Legal

Sony has been granted a temporary restraining order against George Hotz, better known as Geohot.

"After consideration of the record and the arguments of counsel, the court finds that a temporary restraining order is warranted," Northern District Court of California judge Susan Illston wrote in a judgment dated Wednesday and released yesterday (PDF). "Plaintiff has submitted substantial evidence showing that defendant George Hotz has violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act."

Sony initially filed its request for a temporary restraining order earlier this month. It said at the time that Hotz bypassed "effective technological protective measures&… Read more

The legal battle between Nokia and Apple shows no signs of letting up anytime soon.

Apple on Tuesday sued Nokia in the U.K. claiming that one of the company's patents is invalid, according to Bloomberg. The patent in question describes a scrolling technology on touch-screen handsets and is one of the patents Nokia previously sued Apple for violating.

Nokia responded to the suit saying it is confident its patents are valid and it "will take whatever actions are needed to protect our rights."

Apple representatives were not immediately available for comment.

The legal tangle between the … Read more

Apple's Steve Jobs will be taking a medical leave of absence for the second time in two years but will remain CEO of the company, involved in strategic decision-making.

Chief Operating Officer Tim Cook will assume responsibility for the company's day-to-day operations, amid continuing investor concerns over Apple's plans for eventual transition in the corner office.

The stock market is closed today for a federal holiday. Apple is scheduled to report its first-quarter fiscal 2011 earnings tomorrow after 1 p.m. PT.

Jobs, a pancreatic cancer survivor, took a leave in the first half of 2009 to … Read more

Apple's effort to trademark the name "App Store" has run in to opposition from Microsoft, which argues the phrase is too generic to register and would restrict competitors' ability to use of the term to describe their own services.

A week after Apple launched its App Store for iPhone apps in 2008, the company applied for a trademark for "app store," a retail store offering "services featuring computer software provided via the internet and other computer and electronic communication networks," as well as other services, according to its application with the U.S. … Read more

Earlier this week Apple was sued, along with several app developers, for allegedly sending personal information to ad networks without the users' knowledge or consent. According to one industry lawyer, there could be more lawsuits on the way.

Speaking with InformationWeek on Wednesday, attorney Kevin Pomfret said the trend of consumers turning to the courts to protect their privacy is likely to continue. "I would not be surprise if there were more lawsuits," said Pomfret.

A lawyer who advises businesses on privacy issues, Pomfret said the law is "unclear" in this area.

Apple is no stranger … Read more

Quite a lot more details just came out about the insider-information probe that hit the tech world last month, and they're juicy.

The Wall Street Journal has a full report on the whole scheme. Turns out one of the men indicted today, Walter Shimoon, worked for Flextronics, a supplier to Apple. In the papers unsealed today, the FBI caught Shimoon on tape allegedly relaying super-secret details about the yet-to-be-released iPhone last year as well as the internal code name for the project that turned into the iPad. Fortune found the details in the 39-page indictment, and called them out … Read more

A federal appeals court ruled yesterday that a World of Warcraft-playing bot violated the online game's terms of use, upholding a lower court's 2008 decision against the so-called Glider software, and issuing a permanent injunction against its use.

The Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled (PDF file) that the MDY's Glider bot--which helps WoW players by automatically playing early levels of the massively popular game--is a breach of a contractual covenant. In a post on their Virtual World Law Blog, lawyers at the law firm Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman explained that the decision largely follows … Read more

A patent lawsuit brought against Apple, Google, and other prominent high-tech companies by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen earlier this year has been dismissed for being too vague.

Calling the allegations in the lawsuit "spartan," U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman said in dismissing the case that Allen had until December 28 to refile the case, according to a report on the Web site of The Wall Street Journal. Allen's team said it would meet the deadline and called the judge's ruling a "procedural issue."

The lawsuit, filed by Allen's firm Interval Licensing, named … Read more

Motorola's ongoing legal disagreements with Microsoft thickened this morning, with Motorola's mobility unit filing a complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission over Microsoft's use of patents in its Xbox game console.

While the complaint is currently pending, it could go on to become an investigation by the ITC.

A Microsoft representative said the company is currently reviewing Motorola's filing, and that "we remain confident in our position, and will continue to move forward with the complaints we initiated against Motorola in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington and … Read more