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Texas Judge Orders Microsoft To Stop Selling Word In The US
Headline Legal News |
2009/08/13 16:39
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Courthouse News reports a federal judge in Texas fined Microsoft $290 million and ordered it to stop selling Word in the United States, because the word-processing software violates a patent held by a small company called i4i. Toronto-based i4i, which has about 30 employees, said Microsoft violated a patent tied to Extensible Markup Language or XML, a special alphabet that allows computers to interpret text.
The Canadian company filed a patent for a "customized XML" tool in 1998.
Because Word 2003 and Word 2007 have the ability to process XML documents with custom XML elements, i4i accused Microsoft of patent infringement. Microsoft insisted the patent was invalid.
In May, a jury ruled for i4i and awarded it $200 million in damages.
Microsoft moved for judgment despite the verdict, but US District Judge Leonard Davis in Tyler, Texas, sided with i4i, saying Microsoft knowingly infringed on the smaller company's patent. |
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Top Madoff Aid Pleads Guilty
Headline Legal News |
2009/08/12 18:57
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According to the New York Law Journal, Bernard L. Madoff's right-hand man pleaded guilty Tuesday and is cooperating in the government's investigation into the largest Ponzi scheme in history.
Frank DiPascali Jr. waived indictment and entered guilty pleas to 10 counts in a criminal information before Southern District of New York Judge Richard J. Sullivan. DiPascali admitted he was part of a scheme that cost institutions, individual investors and charities billions of dollars.
In spite of his cooperation with the government and over the objections of both his defense counsel and the prosecution, Sullivan ordered DiPascali to jail immediately.
DiPascali, who began working for Madoff in 1975 and who was described as the company's chief financial officer, said the conspiracy dated back to the early 1980s and that he followed Madoff's lead from the outset. |
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Suspended Boston Cop Sues City
Headline Legal News |
2009/08/06 16:22
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Courthouse News reports that a Boston police officer who called Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. a "banana-eating jungle monkey" in an email he sent to a Boston Globe columnist says the city and its police commissioner violated his rights by suspending him. Justin Barrett sued the city in Federal Court.
Barrett claims he was "off duty from the Boston Police Department, at a private home and using a privately owned computer" when he sent the email.
Police Commissioner Edward Davis suspended Barrett with pay and sent officers to Barrett's home to confiscate his badge and gun.
Barrett says the mayor and police commissioner caused him pain and suffering, mental anguish, emotional distress, post-traumatic stress, sleeplessness, indignities and embarrassment, degradation, injury to reputation, and restrictions on personal freedom.
He wants them enjoined from decreasing, terminating, or withholding any wages or benefits for the duration of the litigation. He also seeks attorney's fees and punitive damages. |
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11-Word Press Snippets Might Violate Copyright
Headline Legal News |
2009/07/30 16:17
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According to Courthouse News, a Danish press-clipping company could be violating copyright by printing out 11-word snippets of news articles, the European Court of Justice ruled.
The Luxembourg-based court remanded the issue to Denmark for a determination on whether the snippets comprise intellectual property.
Media monitoring services company Infopaq International challenged the Danske Dagblades Forening, an association of Danish daily newspapers, over a requirement for permission to distribute 11-word extracts of news stories.
Legal framework for the permission requirement includes the 1979 Berne Convention, the 1994 Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights as administered by the World Trade Organization, and European directives from 1996 and 2001 meant to govern electronic information and protect "European cultural creativity."
Infopaq argued that its process of scanning news articles, converting the data to text and emailing its customers summaries containing the five words before and after a keyword comprise fleeting use that's exempt from the permission requirements. Infopaq also prints out cover sheets with the text snippets.
The Court of Justice said it is up to the national court to determine whether the snippets comprise intellectual property. |
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Sotomayor Running Out Of Potential GOP Support
Headline Legal News |
2009/07/28 16:52
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According to The National Law Journal, the chances are dwindling that a substantial number of Republicans will vote to confirm Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor, after a key GOP senator announced his opposition Monday morning.
Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., ended months of public indecision when he announced he would vote against confirmation, eliminating one of the last, best chances Sotomayor had of winning over prominent conservatives. Sessions, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, had previously said he had concerns about her nomination but had stopped short of saying he would oppose her.
The announcement means the vote on whether to confirm Sotomayor will likely stick close to the partisan divide, continuing the trend of polarization on judicial nominations.
The Judiciary Committee is scheduled to consider Sotomayor's nomination today, and only one Republican member -- Sen. Lindsey Graham, S.C. -- out of the seven on the committee has said he plans to support her. The full Senate is expected to vote on the nomination next week after as many as four days of debate, and five Republicans have pledged their support. |
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Lawyer Says LexisNexis Charges Sneaky Fees
Headline Legal News |
2009/07/24 16:11
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Courthouse News reports that Reed Elsevier, which owns and operates the LesixNexis legal research site, charges subscribers extra fees for searches without warning them, an attorney claims in a federal class action. Andrew Dieden claims subscribers are not informed they must click the "My Lexis" tab before conducting a search, to avoid the extra charges.
Dieden says he logged on to LexisNexis believing his employment law searches were covered under his monthly subscription. But his credit card statements showed extra fees "that turned out to exceed many times the amount" of his subscription, simply because he did not click on the "My Lexis" tab before he began his searches, he says.
Dieden says a LexisNexis representative told him it might be able to reduce or eliminate the additional charges if he agreed to change from a monthly to an annual subscription. When he declined, he says, the company refused to drop the charges.
He seeks actual, statutory and general damages for breach of contract, fraud, negligent misrepresentation and unjust enrichment. |
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Student Athletes Sue NCAA For Profits From Their Images
Headline Legal News |
2009/07/23 17:31
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Courthouse News is reporting that the National Collegiate Athletic Association forced thousands of student athletes to sign away rights to their own images and cheated them of a share in the profits from DVD and video game sales, according to an antitrust class action in Federal Court. Led by former UCLA basketball star Edward O'Bannon, the class claims the NCAA forced students to sign the misleading "Form 08-3a" if they wish to play NCAA sports, which "commercially exploits former student athletes" by giving the NCAA the right to profit from their images without compensation, long after the athletes have left school.
The attorney for Edward O'Bannon, Jon King, believes athletes sign under duress and forms are not explained adequately.
"The athletes are herded into a room and given forms to sign. No one explains anything, there are no lawyers and no one has any idea what's going on. But they sign because they just want to play ball," he said.
The NCAA has acknowledged that student athletes possess a right of publicity. In a September 2008 statement on why the NCAA would not sue CBS over its use of college player information, NCAA President Myles Brand wrote, "In the case of intercollegiate athletics, the right of publicity is held by student-athletes, not the NCAA. We would find it difficult to bring suit over the abuse of a right we don't own."
King believes the NCAA did not expect old players to take action against this statement.
The complaint seeks health insurance for players as well as "additional education or vocational training and pension plans to benefit former student athletes." |
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