A new lawsuit claims the iPhone4 has a defective on-off button. The national class action claims Apple knew about the defect but didn’t disclose it even as it worked with AT&T to sell 2 year contracts. Read more »
According to court documents found by Wired, Apple’s method for detecting water damage in iOS devices may not have provided totally clear-cut evidence. Read more »
The case accusing Apple of fixing ebook prices is heating up. New court documents show that Steve Jobs’ biographer have been dropped from the case but that Jobs himself is still at the center of it. Read more at paidContent »
Injure someone’s feelings online and you or your company can be sued for defamation, no matter how silly the slight. Josh King, of Avvo.com, says such nuisance suits — known by the acroynm SLAPP — stifle free speech. Read more at paidContent »
While Google may see its payments to French publishers as a smart move for its own short-term purposes, the deal is still being seen by many as a payment for links, and that could set a dangerous precedent. Read more »
While Apple hammers Samsung on smartphone and tablet design, Ericsson is accusing the Korean vendor of infringing on its mobile networking and technology patents. The pair’s cross-licensing deal has expired so Ericsson is taking Samsung to court. Read more »
A federal court has found that scanning books for search — which Google was doing for a university project called the Hathi Trust — is clearly covered by the “fair use” principle in copyright law, which could help Google in its own lawsuit with the Authors Guild. Read more »
The implications of Apple’s recent billion-dollar victory over Samsung in a patent-infringement case go beyond the specifics of this particular battle — the reality is the war over software and design patents is bad not just for individual companies but arguably for society as a whole. Read more »
Samsung can easily absorb the $1 billion judgement if Friday’s jury award holds. With a $4.5 billion profit in the second quarter alone, Samsung has the cash to keep fighting. But will the larger patent issues of the verdit will impact its tremendous smartphone momentum? Read more »
In a filing late Wednesday in response to Apple and book publishers, the Department of Justice reiterates its claim that agency pricing and the alleged conspiracy have resulted in “unmistakable consumer harm,” but refuses to release its ebook pricing analysis. Read more at paidContent »
Twitter’s decision to suspend the account of a British journalist raises a host of questions about the company’s behavior, but one of the important ones is to what extent Twitter’s filtering and curation features could make it legally liable for the content flowing through the network. Read more »
Apple’s Siri voice commands for iPhone have made it the target of a patent lawsuit from a university in Taiwan. The school’s lawyers say they are also looking into whether to target similar technology from Microsoft and Google next. Read more »
U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh has abruptly recused herself from a high-profile case in which Facebook had recently proposed to pay at least $10 million to settle accusations that it violated users’ privacy when it used their photos for “sponsored stories” without their permission. Read more at paidContent »
With its channels now officially pulled off the programming guides of Dish’s 14 million U.S. subscribers, AMC gets straight to the point: This dispute has nothing to do with ratings or fees and everything to do with unrelated litigation, the programmer said Saturday night. Read more at paidContent »
The hype surrounding Facebook has rapidly turned sour since the company went public in a media frenzy last Friday. Read more »
Attempts by various levels of government both in the U.S. and around the world to track dissidents through social networks has put pressure on companies like Twitter to comply with these court orders — but Twitter seems determined to uphold its users rights whenever possible. Read more »
Apple says it had to cut an agency-pricing deal with publishers in order to weaken Amazon’s monopolistic control over the e-book industry. But wait — didn’t Apple behave exactly the same way towards the record labels as it is accusing Amazon of behaving towards book publishers? Read more »
Last month, AT&T fought and lost a lawsuit over whether its throttling policies violated the terms of “unlimited” smartphone contracts. Matt Spaccarelli was awarded $850 for his efforts, but neither side is letting the issue drop. Read more »
The ultimate outcome of the Department of Justice’s case against Apple and five major book publishers over alleged price fixing and collusion in e-books is unknown, but it seems obvious that prices are likely to go down — and that could be a good thing for publishers. Read more »
Apple filed a complaint earlier this week in a federal court in San Jose citing two patents and asking for an injunction against the Korean electronics maker. One of the patents at issue concerns the spelling and autocorrect feature found on iPhone and iPad devices. Read more »
Airvana is suing Ericsson for $330 million, claiming the wireless giant has reneged on its licensing deal and is instead selling a “knock-off” version of Airvana’s 3G technology to Verizon Wireless, Sprint and other CDMA operators. Read more »
Groupon has filed suit against two former employees who have recently joined Google. In a lawsuit filed in Illinois last week, Groupon accuses former employees Michael Nolan and Brian Hanna of taking information they learned at Groupon to their new sales jobs at Google Offers. Read more »
Apple scored another victory in its battle with Samsung in Australia, as the South Korean company agreed to a further delay of the launch of its Galaxy Tab 10.1 Android-powered tablet. The tablet now won’t go on sale in Australia until Sept. 29 at the earliest. Read more »
Battles in the mobile ecosystem used to be fought for developers, but now that clear leaders have emerged with Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android operating system, with Windows Phone 7 showing promise for no. 3, the battle has switched to patents. So who has them? Read more »
Social gaming giant Zynga is the subject of a new patent infringement lawsuit, the latest in a string of such claims. Now that Zynga is under a microscope as it moves toward an IPO, will its legal troubles be too much for potential investors to handle? Read more »
Apple could face a number of payouts in South Korea based on its methods of iPhone location information collection and storage. A lawyer who won himself one million South Korean won ($936 U.S.) based on the issue is now looking to help others cash in. Read more »
A class-action lawsuit alleges that Apple conspired with the book industry to implement the “agency model” of pricing, which has kept e-book prices high. But was this an actual conspiracy, or just an attempt by Apple and publishers to compete with Amazon’s dominance in the market? Read more »
After months of legal wrangling, Cablevision and Viacom announced Wednesday they are putting their differences aside. The two companies have reached an agreement to resolve their litigation regarding Cablevision’s Optimum App iPad application. No financial terms of the settlement have been disclosed. Read more »
Apple has been granted a preliminary injunction by a German court, which will effectively prevent the sale of the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 in all countries belonging to the European Union, save the Netherlands. Samsung can still appeal the decision in a few weeks. Read more »
Apple has negotiated an agreement with Samsung that will prevent the South Korean company from selling its Galaxy Tab 10.1 tablet device in Australia, at least until legal proceedings between the two in that country are resolved. The agreement comes after Apple filed for injunction. Read more »
The back-and-forth in the patent dispute between Samsung and Apple continues, with Samsung filing a request for a U.S. import ban against the iPhone, iPad and iPod. The complaint was filed with the ITC on Tuesday and will almost certainly provoke a response in kind. Read more »
The FTC is said to be close to opening an official antitrust inquiry into Google, which would put the search giant right where Microsoft was in the late 1990s — and even if it ultimately wins, the fight could have long-term effects on its ability to compete. Read more »
With patent lawsuits flying around the mobile business like never before, it’s easy to get lost in exciting headlines about billion dollar settlements. But the reality is that the industry is playing a game of mutually assured destruction that could strangle the world’s most exciting technologies. Read more »
Apple filed a motion to intervene in the lawsuit against seven small app developers started by patent holder Lodsys on June 9 related to the use of in-app purchases. If granted, Apple would be added to the Lodsys suit as a defendant and counterclaim plaintiff. Read more »
Patent holder Lodsys is busy suing small developers making apps for Apple’s platform, but it now also faces an incoming complaint of its own. A Michigan analytics firm has filed a declaratory judgment action against Lodsys that could eventually lead to the invalidation of its patents. Read more »
Here’s a phrase PayPal might want to keep in mind as it wages a civil battle against two former executives who defected to Google. Location, location, location. When it comes to employment breach of contract and trade-secret cases, California is a hard state to win in. Read more »
App Store developers who offer in-app purchasing are receiving threats of legal action today. The threats accuse devs of patent infringement regarding Apple’s in-app purchase mechanism, but the patent holder appears to be targeting independent developers individually instead of going after Apple itself. Read more »
Chinese telecom ZTE filed a patent infringement suit against rival Huawei today, a clear response to the multiple international suits Huawei filed against ZTE yesterday. Read more »
For anyone trying to understand why bloggers would give their content for free to a site like The Huffington Post — which is being sued by contributors for as much as $100 million — here’s a related question: Why do some programmers choose to create open-source software? Read more »
Web 2.0 has grown up and is calling in the lawyers. A blogger for The Huffington Post has launched a class-action arguing that writers — who agreed to provide content without pay — should get a share of the $315 million it got from AOL. Read more »
