dispute

PayPal has had its share of public black eyes but now has its eye on improving its reputation.

After ordering a violin smashed earlier this year and freezing an account designed to let people donate toys to underprivileged children, the payment processor appears to be trying to put a more human face on its corporate image.

The fresh feeling of good will came from David Marcus, PayPal's newly appointed president, and delivered to a frustrated customer who had tried for months to free $64,000 locked up in a PayPal account. It all started in May, when Andy McMillan, … Read more

DirecTV customers may soon need to get their "Jersey Shore" and "Daily Show" fix elsewhere.

A dispute over terms of a new distribution agreement between DirecTV and Viacom, which operates channels such as MTV and Comedy Central, could leave millions of satellite-TV customers without their favorite cable channels if a deal isn't struck by midnight tonight.

DirecTV has rejected all of Viacom's proposal, and has proposed an offer that is below the industry rate, Viacom said in a blog post late yesterday.

DirecTV said the companies continue to talk. It also create a site … Read more

Quite the donnybrook is brewing on the Internet over PayPal's decision to order a customer to destroy a purportedly rare violin.

A Regretsy.com reader named Erica related yesterday how she sold an old French violin "that made it through WWII" to a buyer in Canada for $2,500. However, the buyer disputed the authenticity of the label and demanded his money back. When the buyer contacted PayPal with his concerns, the payment processor instructed him to destroy it and refunded the purchase price.

"Rather than have the violin returned to me, PayPal made the buyer … Read more

Disgruntled Verizon Communications and Verizon Wireless workers and members of the labor union Communications Workers of America will be joining the "Occupy Wall Street" protest Friday in protest of "Verizon's corporate greed."

In a press release issued Thursday afternoon, the CWA said that about 1,000 Verizon workers will meet at Verizon's headquarters in downtown Manhattan near Wall Street at 4 p.m. ET and march past Liberty Plaza/Zuccotti Park where "Occupy Wall Street" protesters are gathered. The march will end at a Verizon Wireless dealer on Broad Street. Many of … Read more

The bitter patent-infringement battle between LG and Sony has come to an end, Reuters is reporting.

Speaking to Reuters today, an LG spokeswoman said that the two companies have dropped their lawsuits and signed a "cross-licensing deal." The terms of that deal were not disclosed.

The dispute between the companies started late last year when Sony filed a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission, requesting it ban the sale of LG phones in the U.S. Sony alleged that LG violated patents in the company's Lotus Elite, Neon, and Rumor 2 phones, among others.

Motorola and Research In Motion have settled their patent dispute over wireless technologies, the companies said Friday.

Under the settlement, both companies will set up a cross-licensing agreement in which they will receive patent rights related to certain key technologies and industry standards, including 2G, 3G, 4G, 802.11, and wireless e-mail. The two will also transfer certain patents directly to each other.

Additionally, RIM has promised to provide an upfront payment and ongoing royalties to Motorola. Further details were not disclosed, but the companies confirmed that the agreement puts an end to all litigation between them.

The dispute became … Read more

Motorola has joined Eastman Kodak in asking U.S. authorities to ban imports of BlackBerry devices, in a dispute over patents.

On Friday, Motorola said it had filed a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission, alleging that BlackBerry maker Research In Motion is infringing on five Motorola patents with its products. According to Motorola, RIM used to have a license for the technology in question, but that licensing deal expired in 2007.

The news comes a week after Kodak filed its own complaint with the ITC, claiming that RIM is violating its patent for color image previewing and … Read more

Updated on March 27 at 8:15 a.m. PST with comments from analyst.

On Thursday, Nvidia announced that it filed a countersuit against Intel in response to a filing by Intel last month alleging that a chipset license agreement does not extend to Intel's future-generation processors.

The action also seeks to terminate Intel's license to Nvidia's patent portfolio.

Last month, Intel alleged in a lawsuit that the 4-year-old chipset license agreement with Nvidia does not extend to Intel's future-generation processors with "integrated" memory controllers, such as its Nehalem processor.

"Nvidia did not … Read more

Updated at 3:30 p.m. PDT with additional detail and to correct the filing date for TomTom's suit, which was Monday.

TomTom has responded to Microsoft's patent suit by filing a patent claim of its own against the software maker.

The GPS device maker, based in The Netherlands, filed the countersuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia on Monday. TomTom says Microsoft's Streets and Trips products infringe on four patents it owns related to vehicle navigation software.

In a statement, Microsoft lawyer Horacio Gutierrez said the company is still in … Read more