Articles about Lawsuit

Sony is facing another patent infringement suit, this time involving its Blu-ray high definition disc technology.

According to court documents, the electronics maker was sued earlier this month by Target Technology, saying Blu-ray infringes on patents held on reflective-layer materials on optical discs. The patent was filed in April 2004 and granted in March 2006.

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A patent granted in 1994 to Compaq for an adaptation of its 16-bit EISA system bus architecture -- which Compaq co-created, but which was already becoming outmoded by 1994 -- is among four patents amended last Thursday to Hewlett-Packard's list of alleged infringement subjects, in its ongoing patent battle against oncoming competitor Acer.

Patent #5,353,415, for "Method and apparatus for concurrency of bus operations," explains how a computer's cache interface logic can be used to make posting cycles that would normally wait for one another in sequence, make room for one another in alternating concurrency. The technology is an outgrowth of Compaq's early work in pioneering the first 16-bit expansion busses.

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Claiming victory on behalf of fair use provisions of US Copyright Law, the Electronic Frontier Foundation - which had served as a mediator - announced this afternoon that documentary filmmaker Brave New Films and political activist group MoveOn.org have dismissed their lawsuit against Viacom. This after the content provider giant conceded that demands it had made for YouTube and other video sharing services to remove a promotional parody film the groups co-produced, featuring clips from "The Colbert Report" from Viacom's Comedy Central, was ill-advised and in error.

Letters from Viacom counsel in recent weeks to EFF attorney Fred von Lohmann, posted on EFF's Web site, reveal amendments to Viacom's stated policy for notifying YouTube and others of allegedly infringing video. "Viacom recognizes that the 'fair use' doctrine may permit some use of limited amounts of copyrighted material for specific purposes such as criticism, commentary, teaching or parody."

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A lady in Washington state who apparently purchased a computer in late 2006 bearing the "Vista Capable" sticker, and who only later discovered it was only capable of running Vista Home Basic, has filed a class action lawsuit against Microsoft in her home state, seeking in excess of $5 million.

The lawsuit alleges Microsoft misrepresented the capacity of computers to run all of Vista's purported features, directly citing Acer senior vice president Jim Wong's comments last October that "Premium is the real Vista" as indication that at least one PC maker believed Basic was not the real Vista.

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The San Jose Mercury News this afternoon reports that a US district judge in San Jose has dismissed a case against Google originally filed in March 2006, that alleged its page rankings that pertain to relative placement in search results unfairly rated a particular provider of parenting information lower than other sites in the same category.

This is the second time the case has been dismissed, although Judge Jeremy Fogel has given plaintiff Kinderstart another opportunity to amend and re-file its case yet again.

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In its lawsuit against Google and its YouTube subsidiary which came to light yesterday, Viacom not only alleges that YouTube is guilty of massive copyright infringement by allowing its users to post unauthorized content without restrictions or filtering, but the corporation goes one step further: It accuses YouTube of actually reproducing and posting some unauthorized content itself.

"YouTube itself publicly performs the infringing videos on the YouTube site and other websites," Viacom's lawsuit proclaims. "Thus, YouTube does not simply enable massive infringement by its users. It is YouTube that knowingly reproduces and publicly performs the copyrighted works uploaded to its site."

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In a statement released to wire services early this morning, BlackBerry manufacturer Research in Motion said it has settled its lawsuit with Samsung over its use of the "BlackJack" trademark for handsets sold in the US by Cingular Wireless (now AT&T).

But the exact terms of the settlement are being left private, and those parts of the settlement that were revealed this morning are about as vague as the news of the original lawsuit. Judging from RIM's own words and not Reuters' interpretation of them, it appears AT&T will be permitted to continue to use the trademark on a limited basis.

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The class-action lawsuit filed against Dell Computer on Wednesday makes a complex case, and does not provide much evidence to back up some of its principal pillars other than citing Internet blogs and press reports. Intel is involved, though only peripherally. There are leaps of logic one must take to accept its premises. But whatever the case's outcome, it has already damaged Dell - CEO Kevin Rollins is gone, and Michael Dell is stepping in, perhaps permanently, to run damage control.

There are 241 pages of allegation, but once the long citations of blogs and financial analysts' reports are excised, it's easier to boil down the Dell shareholders' case against their company: The story begins in late 2002, when Dell began a cost-cutting program not unlike so many other companies in the computing field. But the suit alleges the cuts directly and substantively impacted the company's production and service capabilities in ways that the company failed to report.

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The same company whose board of directors now faces the prospects of civil lawsuits from shareholders regarding their recent conduct in investigating the source of boardroom leaks, is now the world’s leading PC producer in both shipments and sales, according to hardware analysis firm iSuppli.

You wouldn’t think it was the same company. According to the latest iSuppli report released this morning, HP’s worldwide unit shipment growth over the third quarter of this year was 16.7%, to 9.86 million units. This gives HP a 16.5% market share in shipments versus Dell’s 16.3% share, with 9.78 million units shipped.

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A Reuters story this morning suggested that Adobe CEO Bruce Chizen, in an interview with the German financial weekly Euro am Sonntag (The Euro on Sunday), threatened to sue Microsoft if it the outcome of antitrust proceedings against that company by the European Commission did not turn out in Adobe's favor.

However, our read of a semi-decent Google translation of the actual interview fails to indicate Chizen made that pointed of a threat.

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In its continuing efforts to stop piracy of its software, Microsoft said Tuesday it had filed another twenty lawsuits in nine states. The Redmond company said the lawsuits were filed for various reasons, including the manufacture and distribution of pirated software, or engaging in "hard-disk loading."

Hard disk loading is the practice of loading unlicensed software onto a computer which is then sold to an unsuspecting consumer. The purchaser usually has no idea that the software on the computer was pirated until a method like Windows Genuine Advantage exposes it as counterfeit.

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Two Washington state businesses and three Seattle residents have filed a second lawsuit against Microsoft over its Windows Genuine Advantage program. The suit alleges that legitimate customers are receiving non-licensed notifications every hour, and seeks class-action status.

According to a copy of the court filing published by the

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Three PC memory manufacturers will pay $160 million to settle an antitrust case brought against them by small to medium sized businesses that purchased chips directly from the companies. Not all have settled, however, with five other defendants set to appear in court in February 2007.

Samsung will pay $67 million, and Infineon $21 million in the class action suit. Hynix would also pay $73 million, but its settlement is not expected to gain approval by the court until next week. In the end, lawyers say total damages could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

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Adware provider 180solutions has voluntarily dropped a lawsuit it filed in November against security software vendor Zone Labs after claiming the company was making "false and misleading statements" about its products.

180solutions did not offer a reason for dismissing the suit; however, the company came under immense public fire after its actions were picked up by the press. Zone Labs' ZoneAlarm tool alerts users to the existence of 180's Zango software, and says it may log keystrokes and track Web sites visited.

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A company that holds patents on the way voice over IP (VoIP) calls are placed said on Friday that it was suing Google over its use of certain technologies within the Google Talk instant message application.

New York-based Rates Technology Inc. has no products. However, it is one of several patent companies now in existence whose entire business is based on collecting royalties from firms that use technologies covered by patents they own.

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