Alcatel-Lucent’s patent victory over Microsoft is only the first in a string of cases the company filed when it was just Lucent over patents that the original Bell Labs had developed. This year will see 3 more cases involving Microsoft, Dell and Gateway over various digital audio-visual technologies. A jury in the U.S. Dist. Court, San Diego gave Alcatel-Lucent a $1.52 billion award against Microsoft (CD Feb 23 p1). Alcatel-Lucent wouldn’t comment on the outcome’s effect on future suits. Microsoft denied the decision would have any effect.
The MPAA announced a new round of lawsuits Thurs. against unauthorized file-sharers. Several films nominated for this Sun.’s Academy Awards, such as Sideways and The Incredibles, are mentioned in the group’s lawsuits.
An RIAA motion to dismiss without prejudice in the best- known P2P infringement case (WID Dec 20 p5) has met fiery opposition from the defense, which accused the trade group’s lawyer of physical intimidation to extract damning testimony from the defendant’s daughter. RIAA also inexplicably added a new charge against defendant Patricia Santangelo, whom it said wasn’t the “primary” infringer in the house, lawyer Jordan Glass told U.S. Dist. Court, White Plains, N.Y., Judge Colleen McMahon. An RIAA spokeswoman declined to comment.
BERKELEY, Cal. -- The Supreme Court EBay v. MercExchange ruling of last year has district judges enjoining competing manufacturers for patent infringement, but not other kinds of defendant, said Gen. Counsel Mark Chandler of Cisco, owner of Scientific-Atlanta and Linksys. Justice Clarence Thomas wrote a unanimous opinion but concurrences varied, Chandler said Fri. at a Federal Circuit Bar Assn. symposium here. The concurrence generally being followed is Justice Anthony Kennedy’s, not Chief Justice John Roberts’s, he said. Chandler agrees with the ruling to make injunctions more discretionary, he said: “Equity has to be done can only be done on a case by case basis, looking at the 4-factor test” long assumed to govern the area.
In January 2007, U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) announced that it was providing the trade with a grace period for entries filed during the February 3 - 20, 2007period regarding the World Customs Organization (WCO) 2007 Harmonized Tariff Schedule (HTS) changes that became effective on February 3, 2007.
“ISP confusion” is a reason RIAA is offering more carrot and less stick in efforts to settle with those it accuses of file sharing, the trade group said in a leaked, blacked-out letter to ISPs from Exec. Vp Steve Marks. Proposed changes - - which require ISP cooperation -- came from discussions with infringement suit targets, the group said. But the promise of a reward to forsake legal counsel and a data-retention provision in the letter have some RIAA critics calling foul. RIAA declined comment or to confirm the letter’s authenticity, which bears a 2007 date but the day and month are blacked out.
The International Trade Administration (ITA) has issued a notice announcing that it is revoking the antidumping (AD) and/or countervailing (CV) duty orders on certain corrosion-resistant carbon steel flat products from Australia, Canada, Japan, France.
At a March public hearing, the International Trade Commission (ITC) will set penalties against Qualcomm for infringing a Broadcom patent. In Dec., the ITC upheld an administrative law judge’s decision that Qualcomm violated a Broadcom patent for a technology that helps wireless phones conserve battery power when out of cellular range. Qualcomm is happy to come to the hearing, it said. “We welcome the opportunity to demonstrate the unreasonable, overreaching and anticompetitive nature of what Broadcom is seeking,” Lou Lupin, gen. counsel, said: “Industry partners, who Broadcom deliberately attempted to exclude from the ITC proceeding while targeting their products, and other interested government, industry and public interest organizations will have the opportunity to show the harmful impact Broadcom’s requests would have on millions of consumers by depriving them of wireless broadband services.” The remedy hearing may be the first the ITC has held in its growing patent docket, Stifel Nicolaus said in a research note, noting that the case was the subject of a Wall Street Journal editorial and an FCC filing, “both warning the ITC of dire consequences of banning imports of CDMA 3G handsets.” Injunctions are nearly automatic in ITC patent infringement decisions, which the President can veto, though vetoes are rare, the analysts said. “The question here will be the scope of the injunction,” Stifel Nicolaus said: “The ITC’s decision to postpone the decision and hold a hearing could signal an openness to overturning the ALJ recommendation to keep the scope of the injunction very narrow. But we expect a full court press against the broader remedy.”
Online payment company GreenZap wants $57.5 million in damages and an injunction against allegedly defamatory bloggers and their Web hosts. GreenZap filed suit Tues. against blog GreenZapScam.com, and Web hosts Liquid Web and Vodien. The suit is the “first of many” the PayPal provider is preparing against bloggers and hosting companies that damaged GreenZap’s reputation, GreenZap said. The blogs created a “cloud of mistrust” that GreenZap has been forced to deal with daily with consumers and strategic partners, GreenZap Vp Linda Murphy said.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has posted to its Web site a frequently asked question (FAQ) document which reflects CBP's current thinking on its draft proposal1 to require 10 additional data elements from importers 24 hours prior to foreign lading and 2 data sets from ocean carriers (also referred to as Security Filing (SF) and the 10+2 proposal).