“I’m sure you realize the asymmetry in the financial resources of our respective companies when you say: ‘We will both just end up paying a lot of lawyers a lot of money.’” [TheVerge.com]
Posts tagged as:
Apple
- Deborah Gerhardt on the ruling in favor of an artist who paints Crimson Tide sports highlights without University of Alabama say-so [Deborah Gerhardt/Eric Goldman, earlier here, etc.]
- Posner throws out Apple/Motorola case [Tabarrok, more]
- Joinder of defendants allegedly violating same patent: “D.C. Court Ruling Makes Life Tougher For Patent Trolls” [Daniel Fisher, Forbes]
- “Google, AOL Face Patent Suit Over ‘Snippet’ Search Results, Ads” [Justia]
- “Absurd patent of the day, Apple re: wedge-shaped computers” [Tabarrok]
- “Defensive Patent License: judo for patent-trolls” [Doctorow/BB]
- Why are copyright terms so long? One theory [Julian Sanchez]
…and so Washington, D.C. watches with some satisfaction as government agencies and congressional panels begin to take bites at the super-successful company on antitrust, tax and other grounds. [David Boaz, Cato-at-Liberty and New York Daily News]. More on the affluent culture of Washington D.C. from Andrew Ferguson [via MR]
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- Lawsuit claim: MERS mortgage system is just a racket to deprive court clerks of recording fees [Baton Rouge Advocate]
- More reporting on hospital and community drug shortages [Washington Post; my post last summer]
- Roger Pilon: How the “judicial activism” debate changed [Cato at Liberty]
- Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, spoken of as a future national political figure, has rather a lot of ties to trial lawyers [Political Desk]
- Problems with DOJ e-book antitrust suit targeting Apple [Declan McCullagh]
- One bogus campaign feeds into another: “ALEC Unfairly Demonized Over ‘Stand Your Ground’ Laws” [Bader, CEI "Open Market"]
- New Point of Law discussion on class actions with Ted Frank and Brian Fitzpatrick;
- Today’s best spam comment? “With all the thistledown floating almost on the net, it is rare to look over a locate like yours instead.”
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- “Help, I left my kids to wait in the car for less than five minutes, now I’m on trial for child endangerment” [Skenazy] “N.Y. State Senate Passes Bill Outlawing Kids Under 8 Waiting in Cars” [same]
- “Greek court dismisses charges against German magazine for denigrating national symbol” [AP]
- Pre-clearance for financial innovation, as with drugs and the FDA? Bad idea [Mark Calabria/Cato, The Economist, Thom Lambert]
- NYT, Reuters misreport effect of Stand Your Ground laws [Jacob Sullum, Robert VerBruggen/NRO, earlier here, etc.]
- “Attorney advises against talking to Baltimore Sun in email mistakenly sent to Baltimore Sun” [Andrew Beaujon, Poynter]
- Ken at Popehat knows how to pick his enemies [first, second, third posts, Philly Law Blog]
- “Now Can We Start Talking About the Real Foxconn?” [Tim Culpan, Bloomberg]
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- NYC: “Lawsuit Blames Apple’s Glass Doors for Plaintiff’s Broken Nose” [Lowering the Bar, CBS New York]
- Some who pushed enhanced punishment for Dharun Ravi may now be doubting they really want it [Scott Greenfield, earlier here, etc.]
- NYT editorial on FMLA state immunity is as bad as anyone had a right to expect [Whelan]
- “Pleading, Discovery, and the Federal Rules: Exploring the Foundations of Modern Procedure” [Martin Redish, FedSoc "Engage"] Summary of important ’09 Redish book Wholesale Justice calling into question constitutionality of class actions [Trask]
- Would trial-by-DVD be so very wrong? [James Grimmelmann, Prawfs]
- Contested memorabilia: lawsuits filed over estate of gay rights pioneer Franklin Kameny [MetroWeekly]
- Feds’ “distracted driving” guidance could impair usefulness of car navigation systems [Cunningham/CNet, earlier]
“This American Life” has retracted a much-discussed news segment about the horrors of Apple’s Shenzhen, China workplace after discovering it was faked; Mike Daisey’s report contained “numerous fabrications,” it says. For more on how readiness to believe the worst about big business can leave media open to being fooled by manipulative packagers of news, see the GM trucks episode, Food Lion, and a great many others. [Ira Glass, Jack Shafer, Edward Champion]
More from David Henderson. And Coyote: “The problem with the media is not outright bias, but an intellectual mono-culture that fails to exercise the most basic skepticism when stories fit their narrative.”
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The class action firm of Robbins Geller, representing some client or other, is demanding damages from Apple on behalf of a class of people disappointed by the iPhone 4S voice-activated assistant, Siri. Reviewers have complained that the program often fails to comprehend users’ speech, returns illogical answers, and when asked “Play some Coltrane,” has been known to respond that it doesn’t know any “coal train.” [Mat Honan, Gizmodo; Jason Gilbert/Huffington Post] “When asked her whether her makers exaggerated her worth, Siri told Law Blog, ‘We were talking about you, not me.’” [Joe Palazzolo/WSJ Law Blog]
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Belated and unsatisfactory lawsuit “relief”? Nothing especially Applelicious about that; it’s more a matter of joining the class-action crowd. [Rebecca Greenfield, Atlantic Wire] More: Ted Frank, Point of Law (who represents objector Marie Gryphon in the case).
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Toronto lawyer Michael Deverett thinks a bad guy must have followed him home from the Apple Store; at least someone smashed his hatchback car window when he stepped away for a couple of minutes and made off with what he said was a well concealed bag of new electronics purchases worth C$2,200. The company — which gave him a store credit plus a small extra for legal fees — is also facing criticism from theft victims who say it should do more to help owners retrieve stolen cellphones. [Toronto Star](& welcome Elie Mystal, Above the Law readers)
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- Debate on medical malpractice between Ted Frank (Manhattan Institute) and Shirley Svorny (Cato Institute) [PoL]
- Lawyers, accountants have done well from litigation-ridden Pearlman Ponzi aftermath [Orlando Sentinel]
- Book drop “inherently dangerous”, says rape victim’s family suing library designers [Florida, LISNews]
- “The iTunes Class Action Lawsuit You’ll Never Hear About”[NJLRA] “Jackson v. Unocal – Class Actions Find a Welcome Home in Colorado” [Karlsgodt]
- Another tot accused of sexual harassment, this time a first grader [Boston Herald, earlier (six year old's "assault")]
- Profile of lawyer who defends fair use of clips for documentary makers [ABA Journal]
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Apple, notes Tim Carney, never formed a PAC and didn’t see its business as politics.
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- Seattle’s best? Class action lawyer suing Apple, e-publishers has represented Microsoft [Seattle Times, earlier]
- “Disabled” NYC firefighter/martial arts enthusiast can go on getting checks for life [NYPost; compare]
- After the FDA enforcement action on drug manufacturing lapses come the tagalong liability claims by uninjured plaintiffs [Beck]
- “What If Lower Court Judges Weren’t Bound by Supreme Court Precedent?” [Orin Kerr]
- Fark.com settles a patent suit for $0 (rough language);
- Canadian law society to pay $100K for asking prospective lawyers about mental illness [ABA Journal]
- Self-help eviction? “Chinese Developers Accused Of Putting Scorpions In Apartments To Force Out Residents” [Business Insider]
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Rob Beschizza sees clues to the economics of patent litigation in the public pronouncements of Lodsys, a company that has sued small Apple developers based on IP claims covering such common app features as upgrade buttons. [BoingBoing, more, This Is My Next (with copy of a 2007 patent for "Methods and Systems for Gathering Information from Units of a Commodity Across a Network"] Update: Apple intervenes.
Among its most insidious features, notes Ira Stoll, is a $2.5 million cy pres fund earmarked for “corporate governance programs at 12 universities across the country,” and which will predictably encourage such academic programs, at law schools and elsewhere, to align themselves further with the agenda of the plaintiff’s securities bar and against the interest of actual shareholders at companies like Apple. I’ve got much more about cy pres law school slush funds in Schools for Misrule, forthcoming. [Future of Capitalism; Jim at PoL]
What, no dustjacket? The suit claims that the way the iPad turns off to avoid overheating, which can happen outdoors in direct sunlight, makes its user experience not “just like a book”. [Chris Walters, Consumerist]
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Comment of the day
by Walter Olson on April 26, 2011
By Scott Jacobs, on a guest post by Aaron Worthing (regarding class actions over Apple device location tracking) at Patterico:
How, indeed?
Tagged as: accolades, Apple, class action settlements, open threads and commenter posts
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