Legal

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

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

Want to buy a new song or video from iTunes even though you're offline? A new Apple patent envisions a way, at least sometime down the road.

Granted to Apple today by the U.S. Patent and Trademark office, the patent appropriately named "On-device offline purchases using credits" describes a system of using credits to purchase iTunes content that's stored on your device but which you don't already own. The goal is to allow you to unlock and play iTunes songs, videos, and other items without having to be online.

You would first buy credits … Read more

In a legal victory for Google and Samsung, a German court has reportedly invalidated all patent claims related to Apple's "slide to unlock" user interface.

Today's ruling by Bundespatentgericht, Germany's federal patent court, is a setback for Apple, which has pressed the patent against Google's Motorola and Samsung in courts across Europe in attempts to secure injunctions preventing the companies' devices from being sold. However, the decision is appealable, according to Foss Patents blogger Florian Mueller, a paid consultant for several tech companies who was first to report on today's ruling.

The ruling, … Read more

Google has undertaken what appears to be a legal first: an open court challenge by a major Internet company to a warrantless electronic data-gathering technique used by the FBI.

The company asked U.S. District Judge Susan Illston in San Francisco last week to grant a "petition to set aside legal process" in response to a national security letter it received from the FBI.

National security letters allow FBI officials to send a secret request to Web and telecommunications companies requesting "name, address, length of service," and other information about users as long as it's … Read more

Apple may be eyeing its own "Street View" type navigation system and one that offers a key benefit over Google's version.

Published today by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, Apple's "3D Position Tracking for Panoramic Imagery Navigation" patent filing describes a navigation technology that looks and works like Street View. The system would display a panoramic image of a certain location on your mobile device, allowing you to virtually move around the area.

Google's Street View forces you to swipe your finger or tap on a direction icon to journey along … Read more

Apple's planned second corporate campus is turning out to be a headache.

That's according to Bloomberg Businessweek, which profiled the development process of the proposed "spaceship" building, an unusual structure shaped like a doughnut or ring.

The budget for the building has jumped to $5 billion from $3 billion, Bloomberg Businessweek said, citing unnamed sources. The cost would exceed that of the new World Trade Center and be three times as expensive as top-of-the-line downtown towers, the report said.

Apple, meanwhile, has delayed the start of construction as it works with its lead architect to slash $… Read more

Encryption used in Apple's iMessage chat service has stymied attempts by federal drug enforcement agents to eavesdrop on suspects' conversations, an internal government document reveals.

An internal Drug Enforcement Administration document seen by CNET discusses a February 2013 criminal investigation and warns that because of the use of encryption, "it is impossible to intercept iMessages between two Apple devices" even with a court order approved by a federal judge.

The DEA's warning, marked "law enforcement sensitive," is the most detailed example to date of the technological obstacles -- FBI director Robert Mueller has called it … Read more

A mobile communications company is suing Apple for allegedly infringing on its patents with messaging services on devices like the iPhone and the iPad, patent blog Patently Apple reported today.

Mobile Telecommunications Technologies claims Apple has infringed on seven patents and filed a suit involving Apple's iMessage, Airport Express, Airport Extreme, and Time Capsule and devices like the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. The company is essentially saying Apple shouldn't offer iMessage or any other messaging services including text messaging, iCloud, or e-mail.

Mobile Telecommunications Technologies runs communications service SkyTel, which provides paging and messaging services to U.… Read more