settlements

Apple iPhone 4 owners can collect a cash settlement or free bumper for their smartphone's antenna troubles. Just don't expect to be blown away by the windfall.

A Web page, aptly named iPhone4settlement.com, has gone live, allowing iPhone 4 customers burned by the device's antenna problems to collect their $15 settlement. According to the site, iPhone 4 owners have between now and August 28 to file their claim for the cash.

The site's claim form, which can be mailed or filed electronically, requests basic contact information. The settlement also requests that users print out their … Read more

A settlement has been reached in a class-action lawsuit targeting the antenna performance of Apple's iPhone 4.

As part of a preliminary approval made this afternoon, U.S. residents who bought Apple's iPhone 4 will be entitled to $15 in cash or a bumper case provided by Apple.

The settlement comes from 18 separate lawsuits that were consolidated into one. All share the claim that Apple was "misrepresenting and concealing material information in the marketing, advertising, sale, and servicing of its iPhone 4--particularly as it relates to the quality of the mobile phone antenna and reception and … Read more

Nvidia and Rambus have settled a longstanding patent license dispute.

The agreement covers a "broad range" of chip products offered by Nvidia and settles all outstanding claims, including resolution of past use of Rambus' patented innovations, the companies said. The term of the agreement is five years.

Though neither financial nor technological details were disclosed, the dispute between the two companies has not exactly been private.

In 2008, Rambus sued Nvidia, accusing the graphics chip supplier of violating 17 Rambus-held patents on memory controllers. At that time, Rambus claimed that chipsets, graphics processers, and media communication processors across … Read more

AT&T has agreed to pay TiVo at least $215 million to settle a patent infringement lawsuit involving the digital video recorder pioneer.

Under the settlement, AT&T will pay TiVo more than that minimum amount, should AT&T's DVR subscriber base exceed certain levels, the companies said in a statement announcing the mutual licensing pact. The announcement sent TiVo shares up $1.38, or 15.5 percent, to $10.30 in after-hours trading.

TiVo sued AT&T in 2009 for damages, alleging infringements of TiVo patents Nos. 6,233,389 B1 (a "multimedia … Read more

Seven LCD manufacturer including Samsung and Sharp this month agreed to pay $553 million to settle lawsuits that claimed the companies were colluding with one another to fix the prices of their panels for use in consumer electronics.

Legal documents filed last week, and picked up by Reuters, show that the collected fines total $553 million between the companies involved, and that said companies will be setting up antitrust compliance programs as part of the deal. Of that sum, about $501 million is going towards a refund program for consumers, and about $37 million is being doled out to governments … Read more

Apple's MagSafe connections for its laptop power adapters allows the connections to be quickly detached from systems, the benefits of which are obvious to anyone who has ever caught a foot in the power cord of a charging device and yanked it to the floor from its resting perch.

The MagSafe adapter is a great idea, but a number of people complained that its first iterations did have a couple of flaws that resulted in the cable getting twisted and bent (a situation called "strain relief"). In some instances this strain would cause the cable components to … Read more

The Federal Trade Commission and Facebook are close to finalizing a settlement over a complaint about deceptive privacy practices on the social network from nearly two years ago.

The proposed settlement, which awaits final approval from FTC commissioners, would require Facebook to let users opt in to changes in the way their information is shared, rather than forcing them to "opt out" of changes Facebook imposes on them, The Wall Street Journal reported. Put formally, that would require Facebook to get "express affirmative consent" if it makes "material retroactive changes."

The agreement also calls … Read more

Apple has reached a proposed settlement in a class action lawsuit involving older models of its MagSafe power adapters.

Those particular adapters, the 60W and 85W versions that shipped on earlier models of the company's MacBook and MacBook Pro portable computers, were prone to splitting and became the target of a class action lawsuit.

The lawsuit claimed that the particular adapter design was defective to the point of where it "dangerously frays, sparks and prematurely fails to work." The 2009 filing accused Apple of knowing about, and misrepresenting the problem, claims Apple denied in court. AdapterSettlement.com'… Read more

Viacom and cable operator Cablevision Systems have reached an agreement that will keep Viacom content flowing on Cablevision's iPad application.

The decision marks the end to a lawsuit filed by Viacom in June over Cablevision's Optimum tablet app, which Viacom said was not authorized to stream its content just days after its release.

"Viacom and Cablevision have agreed to resolve their pending litigation, and the Viacom programming will continue to appear on Cablevision's Optimum Apps for iPad and other IP devices," the two companies said in a joint statement.

"In reaching the settlement agreement, … Read more