Overlawyered » technology http://overlawyered.com Chronicling the high cost of our legal system Tue, 14 Feb 2012 11:28:52 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.8.4 en hourly 1 Doe v. MySpace lawsuit dismissal affirmed http://overlawyered.com/2008/05/doe-v-myspace-lawsuit-dismissal-affirmed/ http://overlawyered.com/2008/05/doe-v-myspace-lawsuit-dismissal-affirmed/#comments Tue, 20 May 2008 02:48:57 +0000 Ted Frank http://overlawyered.com/?p=7010 In May 2006, 14-year-old Texas girl “Julie Doe” listed herself as 18 on her MySpace profile (so she could circumvent the site’s child safety features) and snuck out of her house to surreptitiously meet with a boy she met on MySpace the previous month. Unfortunately for her, the boy was also lying; Pete Solis was not a high-school athlete, but a 19-year-old that (allegedly) raped her. (Solis claims the sex was consensual and that he didn’t know about the illegal age difference, though knowledge ususally isn’t a defense in statutory rape cases.)

The family blamed MySpace and sued in multiple jurisdictions, omitting Solis from the most recent iteration of the suit. The suit was dismissed under the website hosting immunity protections of the Communications Decency Act; and Friday, the dismissal was affirmed by a unanimous panel of the Fifth Circuit (via Childs). We covered the suit in detail in 2006; for that, and other MySpace litigation, see our MySpace tag.

In April, Solis pleaded guilty to reduced charges of felony injury to a child, and will serve 90 days over the course of five years, and will register as a sex offender. (Jen Biundo, “Buda teen gets 90 days in jail, seven years on sex offender list”, The Free Press (Buda), April 23). His attorney? Adam Reposa, known for other reasons. One presume’s Solis’s even more ludicrous lawsuit against MySpace has met a similar fate.

Tags: , , , , ,

Related posts

]]> http://overlawyered.com/2008/05/doe-v-myspace-lawsuit-dismissal-affirmed/feed/ 3 “The unlucky troll” http://overlawyered.com/2008/04/the-unlucky-troll/ http://overlawyered.com/2008/04/the-unlucky-troll/#comments Sat, 19 Apr 2008 00:03:08 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/wpblog/?p=6119 It must be frustrating to own (or, depending on how one views the legalities, “own”) a patent on the JPEG photo format technology but then not actually be able to move in to collect royalties from “just about every web site that uses an image”. (Asher Hawkins, Forbes, May 5).

Tags:

Related posts

]]> http://overlawyered.com/2008/04/the-unlucky-troll/feed/ 4 “I would rather spend fifty thousand dollars on defense than give you a dollar of unmerited settlement funds” http://overlawyered.com/2008/04/i-would-rather-spend-fifty-thousand-dollars-on-defense-than-give-you-a-dollar-of-unmerited-settlement-funds/ http://overlawyered.com/2008/04/i-would-rather-spend-fifty-thousand-dollars-on-defense-than-give-you-a-dollar-of-unmerited-settlement-funds/#comments Wed, 16 Apr 2008 00:04:37 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/wpblog/?p=6099 A cease and desist letter from Monster Cable to Blue Jeans Cable, alleging various sorts of infringement of Monster’s intellectual property, draws a ferocious response from Blue Jeans’ president Kurt Denke, formerly a practicing lawyer. “Let me begin by stating, without equivocation, that I have no interest whatsoever in infringing upon any intellectual property belonging to Monster Cable. Indeed, the less my customers think my products resemble Monster’s, in form or in function, the better … It may be that my inability to see the pragmatic value of settling frivolous claims is a deep character flaw, and I am sure a few of the insurance carriers for whom I have done work have seen it that way; but it is how I have done business for the last quarter-century and you are not going to change my mind.” And much more (Audioholics; Slashdot).

Tags:

Related posts

]]> http://overlawyered.com/2008/04/i-would-rather-spend-fifty-thousand-dollars-on-defense-than-give-you-a-dollar-of-unmerited-settlement-funds/feed/ 6 Latest claimed IP infringements http://overlawyered.com/2008/04/latest-claimed-ip-infringements/ http://overlawyered.com/2008/04/latest-claimed-ip-infringements/#comments Mon, 07 Apr 2008 19:50:31 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/wpblog/?p=6069 Both via Ron Coleman: “Deutsche Telekom / T-Mobile demands Engadget Mobile discontinue using the color magenta” (Engadget, Mar. 31)(via). And Major League Baseball apparently makes bold to own all combinations of characteristic team colors and “baseball lettering” on shirts, even when the actual shirt message is something unrelated to baseball, such as “Obama” (Susan Scafidi/CounterfeitChic, Mar. 18) (via).

Tags: ,

Related posts

]]> http://overlawyered.com/2008/04/latest-claimed-ip-infringements/feed/ 0 We’ve come for your BlackBerries… http://overlawyered.com/2008/03/weve-come-for-your-blackberries/ http://overlawyered.com/2008/03/weve-come-for-your-blackberries/#comments Fri, 14 Mar 2008 00:19:17 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/wpblog/?p=5978 …as well as your keychain drives, backup tapes, laptops and network servers. New rules of federal procedure will make it more likely that a litigation opponent will show up on your doorstep with such a demand. (Martha Neil, “Opponent Computer Searches Likelier Under Revised Civ Pro Rule”, ABA Journal, Mar. 12; Nolan M. Goldberg, “Is Your Data Wide Open to Your Opponent?”, National Law Journal, Mar. 12).

Tags: ,

Related posts

]]> http://overlawyered.com/2008/03/weve-come-for-your-blackberries/feed/ 1 Watch What You Say About Lawyers Dept.: Troll Tracker blog sued out of existence http://overlawyered.com/2008/03/watch-what-you-say-about-lawyers-dept-troll-tracker-blog-sued-out-of-existence/ http://overlawyered.com/2008/03/watch-what-you-say-about-lawyers-dept-troll-tracker-blog-sued-out-of-existence/#comments Tue, 11 Mar 2008 18:32:59 +0000 Ted Frank http://overlawyered.com/wpblog/?p=5968 The Troll Tracker blog is down shortly after (or before?) a lawsuit filed by a plaintiffs’ attorney and son of federal judge T. John Ward, Jr. sued the blogger and his employer, Cisco, over a post critical of Ward and attorney Eric Albritton. [Prior Art blog via ATL] I couldn’t find the complaint on-line, but I’ll track it down over the weekend. Earlier: Feb. 26; earlier in the series.

Tags: , , , , ,

Related posts

]]> http://overlawyered.com/2008/03/watch-what-you-say-about-lawyers-dept-troll-tracker-blog-sued-out-of-existence/feed/ 0 Ending software patents http://overlawyered.com/2008/03/ending-software-patents/ http://overlawyered.com/2008/03/ending-software-patents/#comments Wed, 05 Mar 2008 19:42:11 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/wpblog/?p=5945 Has the time come? (Roger Parloff, Fortune “Legal Pad”, Feb. 28).

Tags:

Related posts

]]> http://overlawyered.com/2008/03/ending-software-patents/feed/ 0 Lost laptop = $54 million? http://overlawyered.com/2008/02/lost-laptop-54-million/ http://overlawyered.com/2008/02/lost-laptop-54-million/#comments Wed, 13 Feb 2008 00:04:07 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/wpblog/?p=5858 Bob Sullivan, MSNBC “Red Tape”, Feb. 12:
How much compensation does a consumer deserve for the loss of a laptop computer loaded with personal information? Raelyn Campbell figures it’s $54 million — if you throw in a little extra for lost time and frustration.

Six months after bringing a damaged laptop computer into a Best Buy electronics store for repairs, and three months after the firm admitted losing it, Campbell filed the whopper of a lawsuit recently in Washington, D.C., Superior Court….

Tags: ,

Related posts

]]> http://overlawyered.com/2008/02/lost-laptop-54-million/feed/ 11 AFF January Roundtable: “Don’t Be Evil”: Privacy in the Age of Google http://overlawyered.com/2008/01/aff-january-roundtable-dont-be-evil-privacy-in-the-age-of-google/ http://overlawyered.com/2008/01/aff-january-roundtable-dont-be-evil-privacy-in-the-age-of-google/#comments Fri, 11 Jan 2008 08:47:55 +0000 Ted Frank http://overlawyered.com/wpblog/?p=5732 America’s Future Foundation is holding a January 16 panel on this topic:
In less than a decade, Google has grown from a Ph.D. research project to be the indispensable tool of the information economy. With the objective of making all information instantly and universally accessible, Google now controls the principal index to the internet and the email traffic of millions, while adding new features such as maps replete with street-level photos cataloging the non-virtual world. As governments around the world seek to harness this information for good or evil, please join us on January 16th to discuss what we stand to gain and lose from this relentless indexing of information.

Joining us in the discussion will be Marc Rotenberg, Executive Director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), Cord Blomquist of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and Amber Taylor of O’Melveny & Myers LLP. Moderating this discussion will be Chris Pope of the American Enterprise Institute.

Free for AFF members, $5 for non-members.

Tags:

Related posts

]]> http://overlawyered.com/2008/01/aff-january-roundtable-dont-be-evil-privacy-in-the-age-of-google/feed/ 0 Update: Hormel vs. SpamArrest http://overlawyered.com/2007/12/update-hormel-vs-spamarrest/ http://overlawyered.com/2007/12/update-hormel-vs-spamarrest/#comments Thu, 06 Dec 2007 00:05:55 +0000 Walter Olson http://overlawyered.com/wpblog/?p=5612 Meatpacker Hormel has met with defeat in its courtroom attempt to invalidate the registration of the trademark SpamArrest for an email-screening service (Ron Coleman (Nov. 27; TTABlog, Nov. 28). Our earlier coverage: Jul. 9, 2003 and Apr. 19, 2007.

Tags: ,

Related posts

]]> http://overlawyered.com/2007/12/update-hormel-vs-spamarrest/feed/ 0