intellectual property

It's the closely printed (or displayed in very small font size at a Web page) pieces of text that most of us don't bother to read before we agree to them. Yet it's something that shouldn't be ignored at all. It's called terms of service, or TOS for short.

Remember the time that AT&T sneakily changed its TOS and banned users from streaming media from third-party sites via its cellular network? Thanks to the media outcry (CNET News included) the company retracted the changes a few days later only to reinstate them again, … Read more

The Intel-Advanced Micro Devices rivalry spans decades. But in a phone interview last week, the top lawyer at AMD discussed critical moments when the competition with Intel got particularly nasty.

Tom McCoy, AMD's senior vice president of legal affairs, cited two critical junctures in the Intel-AMD rivalry when Intel turned up the heat and, he claims, violated the law.

McCoy said the first major assault from Intel came in 1999, when AMD launched the Athlon architecture. "When we go back and we look at all the anecdotal incidents of Intel violating the law, they always center on when … Read more

The search for unbiased judges in the high-profile Pirate Bay case in Sweden seems never-ending.

Finding legal authorities who are not connected to the people involved in the case is apparently difficult in a country that counts only 9 million inhabitants.

Shortly after the verdict was delivered in mid-April, sentencing the four defendants to jail for one year for having assisted in making 33 copyright-protected files available for distribution, Judge Tomas Norström was accused of having a conflict of interest.

The accusations were based on his membership in organizations such as the Swedish Copyright Association, which counts among … Read more

Update at 8:40 a.m. PDT: Reaction from L'Oreal has been added.

eBay has won another lawsuit over the sale of counterfeit goods on its site.

A U.K. court ruled Friday that eBay cannot be held accountable for the sale of fake cosmetics on its auction site, as L'Oreal alleged in its lawsuit filed in March.

The cosmetics giant has long criticized eBay for not doing enough to halt the hawking of phony products that bear the L'Oreal name. But eBay has insisted it merely provides the trading space for its users and has no … Read more

Intel is celebrating its four-decade-long relationship with Stanford University by spotlighting the school's nexus with its top executives.

The Intel-Stanford tie famously began back in 1969 when Stanford electrical engineering alumnus Ted Hoff became Intel employee No. 12. Within two years, he had invented, along with Federico Faggin and Stan Mazor, Intel's flagship product: the microprocessor.

For more than four decades, the Stanford-Intel relationship has been behind the launch of some of Intel's flagship technologies and hundreds of the company's engineering careers. (Almost 1,000 Stanford alumni have worked at Intel and a Stanford University Web page marks this relationship.)

The retirement this month of Intel chairman and former CEO (1998-2005) Craig Barrett, highlights one of the most enduring ties. Barrett was a professor from 1965 until he joined Intel in 1974.

"Industry does a good job at the D part of R&D--but we rely on the tier-one research universities like Stanford on the R side," Barrett said in an interview published on Stanford University's Web site. Barrett cited marquee research at Stanford such as semiconductor device modeling and new packaging technologies.

Senior VP Pat Gelsinger is another Stanford graduate. "We've had great results from the collaboration," said Gelsinger--also quoted in the interview--who earned an masters of science degree in electrical engineering at Stanford in 1985. "In almost every area that Intel is doing work we can point to significant collaboration and research projects with Stanford." … Read more

Updated at 12:45 p.m. PDT: adding AMD statement.

The question of whether Intel engages in abusive market behavior has been answered by the European Commission. Or has it?

To recap, the EC said:

"Intel limited consumer choice and stifled innovation by preventing innovative products for which there was a consumer demand from reaching end customers."

And: "Intel gave wholly or partially hidden rebates to computer manufacturers on condition that they bought all, or almost all, their x86 central processing units (CPUs) from Intel. Intel also made direct payments to a major retailer on condition it … Read more

Advanced Micro Devices is flying the European Union flag on its home page. A little gloating going on?

And if the image doesn't convey the message, the caption does: "European Commission finds Intel guilty of breaking antitrust laws, harming consumers."

That's not all. AMD's Break Free page is a treasure trove of information on the EU case and Intel's alleged bad behavior. "Read the European Commission's Press Release Detailing its Ruling Against Intel" and "Read the European Commission's Questions and Answers Detailing its Ruling Against Intel"--are a … Read more

Online auction company eBay has emerged a winner in its latest lawsuit over counterfeit goods.

A French court ruled in favor of eBay in a suit filed by L'Oreal, eBay said on Wednesday. The cosmetics giant sought $4.8 million in damages, accusing eBay of allowing counterfeit goods to be traded on its site. The judge, Elisabeth Belfort, said eBay couldn't be held accountable for sales of fake products on its site. The ruling added that through its anticounterfeiting measures, eBay has "fulfilled its obligations of loyalty to other operators on the market."

eBay has said … Read more

Three groups representing hundreds of libraries lodged a long series of concerns about a proposed settlement of lawsuits over Google Book Search on Monday--but refrained from objecting overall.

Specifically, the American Library Association, the Association of College and Research Libraries, and the Association of Research Libraries expressed some affinity for Google's mission of sharing books with the public, but raised concerns in a legal filing that the settlement would concentrate power in Google's hands and poses pricing and privacy concerns.

Google is scanning millions of books, presenting their contents online at the Google Book Search site and blending … Read more