lawsuits

To all you cable and satellite subscribers who gripe about writing checks each month for the privilege of receiving dozens of channels you never watch, take note.

A new lawsuit filed Thursday in federal court in Los Angeles charges that every major cable and satellite provider--and the entertainment conglomerates that feed them content--form a cartel that deprives consumers of choice and forces them to pay "inflated" prices for services that don't correspond to their desires.

The suit, brought on behalf of cable subscribers in several states, calls for unspecified damages and for a court to decree that … Read more

The federal government is suing seminconductor company Novellus for discrimination and racial bias on behalf of an African-American employee who says he was forced to leave his job after complaining about a fellow worker's racially insensitive behavior.

Assembly technician Michael Cooke complained to his bosses about a fellow employee who listened to and sang along to rap lyrics aloud, which included slurs against African-Americans.

"That kind of language pains me. The N-word is not something I take lightly," Cooke told the San Francisco Chronicle.

When his co-worker's behavior did not stop and Cooke complained again, Cooke … Read more

The famous quote "there are no second acts in American lives" is attributed to F. Scott Fitzgerald. According to BrainyQuote.com, he also said, "his was a great sin who first invented consciousness. Let us lose it for a few hours."

The convoluted story of NTP and evolution of the American patent system is enough to drive a man to drink. Having beaten the literary metaphors well into the ground, let's ponder NTP's second act on the tech industry stage.

As you may have heard, NTP is once again feeling litigious. Last week it … Read more

This case could surely elicit some giggles from the rhyme police. Lulu.com said Wednesday that it has filed suit against Hulu.com for trademark infringement on the grounds that the two names and business models are too similar and will create confusion in the market.

Lulu.com, a service that lets members publish, print and sell their own books, has been around for five years, according to the company. Hulu.com is a joint digital video partnership between NBC Universal and News Corp., whose corporate entity N-F Newsite announced the name last week. The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in U.… Read more

Microsoft has settled a long-running and expensive lawsuit with Eolas Technologies, a start-up backed by the University of California that alleged Internet Explorer infringed a patent.

"We're pleased to be able to reach an amicable resolution in this long-running dispute with Eolas and the University of California," the company said in a statement Thursday, but declined to share further details. Eolas couldn't immediately be reached for comment.

The suit concerned technology that lets Web browsers call up separate applications or plug-ins such as Flash or Java within a Web page. While at the University of California … Read more

I'm sure somebody out there loves William Lerach. Maybe he's got a cat or dog that likes to snuggle up on cold evenings. But this 61-year-old securities lawyer will be remembered as the lawyer Silicon Valley most detested, bar none.

Lerach became a media celebrity in the 1990s when he was filing a myriad of securities class action lawsuits. Tech companies, whose stocks were especially volatile during the go-go days during the Internet Bubble, were a favorite target.

So it was you can imagine the collective high fives going up all across the computer industry late Tuesday when … Read more

Last Friday, a judge found that making music available through a file-trading network does constitute copyright infringement, even if that music is ripped from a CD that you bought. (Here's a link to the PDF of the summary judgment.)

According to the Web site Recording Industry vs. The People, which is run by two lawyers representing some defendants in infringment cases brought by the RIAA, this is the second time a judge has made this point, although last time it was included only as a footnote.

Without this legal precedent, the RIAA would have a very hard time suing … Read more

Let's see how funny Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are on the witness stand.

The two comedians are apparently being dragged into the copyright fight between their employer and Google. Entertainment conglomerate Viacom, the company behind Stewart's The Daily Show and The Colbert Report filed a $1 billion lawsuit against Google earlier in the year, alleging that Google and YouTube encourage users to pirate copyright material.

The two companies entered the names of people they each wish to depose in court, according to documents filed in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York last … Read more

Details in a MySpace user profile of a 31-year-old woman have been cited in a court case that centers on whether she lives in Pennsylvania or New Jersey.

Kristin Galonsky claims she tripped and fell in March 2005 when leaving a comedy club in New Jersey owned by the Tropicana Casino and Resort and sued the casino in federal court in Philadelphia. She claims in legal documents to be a "citizen and resident" of Southampton, Penn., which is just across the Delaware River from New Jersey.

Tropicana has asked U.S. District Judge J. Curtis Joyner to transfer … Read more