. was time-barred because he couldn't show that his deceased mother, who had temporarily owned his intellectual property, was unaware of the computer giant's alleged misconduct.
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February 17, 2012
Comcast Targets Sprint In Wireless Patent Suit
Philadelphia-based Comcast Cable Communications LLC on Friday launched a suit in Pennsylvania federal court alleging Sprint Nextel Corp. infringes four of its communications system patents.
Expert Analysis
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A Corporate-Friendly Breed Of Private Cloud Services
The growing number of private cloud services that offer the benefits of public cloud computing while providing protections that large corporations seek is being fueled by the goal of cloud service providers to expand their reach into the corporate market and the desire of traditional outsourcing providers to protect market share, say Kavi Grace and Paul Roy of Mayer Brown LLP.
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Deal Market Trends For 2012
While the M&A market recovery lost steam in the second half of 2011, corporations and private funds still have capital to deploy, leading pundits and practitioners alike to be cautiously hopeful that the M&A market in 2012 may show signs of renewed vitality. With that in mind, we look back at 2011 for lessons learned in the M&A space with implications for the coming year, say David Fox and Daniel Wolf of Kirkland & Ellis LLP.
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An Intellectual Asset Management Program For SMEs
Current enterprise software systems tend to be designed around the needs of large enterprises. The goals of our operating system are to allow the extraction of more value from a small- to medium-sized entity’s intellectual capital, manage costs of patent procurement and maintenance, and obtain meaningful offensive and defensive strategic advantage from patents, say attorneys with Miles & Stockbridge PC .
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Law School, Meet Litigation PR ...
The single most important thing law schools can do to manage their reputations in the face of litigation is apply the lessons learned from Wall Street during the recent financial crisis and strive for transparency in all communications. One need only look to Goldman Sachs’ woes or the struggles of Jon Corzine’s MF Global as examples of the catastrophic results of a campaign based on anything but complete honesty, says Spencer Baretz of Hellerman Baretz Communications.
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Facilitating The Federal Transition To The Cloud
The Federal Risk and Authorization Management Program's recently released concept of operations suggests that its new regime for cloud service authorization may slow down agencies’ anticipated timelines for transitioning to the cloud as the Joint Authorization Board and FedRAMP Project Management Office work to become fully operational, say attorneys with McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP.
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Why Competition Fails In The Online Advertising Market
People should care about Google Inc.'s dominance of the online advertising marketplace not because advertisers are facing monopoly pricing — although that is a policy concern — but because Google’s business model is based on systematically stripping away user privacy to maintain its dominance, says Nathan Newman of Tech-Progress.org.
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Steve Jobs — Not The Best Patent Litigation Role Model
It has been written that Steve Jobs was prepared to use Apple Inc.’s significant patent portfolio to completely shut down Google Inc.'s Android, which he considered a direct rip-off of Apple’s iPhone. Taking an unreasonably hard stance like this in patent litigation will result in two potentially unpleasant outcomes for the patent owner, says David Mixon of Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP.
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IP Due Diligence: Tips For Emerging Growth Cos.
The fact that an emerging growth firm possesses some intellectual property tells investors only so much — it is critical to assess the strength and value of the target’s specific holdings, linking the assumptions in the investment and valuation analysis with the reality of the IP assets, says Moshe Malina, chief patent counsel with Citigroup Inc.
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Preempting Patent Litigation With 3rd-Party Submissions
The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office's recently proposed rules regarding third-party preissuance submissions and citation of prior art and written statements provide additional strategies for avoiding litigation by preventing the issuance of a patent or invalidating an issued patent, say Margaret Ives and Eric Marandett of Choate Hall & Stewart LLP.
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Info Gathering In The Google Age: Notes On The SCA
The focus on Google Inc.'s updated privacy policies and terms of service highlights the increasing relevance of a vestige of the pre-Internet Age that most computer users have never heard of: the Stored Communications Act, says Stephen Juris of Morvillo Abramowitz Grand Iason Anello & Bohrer PC.