infringement

The U.S. Senate judiciary committee will take another crack at arming the government with broad antipiracy powers.

Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), the judiciary committee's chairman, said today that the government must take action against "online criminals" who harm American jobs by obtaining the nation's intellectual property without paying for it. Leahy made the statements as he laid out the committee's agenda for this session of Congress.

In September, Leahy introduced legislation called the Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act, which could boast bipartisan support and unanimously passed in the judiciary committee, but failed to … Read more

commentary For nearly a decade, major music and film companies have lamented the loss of revenue and jobs that they blame on illegal file sharing. During that time they have lobbied lawmakers and enforcement agencies for antipiracy help.

But after reading reports from the FBI and Department of Justice about efforts to protect the nation's intellectual property, I was stunned to find so few cases involving online file sharing. Among the "significant" prosecutions the DOJ listed in 2010, only one involved the illegal distribution of digital media over the Web. In April, the DOJ won a conviction … Read more

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has refiled a lawsuit against several major technology companies over claims of patent infringement.

In his revised complaint filed yesterday, Allen alleges that 11 tech companies and retailers--Apple, Google, Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, YouTube, eBay, Netflix, OfficeMax, Office Depot, and Staples--are violating patents granted to him when he headed Interval Research, a small R&D firm that he started in 1992 and ran until it went out of business in 2000.

Allen initially filed the suit in August in U.S. District Court in Seattle. At the time, Allen's Interval Licensing company--which holds the patents … Read more

MasterCard, is willing to stop processing transactions from sites trafficking in pirated music, movies, games, and other digital copyrighted content.

Lobbyists working for MasterCard have told trade groups from the entertainment sector that the credit card company is supportive of The Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act, an antipiracy bill introduced into the Senate last September, sources with knowledge of the talks tell CNET.

Backed by Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and committee member Sen. Orin Hatch (R-Utah), the bill would authorize the Department of Justice to shut down domain names of U.S.-based … Read more

Nokia won't give Apple a break.

The company filed patent-infringement claims against Apple in the U.K., Germany, and the Netherlands today. A total of 13 patents were included in the company's filings, bringing the total to 37 total claims against Apple.

In the U.K. High Court, Nokia charged that Apple violates four patents related to the use of a "touch user interface" and "on-device app stores," among others. The company filed a total of seven patent-infringement claims in two German district courts, charging that in addition to its use of the touch … Read more

Among those who favor less restrictive copyright laws, Google once possessed undeniable street-cred.

When it came to standing up for the right of Internet users to freely exchange information online, the perception was Google would hold the line. The search engine sparred over copyright issues with newspapers, book publishers, recording companies, and big Hollywood studios--even fending off a $1 billion copyright complaint filed against it by Viacom, parent company of MTV. As for enforcement, Google made its position clear: the job of policing the Web for pirated content belonged to copyright owners.

But yesterday, Google's position began to blur. … Read more

eBay has won the latest and seemingly last round in a lawsuit filed by jewelery maker Tiffany over alleged trademark infringement.

The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday refused to hear an appeal filed by Tiffany over a 2008 court decision that found in favor of eBay in a trademark infringement lawsuit.

Initially filed in 2004, the suit from Tiffany alleged that eBay should be held liable for any trademark infringement from the sale of phony goods on the auction site. But in a July 2008 ruling, a U.S. District Court found that trademark law could not be used to … Read more

The U.S. International Trade Commission is officially stepping in to investigate Apple's claim of patent infringement against Motorola.

The ITC announced yesterday that its probe will examine a complaint that Apple filed with it on October 29 against Motorola. The charges are detailed in two lawsuits by Apple against Motorola in which Apple alleges that the sale of Motorola's Droid, Droid 2, Droid X, and other smartphones and related software violate several Apple patents.

In one of the suits against Motorola, Apple cites patent No. 7,479,949, which covers methods by which touch screens detect contact … Read more

Get this one: A site called "Lamebook" that mocks bad and silly Facebook content had been threatened with a trademark infringement lawsuit from Facebook, so it decided to sue Facebook first. It may sound silly, but Lamebook's rationale is that it's a very obvious parody and hence is protected by the First Amendment.

"Unlike the Facebook website, the Lamebook website does not offer social-networking services or functionality to its users and, therefore, does not compete with Facebook," the complaint explained, adding that Facebook's repeated threats of a lawsuit began in March.

Facebook has, … Read more