Articles about The Law

The European Union's Competition Commission surely isn’t on Microsoft’s Christmas gift list. Antitrust regulators are investigating the Redmond, Wash.-based corporation anew. The software giant allegedly failed to comply with a 2009 EU antitrust commitment to give Windows users option to choose their browser.

Microsoft is supposed to provide Windows users with a “browser ballot”. But that ballot is missing from Windows 7 Service Pack 1 and has been, for many users, for nearly 18 months.

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Microsoft and Motorola Mobility pulled back from their bitter patent dispute in the courts, as both sides joined together Tuesday to ask for a temporary stay to all ongoing patent disputes in the US District Court for the Western District of Washington. This involves three cases currently being heard by that court, and refocuses arguments on so-called FRAND (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory) licensing terms.

Motorola is accused -- not only by Microsoft, but by other targets of the company's patent suits -- of attempting to demand too high royalties for standards essential patents. The company's efforts have frustrated judges, too, with one publicly admonishing both Motorola and Microsoft of using the courts to gain an upper hand in negotiations.

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Word of advice to cloud service providers: Don't get caught with your hand in the cookie jar. The Wall Street Journal reports that Google and the US Federal Trade Commission will soon announce a $22.5 million settlement. Google bypassed privacy settings on Apple’s Safari web browser, a practice later stopped, after being contacted by the Journal nearly six months ago.

Independent researchers found that of the top 100 websites, 22 installed the tracking code on a desktop computer, while on 23 sites code was successfully installed on the iPhone. Safari blocks such cookie tracking by default. At the time, Google claimed that the user tracking did not have any negative side-effects on its users, but that's hard to measure. Surely, advertisers benefited from the practice.

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I'm ashamed of Apple, and myself for giving anything to iPhone today. To celebrate iPhone's fifth anniversary, I asked BetaNews writers to offer missives based on their experience using the handset. We published Wayne Williams' story on Wednesday, another by Chris Wright early day and my own this afternoon. Two other stories are in the queue. We'll run them over the weekend, however, instead of today. There's no longer any sense of birthday celebration in these halls.

Today, US District Judge Lucy Koh gave Apple a great gift for iPhone's fifth, that I see as anything but. Apple's preliminary injunction against the Samsung-manufactured, Google-branded Galaxy Nexus is an outrage and demonstrates how far fallen is Steve Jobs' company from the innovative spirit that brought iPhone to market. The original set the smartphone market ablaze and brought Apple to unimagined success as seen from 2007. There was a time when Apple innovated rather than litigated and up-ended so-called copycats by making bold, breath-taking successor products. But that Apple is gone, buried with Jobs, who sadly left this world last year.

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Over the weekend, I got to thinking more about the role of the Federal Communications Commission.

You see, last week, the Supreme Court, in an eight-to-zero ruling, struck down fines that the FCC had issued to Fox Television and ABC Broadcasting. The judges found violations of “fleeting” indecency standards by Fox and ABC to be void. However, the Court sidestepped the broadcasters' protest of First Amendment rights, ruling on the matter as an issue of basic fairness and due process of the FCC fines as 5th and 14th amendment breaches instead.

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One thing I have to say about US District Judge Richard Posner, he doesn't mince words. He's direct and cutting. If only there were more jurists like him on the bench. Cut he did today, in an order slicing Apple and Motorola to bits -- but the fruit-logo company he turned to mush. In a 38-page opinion and order, the judge effectively ended Apple's patent lawsuit against Motorola. Apple can appeal, but it's finished presenting before Posner.

"It would be ridiculous to dismiss a suit for failure to prove damages and allow the plaintiff to refile the suit so that he could have a second chance to prove damages", he writes. "This case is therefore dismissed with prejudice; a separate order to that effect is being entered today". Ouch.

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Patent bullying and ongoing competition by litigation and intimidation are reasons why. For me the last straw came earlier this week when Apple sought to ban importation of Samsung Galaxy S III (the request for preliminary injunction is before a judge and a ruling could come as early as next week). The phone launched in 28 countries on May 29 and goes on sale from five US carriers within the next 30 days. Many tech reviewers and pundits have called Galaxy S III an iPhone 4S killer. Apple doesn't have a competitive product in market so instead seeks to block Samsung's -- all under the guise of protecting innovations.

Apple is an amazing marketer that manages perceptions very well. One of these regards innovation and the idea that other companies imitate Apple, often badly, and its trendy ideas must be protected. Perception is one thing. Reality is another. Apple isn't as innovative as its corporate "reality distortion field" would have everyone believe. But the company has gotten quite good at something: Unleashing a torrent of suits to secure patents and to defend them -- and many cover processes that should never have been awarded patents in the first place. Apple has gotten quite good at gaming the patent system. I want no part of it.

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Oracle CEO Larry Ellison may have felt like king of the world Wednesday night as he announced his company's move to the cloud, but today he's likely licking his wounds: Oracle's case against Google over Android's use of Java is essentially dead.

Judge William Alsup ruled Thursday that Oracle could not assert copyright claims on Google for 37 different Java APIs used within Android. Alsup ruled that only the code within, and not the way they are used, are subject to copyright claims.

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What's the measure of Facebook's IPO? MBAOnline sent us a couple of infographics explaining just that (see them below the fold). But I must qualify that they don't take into account downward trends and some nasty behind-the-scenes backstabbing. Late yesterday, writing for Reuters, Alistair Barr reports that ahead of Facebook's Friday IPO, lead underwriter Morgan Stanley reduced revenue forecasts during the roadshow promoting the public offering. JPMorgan Chase and Goldman Sachs did similarly.

Fallen dot-com stock analyst and risen tech news publisher Henry Blodget adds perspective. "This by itself is highly unusual (I've never seen it during 20 years in and around the tech IPO business)", he observes. "But, just as important, news of the estimate cut was passed on only to a handful of big investor clients, not everyone else who was considering an investment in Facebook". Uh-oh, selective disclosure violates SEC rules.

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Today, the European Union's Competition Commission set the stage for an antitrust showdown with Google by offering settlement ahead of four pending violations. Proposal would come from the search giant, which initial response suggests resolution won't be easy.

The case revolves around a nearly two-year old effort to determine if Google abuses its dominant position in search. Some of these concerns involve the Mountain View, Calif. company's near-stranglehold of the web advertising market, of which the European Commission received several complaints.

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Could it be true? Are the courts finally tired of the never-ending patent disputes in Silicon Valley? If the statements made by two judges over the past week are an indication, yes.

This frustration was on display Monday in a Seattle court room as Federal Judge James Robart accused both Microsoft and Motorola of "hubris" and "arrogance" in their ongoing patent dispute, and using the courts to gain the upper hand in licensing negotiations, according to GeekWire's Todd Bishop, who was on hand for the proceedings.

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Apple shot back at critics and the Justice Department late Thursday, denying claims that it colluded with publishers to keep the price of ebooks artificially high. Even more interesting? The Cupertino, Calif. company took a veiled shot at Amazon, saying its actions were necessary to break up the retailer's monopolistic grip on the industry.

These claims are interesting considering the same argument can be made against many of Apple's own key businesses. The Cupertino, Calif. company controls 70 percent of media downloads according to Nielsen, while Gartner says Apple's iPad holds 61 percent of the tablet market. The App Store makes a dollar for every 23 cents generated by Google Play, according to mobile advertising firm Flurry. By what measure is monopoly then?

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Attorneys General in 16 states filed suit against Apple and three publishing companies Wednesday, following a similar suit filed this morning by the US Justice Department. Unlike the federal suit, the states action also looks for monetary compensation in addition to the end of the collusive agreements between Apple and the publishers.

Connecticut and Texas lead the action, and are joined by Attorneys General in Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Vermont and West Virginia and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico.

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In December 2010 I asked: "Is someone fixing ebook prices?" Google's digital bookstore opened for business, and I started comparing prices only to find them fairly consistent across all retailers. I expected to see huge variances, not pricing consistency, which shouldn't be in a competitive market but is systematic of one where businesses conspire to "fix" prices.

I wasn't alone wondering about this abnormal consistency. After weeks of rumors, today, the US Justice Department filed a lawsuit against Apple and five publishers. The antitrust enforcement agency accuses them of colluding to fix ebook prices, thus impeding competition and, more importantly, consumer choice.

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The US Justice Department accuses AT&T of defrauding the government, alleging the carrier improperly billed for services intended for the hard of hearing. The system has become a method through which scammers, many from Nigeria, make purchases using stolen credit cards and fraudulent checks.

Called IP Relay, the service allows the hard of hearing to place phone calls to a hearing individual relayed by messages sent over the Internet. A call center operator then relays the message to the called person. A former worker in one of AT&T's call centers had already filed a whistleblower suit over the matter.

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