court

The U.S. Supreme Court spent this morning wrestling with an obscure section of copyright law that could curb listings of used DVDs, CDs, books, and even GPS devices through marketplaces including eBay and Amazon.com.

Large copyright holders -- including software companies, the Motion Picture Association of America, and the Recording Industry Association of America -- have urged the court to limit Americans' right to resell legally purchased products manufactured outside the United States.

Many of the justices seemed skeptical. Justice Stephen Breyer suggested that the copyright holders' reading of the law would invoke a parade of "horribles,&… Read more

Days after a strict cybersecurity law went into effect in the Philippines, the country's Supreme Court suspended it.

According to the Associated Press, the court issued a temporary restraining order to freeze the government's enforcement of the Cybercrime Prevention Act 2012. Justice Secretary Leila de Lima said the law will be suspended for 120 days. The court plans to hear oral arguments from the law's supporters and critics in January.

President Benigno Aquino III signed the law last month and it became official last week. There were no reports of anyone violating the law.

Thousands of people … Read more

The long-standing warrantless spying case ended at the hands of the Supreme Court today. After six years of working its way up through the courts, the Electronic Frontier Foundation's lawsuit against the National Security Agency -- which aimed to hold telecom companies liable for allowing government eavesdropping on U.S. residents -- was terminated.

The Supreme Court declined to review a lower court ruling on the case today, closing the door on further appeals. Its decision did not address the merits of the case.

Hepting v. AT&T was a class-action suit filed by the American Civil Liberties … Read more

A military appeals court will be asked tomorrow to decloak the prosecution of Bradley Manning, an Army private accused of handing thousands of classified documents to Wikileaks.

Prosecutors have insisted on intense secrecy in the case. No transcripts of the legal proceedings have been published. No court orders have been disclosed. To date, even the government's written legal arguments remain off-limits to the public.

So far, at least, military courts have been perfectly happy to accede to those requests in Manning's court martial. A trial judge, Denise Lind, rejected requests for access to the records, as did the … Read more

Facebook has asked a federal court to dismiss a $15 billion privacy lawsuit because the Facebook users suing the social network didn't specify how they were injured by the company's actions, Bloomberg reported today.

The suit, filed in May, accuses Facebook of violating user privacy by tracking which Web sites the users visit even when they're logged out of Facebook.

Matthew Brown, a lawyer representing Facebook, told a U.S. district judge in court in San Jose, Calif., that the plaintiffs haven't said which sites they've visited, what kind of data was collected, or whether … Read more

Facebook's wishes have been granted, at least for now. The dozens of lawsuits brought against the social network over its bungled initial public offering have been consolidated and will be heard before one federal judge in New York, according to Reuters.

Approximately 50 lawsuits have been brought against the social network, some of its underwriters, and the Nasdaq exchange. Earlier today, a panel of federal judges ruled that all of these cases will be collected throughout the U.S. and transferred to U.S. District Judge Robert Sweet in Manhattan.

According to Reuters, Facebook said that it was pleased … Read more

Apple and Research In Motion can now intervene in Kodak's efforts to reinstate its patent case against the two tech giants, which was tossed by the U.S. International Trade Commission earlier this year.

In a court order (pdf) posted last week, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in Washington, D.C., said both Apple and RIM could intervene in the case, in which Kodak accused the two companies of infringing on its patents.

The decision means both companies can participate in Kodak's appeal and defend the products accused of infringement.

Kodak originally filed … Read more

Low Latency is a weekly comic on CNET's Crave blog written by CNET editor and podcast host Jeff Bakalar and illustrated by Blake Stevenson. Be sure to check Crave every Thursday at 8 a.m. PT for new panels! Want more? Here's every Low Latency comic so far.… Read more

Lucy Koh is chewing someone out again.

Anyone following the Apple v. Samsung patent trial has noticed the frequency with which Koh, the U.S. district judge presiding over the case, has scolded lawyers from both sides.

The most vivid example came last week, when Apple lawyers notified Koh that they wished to cram a large number of witnesses into the remaining few hours they had to make their arguments. This would have added to the mountain of paperwork and generated more work for Koh and her staff.

"Come on," Koh told Bill Lee, one of Apple's … Read more