Legal

T-Mobile's iPhone off to a damp, but hopeful, start

NEW YORK--There are bright summer mornings in midtown Manhattan when tech enthusiasts happily line the streets around the famous Apple "cube" on Fifth Avenue or sneak to nearby carrier stories to land a new iPhone or iPad.

This was not one of those days. It was gray and soggy outside T-Mobile's flagship store in midtown Manhattan this morning, a wet reminder that winter isn't quite over despite what the calendar says. Similarly, T-Mobile hasn't yet succeeded in attempts to move past its own dark season.

But T-Mobile, for once, had a reason to celebrate. Today … Read more

In 'Futurama,' robots follow 'Bender's Law,' not Asimov's

STANFORD, Calif.--Issac Asimov's famous laws of robotics say machines may never harm humans. In Matt Groening's "Futurama" universe that takes place a millennium later, however, robots have become a bit less literal-minded.

"The three laws of robotics are actually built into many of the robots," said Patric Verrone, co-executive producer of "Futurama." "Some of them just choose to ignore them."

The best known example of "Futurama's" robot taxonomy is Bender, a foul-mouthed, alcoholic, cigar-smoking kleptomaniac who dreams about killing all the humans. But the universe of &… Read more

Ellen Pao, former Kleiner Perkins junior partner, joins Reddit

Ellen Pao, a former junior partner at Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers who filed a lawsuit last year against her employer alleging gender discrimination and retaliation, is joining Reddit.

She filed a lawsuit against the legendary venture capital firm alleging having suffered retaliation after rebuffing sexual advances from senior partners. She also claimed that Kleiner Perkins discriminated against her and other female employees when it came to promotions and pay. Kleiner Perkins has denied all of Pao's allegations, which made for quite a number of Peyton Place comes to Silicon Valley headlines when they first hit.

Here's the … Read more

Apple requests $85M damages against Samsung be reinstated

Contending that the judge presiding over its patent lawsuit against Samsung erred, Apple has asked that $85 million in dismissed damages be reinstated.

In a March ruling in the landmark case, U.S. District Court Judge Lucy Koh cut damages on some Samsung products found to infringe Apple's patents, carving $450.5 million off the original $1.05 billion judgment and calling for a new trial on the damages to recalculate them. However, Apple has complained that Koh made a mistake in reducing at least part of the damages by excluding two devices.

In an effort to get those … Read more

Apple pays $10M to license Palm, other patents

Apple may once have called Palm's patents essentially worthless, but it doesn't seem to think that anymore.

The company reportedly spent 1 billion yen, or $10 million, to license patents from Access Co., a Japanese company that makes software for mobile devices, set-top boxes, and other products. Access acquired PalmSource, the owner of the Palm operating system, in late 2005.

A Google translation, via the Japanese-language Macotakara blog, notes the agreement was signed on March 31 and covers smartphone patents from Palm, PalmSource, Bell Communications Research, and Geoworks.

We've contacted Apple and Access and will update the … Read more

Samsung HQ raided over alleged theft of OLED technology

Samsung found itself the target of a police raid in South Korea on Monday over the alleged theft of OLED display panel technology.

The Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency investigated Samsung's headquarters in Asan, South Korea, in an attempt to find documents related to OLED (organic light-emitting diode) technology, Bloomberg reported late yesterday.

Police are trying to determine whether Samsung is tangled up in an alleged leak of OLED technology documents by partners of LG Display, a Samsung spokesman told Bloomberg. No details were revealed as to who called the police, but LG said it didn't contact them.

"… Read more

IRS claims it can read your e-mail without a warrant

The Internal Revenue Service doesn't believe it needs a search warrant to read your e-mail.

Newly disclosed documents prepared by IRS lawyers say that Americans enjoy "generally no privacy" in their e-mail, Facebook chats, Twitter direct messages, and similar online communications -- meaning that they can be perused without obtaining a search warrant signed by a judge.

That places the IRS at odds with a growing sentiment among many judges and legislators who believe that Americans' e-mail messages should be protected from warrantless search and seizure. They say e-mail should be protected by the same Fourth Amendment … Read more

Robo-cars face a new threat: Lawyers

STANFORD, Calif. -- Self-driving cars are expected to save lives: a vehicle driven by a human will experience, on average, a crash every 160,000 miles or so. It's only a matter of time, advocates say, before robots become better drivers than us.

That is, if the lawyers let them. Industry insiders are already fretting about a host of legal problems that could bedevil robot car makers once a sufficient number of their creations take to the roads. Product liability, tort law, negligence, foreseeable harm, patent encumbrance, and design defects are only some of the concerns.

"The longer … Read more

Patent trolls launched majority of U.S. patent cases in 2012

It's hip to be litigious.

In case the spat between Apple and Samsung, and myriad other tussles between tech giants weren't proof enough, comes a new study that says lawsuits filed by patent trolls last year made up the majority of patent-related complaints filed in the U.S.

The study, which was published by UC Hastings and Lex Machina this morning, analyzed about 13,000 cases spanning some 30,000 patents. It's a follow-up to last October's look at some 100 lawsuits, which found that lawsuits from patent firms were up 22 percent in the past … Read more