News Byte

ITC Says Apple Didn’t Violate Samsung’s Patents

Apple has prevailed over Samsung in another of the two companies’ legal battles. In a preliminary ruling issued Friday, an International Trade Commission judge found that Apple has not violated the four patents that Samsung asserted against it in 2011, denying the Korean company’s request for a sales ban on allegedly infringing products. The ruling will be reviewed by the full commission in January. Yet another blow to Samsung, which suffered a sweeping courtoom loss to Apple in August.

Facebook’s Social Ad Strategy Suffers Legal Blow

In a ruling that could have significant implications for Facebook’s business, a district court judge has denied Facebook’s request to throw out a lawsuit by users upset about being featured in its advertisements.

Voices

TiVo Soars on Ruling in Dish Network Case

TiVo Inc. stock was up 35 percent in afternoon trading Wednesday after a federal appeals court upheld a ruling that would force satellite broadcaster Dish Network to shut down millions of digital video recorders because they were found to have infringed upon TiVo Inc. patents.

Winklevii: How Can We Miss You If You Won't Go Away? (Plus the Full Court Ruling)

It seems Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, the Don Quixote twins of the digital age, have tilted at yet another legal windmill unsuccessfully. So now, after losing another court challenge to overturn a previous court challenge, they’ll have to settle for $65 million. Actually, $100 million, which is how much shares in Facebook have appreciated since the pair and also Divya Narendra settled with the social networking giant.

News Byte

Court Undoes Microsoft Win in Patent Case

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled today to reinstate a jury decision from an April case that found Microsoft’s anti-piracy software installation system infringed a patent held by Uniloc Singapore Private Ltd. The judge in the original case had thrown out the jury’s finding. The court also ruled, though, that a new trial is required to determine how much Microsoft should pay, stating that the jury’s $388 million award to Uniloc was “fundamentally tainted.”

How Much Copyright Infringement Can You Cram Into a Single Tweet?

If you run a user-generated content site, takedown notices from copyright holders are a fact of life. That even goes for Twitter, where messages are limited to 140 characters of text. The site received on the order of 300 takedown notices in the last month.

Viacom Asks for a Do-Over on YouTube

As promised, here’s Viacom’s appeal in the YouTube copyright case, where a federal court ruled overwhelmingly in Google’s favor earlier in the year.

Going, Going: LimeWire Shutters Online Store, Too

LimeWire, the high-profile file-sharing company, more or less shut down in October, following a federal court ruling. But the last bits of the company seem to be going away: Its online music store will be shuttered at the end of the month, and I’m told that plans to launch a new music service have been shelved.

Ellison to Self: Damn, Damn. I Knew I Should Have Said $4.5 Billion

Whatever damages Oracle is awarded in its suit against SAP, they’ll be $500 million lighter, thanks to an order by the judge presiding over the case.

Hollywood Groups Weigh In on FCC Internet Reclassification

An alphabet soup of entertainment-industry groups submitted filings to the Federal Communications Commission today as part of its request for comment on a framework for broadband services. Specifically, whether or not to reclassify the Internet as a telecommunications service, which would trigger all kinds of juicy regulatory power. There are all kind of complex issues at stake, from net neutrality to piracy to open Internet to broadband access.

Court Kills Preposterous Pirate Beatles Site

Sprint Nextel Silences iPCS