lawsuit

Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg is scheduled to be questioned in a lawsuit charging several technology companies for allegedly agreeing not to poach employees from each other, Bloomberg said today.

The case is part of a civil suit filed in 2011 by five workers against Google, Intuit, Apple, Intel, Adobe, Pixar, and Lucasfilm, claiming that they tried to keep down wages through non-poaching agreements.

Six of the companies involved settled a Justice Department complaint in 2010. The civil suit was launched in 2011 and named Lucasfilm as a seventh defendant.

Neither Facebook nor Sandberg are named as defendants in … Read more

A court ruling has put the kibosh on reselling digital media.

In a lawsuit between Universal Music Group's Capitol Records and MP3 reseller ReDigi, U.S. District Judge Richard Sullivan has sided with the record label and said that reselling songs bought on iTunes, Amazon, or other digital music venues is akin to copyright infringement.

"The court grants Capitol's motion for summary judgment on its claims for ReDigi's direct, contributory, and vicarious infringement of its distribution and reproduction rights," Judge Sullivan wrote in a summary judgment filed Saturday. "The court also denies ReDigi's … Read more

The upstart live-TV streaming service Aereo is said to be in partnership talks with AT&T and Dish Network, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Aereo's antenna/DVR technology allows consumers to watch live, local over-the-air broadcast television on certain Internet-connected devices for a fee. If it partners with television and Internet providers it could greatly increase its reach.

This news is likely to be much to the chagrin for several major broadcasters, which are suing the company for copyright violation. ABC, CBS (the parent of CNET), Fox, NBC Universal, and Telemundo, all alleged in a lawsuit filed … Read more

Intellectual Ventures, the controversial patent and technology firm founded by former Microsoft executive Nathan Myhrvold, has sued Canon and Ricoh over printer technology.

In a pair of complaints, filed in the U.S. District Court of Delaware yesterday, Intellectual Ventures accused Canon of infringing on nine of its patents, and Ricoh of seven patents -- both in various printing products.

According to IV, the company approached both companies to negotiate licensing deals, but was unsuccessful.

"When sophisticated companies turn a blind eye to infringement, we are forced to take action to safeguard the value of our patents and to … Read more

The Union of Jewish French Students, UEJF, has doubled down in its battle with Twitter and said it filed a $50 million lawsuit against the social network yesterday.

The cause of the suit? User data for anti-Semitic tweets.

The fracas goes back to October when Twitter was awash in anti-Semitic French-language tweets tied to the hashtag "#unbonjuif" ("a good Jew"). This prompted the student union and other anti-racism groups to ask Twitter to remove both the tweets and the hashtag. The social network complied by deleting the tweets in France that it deemed racist.

While deleting … Read more

A judge scolded Apple today over how it has handled document discovery in a privacy lawsuit, warning that the iPhone maker may face court-ordered penalties.

Noting that Apple's document production "has more than doubled since the court got involved," U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul S. Grewal suggested plaintiffs' attorneys pursue sanctions against Apple, according to a Bloomberg account of the proceedings.

During a hearing today in San Jose, Calif., Grewal asked Apple lawyers why documents were submitted only after the court ordered a review of its document-production process. It "doesn't sound like you did a … Read more

Samsung has taken out its big guns against Ericsson in a lawsuit deep in the heart of Texas.

Late yesterday, Samsung responded to a patent violation suit that was filed by Ericsson in the Eastern District of Texas last November. In its suit, Ericsson accused Samsung of patent infringement after the two companies failed to reach an agreement over the renewal of certain patent licensing deals.

In December, Samsung fought back by filing a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission over the licensing deals and several patent infringement claims. Now Samsung has fired the next shot with its … Read more

Intellectual Ventures, the controversial patent and technology firm founded by former Microsoft executive Nathan Myhrvold, has sued security company Symantec once again.

In a new complaint (PDF), filed in the U.S. District Court of Delaware, Intellectual Ventures accused Symantec of infringing on three of its patents in some of its products.

The complaint targets Symantec's Replicator, Veritas Volume Replicator, and ApplicationHA products specifically, and claims the company "actively, knowingly, and intentionally" infringed on IV's patents with those products.

"We have been unable to reach an agreement with Symantec, and, in addition to their infringement … Read more

The George Lucas-founded audio-and-visual tech firm THX has filed a patent suit against Apple for allegedly swiping speaker technology for the iPhone, iPad, and iMac.

The suit, filed Thursday in federal court in San Jose, Calif., involves a patent called "Narrow Profile Speaker Configurations and Systems," which essentially covers various setups for directing sound from a small speaker or speakers toward a narrow, slotted opening in such a way as to produce the best possible sound quality.

The abstract of the patent says the speaker units "may be integral with or attached to electronic appliances such as … Read more