lawsuit

New York Sen. Charles Schumer reprimanded the Department of Justice today for filing its e-book antitrust lawsuit against Apple. Using strong language in a Wall Street Journal Op-Ed, he wrote that "the suit could wipe out the publishing industry as we know it."

The Department of Justice brought the lawsuit against Apple in April alleging that the tech giant and a group of book publishers colluded to illegally fix e-book prices to boost profits and force e-book rival Amazon to abandon its discount pricing.

The suit also alleges that Apple and the publishers pushed an "agency model&… Read more

A federal judge has rejected requests by Apple and Samsung to keep portions of sensitive company documents from being made public during their patent battle.

U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh for the Northern District of California ruled today that "it appears that the parties have overdesignated confidential documents and are seeking to seal information that is not truly sealable," according to a Reuters report. "Only documents of exceptionally sensitive information that truly deserve protection will be allowed to be redacted or kept from the public."

Koh gave each company one week to refile their requests. … Read more

HTC has filed counterclaims against Apple over two patents the Taiwanese handset maker recently acquired from Hewlett-Packard to apparently beef up its legal muscle in its patent fight with the iPhone maker.

HTC filed its two patent infringement counterclaims today in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, alleging that a wide array of Apple products infringe on patents related to network services and management that HTC acquired in December from HP.

The two patents asserted in HTC's counterclaims, according to Foss Patents:

A jury has found Research In Motion liable for $147.2 million in damages for infringing on patents owned by Mformation Technologies.

Jurors in U.S. District Court in Northern California determined late Friday that RIM's BlackBerry Enterprise Server -- software that lets companies remotely manage employees' devices -- infringed on Mformation patents and awarded damages of $8 for each of the 18.4 million units sold.

Mformation sued RIM in 2008, accusing the troubled BlackBerry maker of infringing on two patents after being briefed on the technology. RIM declined to license the technology and then modified its software … Read more

Japan's Fujifilm has sued Google's Motorola Mobility, claiming that several cell phones and tablets infringe on four of its patents related to digital camera and photography technology.

Fujifilm, which filed its lawsuit Tuesday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, said its filing came after attempts to negotiate a licensing deal with Motorola failed. The Japanese photo giant said it notified Motorola in April 2011 of its belief that the handset maker was infringing on its patents and held face-to-face meetings with Motorola representatives. However, those discussions failed to produce a licensing deal and … Read more

The mobile version of Google's Chrome browser is the latest target of EMG Technology, a patent firm that says the tech giant is infringing on its navigation technology.

The suit (PDF), which was filed earlier this week in District Court for the Eastern District of Texas in the Tyler Division, seeks damages as well as an injunction to keep Google from offering Chrome for mobile devices in the U.S.

In a statement, Elliot Gottfurcht, EMG's managing member and lead inventor restated claims made in the suit, alleging that Google's browser steps on one of its patents : … Read more

The federal judge presiding over Facebook's "sponsored stories" lawsuit has abruptly quit the case a day before a scheduled hearing to discuss a proposed settlement.

U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh filed papers today to recuse herself from the lawsuit, which claimed the social-networking giant violated California law and plaintiffs' right to privacy by publicizing their "likes" in advertisements without asking them, compensating them, or allowing them to opt out.

Koh's one-page court filing (see below) said the case would be referred to another U.S. District Court judge by the assignment committee. The … Read more

Apple has been slapped with yet another patent-infringement lawsuit.

A California-based company, Noise Free Wireless, last week filed a complaint against Apple in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, alleging that Apple violated its noise-canceling technology patents. In addition, the company charged Apple with breach of contract and trade secret theft.

GigaOm, which was first to report on the lawsuit, also pointed out that a third-party, Audience, was included in the lawsuit.

According to Noise Free, it met with Apple in 2007 to discuss the potential of the Cupertino, Calif.-based company using its technology … Read more

Score one for Samsung Electronics.

After several legal defeats resulting in a product ban, Samsung finally got a court to side with it. The company said that the High Court of England and Wales ruled that its Galaxy Tab did not infringe upon Apple's tablet designs, and found 50 different recognizable traits.

The victory is a measure of relief after a few rough weeks in which a U.S. judge ordered a ban on the Galaxy Nexus, resulting in Google pulling it from the Google Play store before putting it back up Saturday. Samsung has filed an appeal and … Read more