Lawsuit

AT&T takes its Aio prepaid service nationwide

After testing out its new prepaid mobile brand in several states, AT&T is making Aio Wireless available online to the whole country. The service targets T-Mobile customers, setting off a hissing match between the two carriers.

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Apple may have won, but software patents are still evil

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.

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Samsung’s exposure: It can survive the Apple hit

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?

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DOJ compares Apple and publishers to big oil in ebooks case

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.

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AMC: “Dish never even talked rates with us”

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.

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Apple slams Amazon for behaving just like Apple

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?

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DoJ warning means one thing: E-book prices are coming down

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.

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Apple sues Samsung over autocorrect, other iOS patents

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.

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Groupon sues ex-employees who left for Google

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.

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Stat Shot: Ranking the mobile patent powerhouses

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?

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Did Apple conspire with publishers to keep e-book prices high?

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?

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Cablevision and Viacom settle iPad app lawsuit

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.

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Apple lawsuit stalls sales of Galaxy Tab in Australia

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.

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Apple antes up in Lodsys developer lawsuits

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.

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Indie Devs Get Hit With Lawsuit Threats Over In-App Purchases

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.

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Blogging for HuffPo Is Like Writing Open-Source Code

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?

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More Lawsuits Threaten California Solar Projects

Here comes another lawsuit about a giant solar farm in California. Western Watershed Project has filed a lawsuit against the federal government over its approval of BrightSource Energy’s Ivanpah project in the Mojave Desert.

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Apple Fights Back in Motorola Legal Battle

Apple has filed suit against Motorola, claiming the Droid-maker infringed on patents held by Apple relating to smartphone technologies. It’s a return fire gesture by Cupertino, since Motorola filed suit first against Apple last month, claiming it had violated 18 patents.

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Motorola Only the Latest of Apple’s Many Legal Woes

Today, Motorola filed suit regarding three complaints against Apple over patent infringements. The complaints deal with antenna design and other associated smartphone technologies covered in 18 patents held by Motorola. But that’s only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Apple’s legal problems.

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Skyhook Sues Google in a Location Battle Royale

Skyhook Wireless, the company that determines location via surrounding Wi-Fi signals, has sued Google for patent infringement and for interfering with its business. The move is part of an effort to control location data as the mobile web becomes the platform for the next generation of technology.

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Lawsuit Doesn’t Deter Hurt Locker File Sharing

Academy Award winner The Hurt Locker has proven to be a hit among file sharers, even a year after it was first released — so much so that a lawsuit targeting BitTorrent users sharing the file has failed to impact the number of users downloading it.

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RapidShare Wins in Court

A German appeals court recently dismissed a lower court verdict against Switzerland-based one-click host site RapidShare, noting that the company can’t be…

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Yelp Changes Features to Address Extortion Claims

Though Yelp steadfastly denies allegations — and now lawsuits — that its salespeople pressure businesses to buy advertising to remove negative reviews, the company tonight addressed them head-on. Specifically, it will become more transparent about its filtering process and give less favorable treatment to advertisers.

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Imeem Fined $1.77M — More Than Its Sale Price

A U.S. district court judge has fined music site Imeem $1.77 million after it failed to appear in court to respond to a copyright infringement lawsuit. The suit had been partially to blame for the company selling its assets to MySpace for less than $1 million.

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Copyright Lawsuit Against PornoTube Withdrawn

The owners of the X-rated YouTube clone PornoTube.com won’t have to bare it all in court, after all: Porn powerhouse Vivid dropped its copyright infringement lawsuit against PornoTube owner Data Conversions Inc., also known as the Adult Entertainment Broadcasting Network (AEBN), earlier this week.

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iBeer v. iPint: The Beer Battle Lawsuit

When I first got my iPhone 3G, I downloaded many, many, ridiculous novelty apps of questionable utility. To this day, friends still…

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Yet Another Lawsuit Involving YouTube

GraphOn, a company that creates remote application access software has filed a lawsuit against Google claiming that a number of Google products including YouTube infringe on GraphOn’s patents.

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