Displaying items by tag: Legal

There is an old saying that says your first instinct is right. We are told this over and over again as kid as a warning against going back and changing our answers on test and for other “life lessons”. It is a lesson that most of us take with us through the rest of our lives. Unfortunately it does not appear to be one that Judge Lucy Koh remembered. In an unusual twist she is not upholding an Apple requested injunction against Samsung that she denied earlier.

We have often written that the continuous stream of patent lawsuits and injunctions that are pushed around the globe are costly, dangerous and anti-consumer, but now someone has actually gone out and done the math to find out just how much damage they do per year. The study performed by James E. Bessen and Michael E Meurer both from the Boston University School of Law states that in 2011 more than $29 Billion (with a B) in direct costs were incurred all because of what are called Non-Practicing Entities (most call them patent trolls). This $29 Billion also came during a down economy and affected small to medium sized businesses the most.

Remember the Google V Oracle case? You know that one that had Oracle’s Larry Ellison (and his pack of lawyers) attempting to show how nine-lines of code made it possible for Google to meet a deadline? Oh you do remember, ok well when we left the story the Jury had made one important decision and half of another. They had agreed that Google did not violate Oracle’s Java patents at all while building Android, but in an earlier decision could not agree if APIs (Application Programing Interfaces) were protected under copyright. They did say that if they were, well then Google was guilty.

Apple appears to have had a little bit of a set back in court yesterday as Judge Richard Posner (the same one that threw Apple’s complaint about a week ago) told Apple quite simply that imposing a sales ban on Motorola’s products would have catastrophic effects. This type of decision is happening more and more where one company demands a ban on the other. What the legal system is waking up to is that the ban on imports and sales are hurting businesses and the economy. They are also beginning to understand that the threat of a ban is not being used to protect IP, but to limit competition.

Facebook has finally bought facial recognition company Face.com. For those of you that do not know Face.com are the people behind the facial recognition API in Facebook and their Apps for both iOS and Android. This technology (that is also used in a few other apps) has brought about a wave of privacy concerns (as is tagging of any kind really). It is known that Face.com stores face information in a database and is capable up dating facial information as more pictures of an individual are tagged. This can be used to create a very accurate likeness model of someone regardless of what they do to change or conceal their appearance (with the exception of radical plastic surgery or prosthetics).

Wow… I can remember rather vividly trying to get out of trouble for doing something as a kid with the rather flimsy excuse of “but everyone is doing it”. To make a long story short here, that did not work and I had to face my consequences over my misdeed. So if that excuse does not work with my parents (and believe me it does not work with a traffic cop either). How is it that corporations can get away with it?

Yesterday we talked about a finding posted by the US Federal Trade Commission and sent to the US International Trade Commission on how product bans hurt consumers. Although the finding by the FTC was geared toward standards essential patents it also could be argued that any product ban is harmful to consumers unless the product in question was an outright copy. The comment was aimed at Apple and their pattern of filing for broad patents to ensure they have ammunition against competition.

We have been saying for a number of years now, but the Patent System is broken. Now the FTC might be starting to agree with some of the sentiment that we have been hearing from many media outlets. In a very important move the FTC feels that the continued request for import and sales bans whenever there is a patent dispute is causing “substantial harm” to consumers.

One of the most interesting things in the software market is he EULA (End-User License Agreement). These wordy and boring multi-page documents are always attached to every game, application, and even operating system that you buy or use. They are intended to outline the specifics for use of the software, but often can end up pushing their way into the realm of the ridiculous. A close cousin of the EULA is the T&C (Terms and Conditions) which was intended to serve the same purpose and has become almost as useless as the former.

Ok, we love the Judge in the Google V Oracle trail. This is a judge that has not drunk any of the Kool-Aid that either Google or Oracle has offered him. He has kept things pretty straight and even cautioned both sides on making what appear to be foolish decisions. If you remember Oracle is claiming that Google copied nine lines of code that were used to develop Android. They are claiming that Google benefited from this and also that they did this intentionally due to deadlines.