Yesterday, Judge Denise Cote of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, in a 56-page decision, denied Apple’s motion to dismiss the federal antitrust complaint filed against it, which alleged that Apple spearheaded a conspiracy among e-book publishers to fix e-book prices by introducing “agency pricing” where the publisher, not the […]
This morning, Google and Oracle, with the permission of the judge, reached a stipulation, agreeing, among other things, to leave the question of damages out of the jury’s hands. As of now, the jury has found two counts of copyright infringement by Google, for nine lines of rangeCheck code and eight decompiled Java files. The […]
This week, Judge Lucy Koh of the U.S. District Court for Northern District of California, ordered Apple and Samsung to pare down their list of complaints against one another. Judge Koh gave the parties until Monday to present a reasonable number of complaints to be presented in front of the jury at trial, scheduled to […]
Last week, the House of Representatives passed the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA) by a vote of 248 to 168. The bill will allow (but not require) private companies to provide the government with the private information they collect, and the government may access and use this information without a warrant. Originally, the […]
The U.S. Department of Justice filed a federal antitrust complaint against Apple and Hachette, HarperCollins, MacMillan, Simon & Shuster, Pearson, and Penguin, alleging e-book price fixing in violation of the Sherman Act. According to the complaint, after unsuccessfully trying to pressure Amazon into raising its e-book prices, the publishing companies found common cause with Apple. The […]
This week, President Obama’s campaign staff opened a Pinterest account. So far, the eight boards up feature typical Pinterest fare,with a political twist: Obama-themed cupcakes, clothing, someone’s decorated fingernails. The “Pet Lovers for Obama” board, featuring adorable animals (another Pinterest must), may or may not be a dig at Mitt Romney, who strapped the family […]
According to the Dow Jones report, Apple has put forth settlement proposals to Motorola Mobility (recently acquired by Google) and Samsung, two of the largest manufacturers of Android devices. The proposed settlement would involve royalty fees of $5 to $15 per device. Meanwhile, Samsung has filed a new patent infringement claim against Apple in South […]
On January 23, the U.S. Supreme Court issued three concurring opinions in U.S. versus Jones, two of which express strong concerns about government use of ostensibly public information about private citizens. As it turns out, the FBI hasn’t been idle either, and the Supreme Court’s worries aren’t at all theoretical. On January 19, the FBI […]
This Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court announced its decision in U.S. v. Jones, both addressing and evading key concepts of privacy in relation to the Fourth Amendment and the ways in which emerging technology affects such privacy. The Fourth Amendment, which protects people from unreasonable searches and seizures “in their persons, houses, papers, and effects,” is […]
This week, Quanta Computer Inc. sued Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), Inc. in federal court in the Northern District of California. Quanta is a Taiwan-based contract manufacturer of notebook computers, which assembles notebooks for companies such as HP, Dell, and Acer. In its complaint, Quanta alleged that AMD sold defective chips that Quanta used in manufacturing […]
