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April 18, 2014
2nd Circ. Won't Rehear $1B Antitrust Suit Against Microsoft
The Second Circuit on Thursday refused to reconsider its decision affirming the dismissal of MiniFrame Ltd.'s $1 billion antitrust suit against Microsoft Corp. on the grounds that the Israeli PC-sharing software company failed to show that Microsoft’s Windows licensing rules constituted anti-competitive conduct.
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April 18, 2014
Proview's LCD Antitrust Suit Trimmed Of Federal Claims
A California federal judge on Friday tossed Proview Technology Inc.’s federal claim against Chi Mei Corp. in multidistrict litigation alleging that Chi Mei and others sold price-fixed liquid crystal display panels, ruling that PTI was an indirect purchaser that does not have standing to sue.
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April 18, 2014
Samsung Experts Debunk Study Behind Apple's $2B Damages
Two Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. experts tore apart a consumer study Apple Inc. used to justify a $2.19 billion damages demand in its patent trial against Samsung, saying Friday that the study doesn't show consumers bought smartphones because of the patented features Samsung allegedly copied.
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April 18, 2014
Apple Knocked For 'Patent Troll' Proxy War Against Google
The massive nonpracticing entity Rockstar Consortium US LP appears to be designed by Apple Inc. to interfere with rival Google Inc.'s Android software business, a judge said Thursday, in a decision an expert says shows that Apple is behaving like a patent troll despite decrying the tactics of such companies.
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April 18, 2014
Court Sides With USPTO Over Refusal To Grant AIA Reviews
A Virginia federal judge on Friday nixed an attempt by a company that makes software for auto dealerships to overturn a decision by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office not to conduct an inter partes review of several disputed patents, finding that Congress intended to keep appeals of such decisions out of district court.
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April 18, 2014
ACLU Seeks To Open Up Gov't Bid To Muzzle Twitter, Yahoo
The American Civil Liberties Union on Wednesday made a push to join a dispute over the government's ability to prohibit Twitter Inc. and Yahoo Inc. from disclosing grand jury investigations to users, urging a D.C. federal court to unseal the proceedings and allow the companies to participate.
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April 18, 2014
DirecTV Hit With Patent Suit Over Set-Top Boxes
ViXS Systems Inc. is accusing several technology companies, including Entropic Communications Inc. and DirecTV LLC, of importing set-top boxes and other products that infringe four of its patents, according to a complaint filed Thursday with the U.S. International Trade Commission.
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April 18, 2014
A Guide To Who's Mad About Google's EU Antitrust Deal
Since the European Union's antitrust chief announced he was satisfied with Google Inc.'s latest proposal to settle the bloc's long-running competition probe, everyone from rivals to consumer groups has criticized the deal. Here's a guide to who's not happy.
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April 18, 2014
Apple Prevails In IPhone Power-Button Defect Action
A proposed class action claiming Apple Inc. installed defective power buttons in its iPhone 4 was dismissed Friday by a California federal judge who said the plaintiff couldn't use Florida law to bring a California fraud claim.
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April 18, 2014
$9.5B Of Venture Capital Injected In Q1, PwC Says
Venture capitalists invested $9.5 billion in 951 deals in the first quarter of 2014 — the highest quarterly total in over a decade — with software and biotechnology companies leading the pack as the most-attractive venture capital investments, according to a report released Friday by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP.
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April 18, 2014
GoDaddy's 'Bad Judgment' DQ Bid Not Sanctionable: Judge
A California federal judge on Friday blasted GoDaddy Inc.’s now-failed bid to disqualify the judge overseeing a cybersquatting suit against it as an extremely bad judgment call, but ruled it was not made in bad faith to justify sanctioning the web host.
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April 18, 2014
Greenberg Traurig Adds Data Security Pro From Wilson Elser
Greenberg Traurig LLP has strengthened its privacy and data security group and its intellectual property and technology practice in Chicago with the addition of a shareholder from Wilson Elser Moskowitz Edelman & Dicker LLP, the firm said Wednesday.
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April 18, 2014
Vimpelcom To Sell $2.6B Orascom Stake To End Tax Case
Russian communications company Vimpelcom Ltd. will sell a 51 percent stake in Orascom Telecom Algerie SpA for $2.6 billion to Algeria's national investment fund, ending a tax dispute between the companies and the Algerian government, Vimpelcom said Friday.
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April 18, 2014
How The High Court Can Avoid Collateral Damage In Aereo
A defeat for Aereo Inc. in its U.S. Supreme Court battle with broadcasters could pose a big threat to the world of cloud computing, the company and others have claimed. With arguments in the case set for Tuesday, Law360 examines if the justices can shut down Aereo without causing problems in the cloud.
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April 18, 2014
ITC Bars Imports Of Infringing Optoelectronic Devices
The U.S. International Trade Commission on Thursday upheld a finding that three fiber optic companies had infringed on patents owned by Avago Technologies Fiber IP (Singapore) Pte. Ltd. by importing certain optoelectronic devices, placing a limited exclusion order on some of the products.
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April 18, 2014
Deals Rumor Mill: Sprint, Virtu Financial, Apollo
A prospective merger between Sprint and T-Mobile could prompt regulators to reshape rules in the leadup to a big-ticket airwave auction set for 2015, while Virtu Financial yanked plans for an April IPO amid blowback sparked by a new book that criticizes high-frequency trading.
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April 18, 2014
Tech Workers Want Steve Jobs Evidence Kept In Poaching Suit
A class of tech employees urged a California federal court on Thursday to deny a bid by Apple Inc., Google Inc. and other tech companies to limit evidence in an upcoming trial over their alleged conspiracy to suppress wages and not compete for each others' workers, arguing that the tech giants' request to bar statements about Steve Jobs' character was overbroad.
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April 18, 2014
Intellectual Ventures Expert Barred Ahead Of Xilinx Trial
Less than a month before trial, a Delaware federal judge has ruled that patent acquisition firm Intellectual Ventures Management LLC will not be allowed to present critical damages testimony from its expert witness in an infringement suit against semiconductor maker Xilinx Inc., according to documents unsealed Thursday.
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April 18, 2014
Red-Hot Matrix Partners Gets $350M For 3rd China Fund
Matrix Partners, a venture capital firm in the midst of one of its best years ever, said Friday that it closed its third fund aimed at investments in China's technology, media and telecommunications sectors with $350 million in commitments.
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April 18, 2014
Telus Puts Up $350M In Latest Mobilicity Merger Attempt
Canada's Telus Corp. is making another run at struggling wireless provider Mobilicity, this time in a $350 million deal unveiled late Thursday that the companies insist will not roil regulators that have previously halted two of the companies' tie-up bids.
Expert Analysis
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Mobile Enforcement Continues To Be APPealing To FTC
Since the Federal Trade Commission announced its first enforcement action involving a mobile app back in 2011, the commission has actively brought privacy cases against app developers under Section 5 of the FTC Act. Oftentimes, the FTC's actions came from a disconnect between the privacy policies and actions a mobile app or device took, which may have resulted from an update without alerting consumers, say Alysa Hutnik and Crystal Skelton of Kelley Drye & Warren LLP.
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The Future Of Law Firm PR: The Good, Bad And Ugly
There has been a dramatic change in how public relations professionals interact with the news media to promote or protect a law firm’s brand and reputation. But content is queen and has a bright future in law firm PR — it all begins with a plan that should include goals, performance indicators and a system of assessment, say Paul Webb, director of marketing at Young Conaway Stargatt & Taylor LLP, and Kathy O'Brien, senior vice president at Jaffe PR.
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Connected Cars Collide With Consumer Privacy
Some predict "connected cars" will generate revenue of more than $25 billion in 2014 and more than $130 billion in 2019. But before automakers, mobile app developers and others in the connected car ecosystem can cash in, legislators and regulators have difficult data privacy issues to address, says Nancy Libin, a partner at Wilkinson Barker Knauer LLP and former chief privacy and civil liberties officer of the U.S. Department of Justice.
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Antitrust Guidance On Cybersecurity Reaffirms Old Approach
Though the antitrust agencies’ recent policy statement on cybersecurity information-sharing is consistent with prior guidance, it is significant. It is not likely that cybersecurity legislation will become law anytime soon, and this statement responds to industry’s concerns by clearly establishing that properly designed and executed cyberthreat information-sharing does not raise antitrust concerns, say Jamillia Padua Ferris and Paul Tiao of Hunton & Williams LLP.
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A New Dimension In IP Law: 3-D Printing
The new world of 3-D printing raises many new and old questions about how to use intellectual property as part of a business model. Utility patents, copyrights, design patents and trade dress offer relevant, adaptable protection options, and each has its own set of pros, cons and considerations, say Paige Stradley and George Lewis of Merchant & Gould.
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Baidu Ruling Reinforces Search Engine Immunity
The ruling by the Southern District of New York in Zhang v. Baidu strongly supports the principle that search engines and e-commerce sites are immune from legal claims based on how they retrieve, present and rank information and products. This result is particularly important because high rankings on Google, Amazon and other powerful search engines are critical for companies conducting e-commerce, says Joshua Fowkes of Arent Fox LLP.
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Reading Between The Whistleblower Headlines
The meteoric media rise of the “celebrity” whistleblower has shone a spotlight on the practice, with personalities such as Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden dividing public opinion on the ethics of spilling secrets. But organizations should pay close attention to the surge in this trend beyond the headlines. Remember, whistleblowers don’t need to be popular to be effective, and opinions on their motives and morality are entirely secondary to the critical issues they potentially uncover, says Shanti Atkins of Navex Global.
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Home Entertainment Market Offers Opportunity And Peril
The emergence of “smart” technology is opening new avenues for advertisers and media and entertainment companies to reach consumers at home and provide them with content and services in a new interactive, direct and personalized manner. But companies must be aware of the potential dangers in this space and take certain steps to ensure transparency in their data collection efforts, says F. Paul Pittman of Sedgwick LLP.
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Heartbleed Rains On The Legal Cloud Parade
While the actual breaches are unknown, Heartbleed has the potential to expose all of a lawyer's files stored or transmitted online. The bug raises professional responsibility questions and offers confirmation of the greatest anxieties that the legal industry has about online practice. In fact, the timing is poor for many legal tech providers, following a general industry warming to cloud offerings, says David Houlihan of Blue Hill Research Inc.
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'Internet Of Things' 101: Legal Concerns
The "Internet of Things" — a decentralized network of “smart” objects — is only just beginning to change the way people live and work in the U.S. and around the world. The possibilities seem infinite. But the challenges to legal and policy concerns may yet prove even more difficult than the hurdles of science and engineering that brought us here, say Philip Blum and Bryan Goff of Bingham McCutchen LLP.