Legal Issues

ALAMEDA, Calif.--I'm hurtling down a piece of asphalt, my right foot jamming the accelerator of the Lexus I'm driving to the floor, speed building rapidly, my heart rate rising, when suddenly, I add my left foot to the mix, jamming it down hard on the brake pedal.

The car screeches to a halt.

For anyone who's been paying attention the last year or so, the memory of Toyota's highly publicized troubles related to cars suddenly and irrevocably accelerating should still be fresh. And that's almost certainly why the Lexus representative--and professional driver--who's sitting … Read more

Microsoft's top lawyer said on Monday that the company is taking action in the wake of a report that its antipiracy efforts have been used by the Russian government as a means to monitor computers of dissident groups in that country.

In a blog post, general counsel Brad Smith said that the company is hiring an outside law firm to investigate a report in The New York Times that the Russian government has used Microsoft's antipiracy efforts as a pretext to search computers of potential dissidents and, separately, that some lawyers hired by Microsoft have worked with corrupt … Read more

TRUCKEE, Calif.--Google CEO Eric Schmidt declined to confirm a deal has been reached on Net neutrality between Google and Verizon but said his company is trying to bring together various factions.

"We're trying to find solutions that bridge between sort of the 'hard-core Net neutrality or else' view and the historic telecom view of no such agreement," Schmidt told reporters on the sidelines of the Techonomy conference following his appearance on a panel here.

Bloomberg and others reported earlier Wednesday that a deal was in the works.

Schmidt wouldn't say whether such a deal might … Read more

Microsoft said Wednesday that it has settled a patent dispute with Salesforce.com, with both companies licensing each other's patents and the cloud software firm paying an undisclosed sum to Redmond.

Financial details were not disclosed.

"We are pleased to reach this agreement with Salesforce.com to put an end to the litigation between our two companies," said Microsoft deputy general counsel Horacio Gutierrez in a statement. "Microsoft's patent portfolio is the strongest in the software industry and is the result of decades of software innovation. Today's agreement is an example of how companies … Read more

NEW YORK--There are 13 million-dollar open-source hardware companies, but there have been no standards governing what defines the still nascent field.

Until now, that is.

Unlike open-source software, because there have been no formal definitions, many people may not even be aware of the growing industry. But already some of those practicing its general principles have become household names among the geek set: Arduino, the programmable single-board microcontroller and software suite; Chumby, a popular Wi-Fi device; MakerBot, a low-priced 3D printer; and Adafruit, a maker of do-it-yourself hardware kits for things like MP3 players and more.

Late Tuesday, a group … Read more

RANCHO PALOS VERDES, Calif.--Pressed on why the U.S. pays more for slower broadband than other countries, FCC Chairman Julius Genachowski said Wednesday that the government has a plan.

"We do," he said in a speech at the D: All Things Digital conference. "I think we have a plan to tackle this."

"I think we are going to have spectrum congestion for a long time," he said.

Genachowski also pointed to the role that unlicensed spectrum can play, pointing to what happened when the FCC opened up a particular part of the spectrum. … Read more

Parallels, known for using virtualization to solve consumer problems, thought it had a surefire new use for its technology.

Why not use the same approach it used to put Windows on a Mac to help ease the move from XP to Windows 7. The solution was elegant, helping users both make the move and even run older programs that weren't compatible with the new version of Windows. At first, the signs from Microsoft were encouraging; the company even invited Parallells to a Windows 7 momentum event in Paris to publicly talk about the program, Parallels Desktop Upgrade to Windows … Read more

Microsoft on Tuesday fired a major shot across the bow at Salesforce.com, filing a federal lawsuit against the online software company claiming it infringes on nine patents.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Seattle (PDF or see end of post), seeks both monetary damages as well as temporary and permanent injunctions. Specifically, the company seeks a jury trial and also asks that the damages be tripled and that Salesforce be ordered to pay legal fees and other costs, arguing that the company's patent infringement is willful.

"Microsoft has been a leader and innovator in the software … Read more

"For the Win," the latest young-adult novel by science-fiction author, journalist, and copyright activist Cory Doctorow, hit the shelves Tuesday. The book is about the drama surrounding the unionization of virtual world "gold farmers," and is based on his hit short story, "Anda's Game."

Doctorow, who has held policy positions at both the Electronic Frontier Foundation and Creative Commons, is also an editor of the influential technology culture blog Boing Boing. Add his spot on the Wired magazine masthead and there are probably few, if any, people with more geek culture cred.

From his home in England, the Canadian-born Doctorow, a Hugo Award nominee, is one of the most prolific writers going, constantly turning out blog posts, magazine articles, novels, and everything in between. And he travels more in a year than most people will in a lifetime.

His Boing Boing posts can cover issues from the fact that there are now at least 13 open-source hardware companies making $1 million or more annually, to anything related to Net neutrality, to the current battle over the U.S. Federal Communications Committee's decision to give Hollywood permission to activate the so-called "Selective Output Control" technologies in consumers' set-top boxes.

Doctorow recently sat down for a "45 Minutes on IM" interview and discussed a range of topics such as a new-style approach to print-on-demand to gold farming, NAFTA, and quite a bit more.

Q: Welcome to the third installment of "45 Minutes on IM." I wanted to start by saying I love how your official bio has a one-sentence version, a one-paragraph version, and a much longer one. How did you decide to break it out like that? Doctorow: It was based on the requests I got from press and such--my publicist, magazines, Web sites, etc.--they'd all request one of the three. I found myself trimming the long bio to fit the other two lengths over and over again, so I just made a template that included all three. I try to make a template out of any text I type more than once. Though sometimes it takes me three or four reps before I go, 'Duh, make a template stupid!' I have a grand plan to put together a wiki-editable FAQ of all the questions I get asked in e-mail someday.

In the long version of your bio, you talk about the "audacious experiment in print-on-demand publishing" for your next book. What does that mean?… Read more