On MySpace, a 19-year-old Texas youth approached a 14-year-old girl; his profile claimed that he was a high school senior on the football team. She says that following a series of emails and phone calls, she went out with him and their evening on the town culminated in his sexually assaulting her, for which Rupert Murdoch should pay $30 million as owner of the social networking site. Still to come: suits against shopping malls, ice cream shops and music venues for providing environments in which older teens can approach younger ones and sweet-talk them into eventual dangerous situations. (Claire Osborn, “Teen, mom sue MySpace.com for $30 million”, Austin American-Statesman, Jun. 20). Prof. Childs has more, here and here, as do Joanne Jacobs, KipEsquire and Shakespeare’s Sister.
Posts Tagged ‘technology’
Jack Thompson at it again
Perennial anti-videogame action-filer (and Overlawyered favorite) Jack Thompson is at it again, this time in Louisiana:
Acting on a Florida lawyer’s suggestion that violent video games may have figured in Tuesday’s slaying of a West Feliciana Parish man, sheriff’s deputies searched the home of one teenage suspect again on Thursday.
West Feliciana Parish Sheriff’s Capt. Spence Dilworth said deputies seized several video games rated “M” for “Mature” from the residence of Kurt Edward Neher, 16, but the detective said he is not drawing any conclusions from his findings.
Thompson says “published reports of Gore’s injuries ‘raised a red flag’ in his, Thompson’s, mind.” For instance? Well, reports that the youths killed their victim because he would not lend them his car reminded Thompson of scenarios in “Grand Theft Auto”, and that “the apparent repeated ‘pummeling’ of the victim is consistent with scenes in violent video games.” Douglas Lowenstein, president of the Entertainment Software Association, responded in a rather restrained fashion, pointing out that “Violent crime involving kids predates video games”. (James Minton, “Video games seized from teen’s home”, Baton Rouge Advocate, Jun. 3).
Trolls-B-Gon?
Forbes says “patent trolls” will be deterred by the Supreme Court’s new ruling in the eBay case, in which “the justices ruled unanimously that federal courts must weigh several factors before barring a patent infringer from using a contested technology or business method.” (Jessica Holzer, “Supreme Court Buries Patent Trolls”, May 16)(& Lattman)(opinion, PDF).
Smiley face trademark litigation
It’s Wal-Mart versus this French guy whose lawyers go around the world claiming dibs on the use of the grinning yellow circle. Can’t they both lose? Or maybe better, both win, and obtain mutual injunctions against anyone at all employing the symbol? (Abigail Goldman, “Wal-Mart Vies for Right to Put On a Happy Face”, Los Angeles Times, May 7).
Model railroader sent $203k patent-infringement bill
Ben Jacobsen, a model railroad hobbyist, wrote open-source software to allow one to connect a computer to their model railroad and control trains with it. KAM Industries, which makes commercial software to do the same thing, has been having their lawyers send him scare letters, including a bill for $203,000 for a license, and filing an FOIA request with his academic sponsor. Jacobsen believes the patent is invalid, and claims to have made his software publicly available before KAM filed for the patent in 2002. (Lenford blog; Jacobsen correspondence).
Letter from Apple lawyers makes little girl cry
In California, nine-year old Shea O’Gorman wrote a letter to Apple CEO Steve Jobs suggesting changes that she thought might improve the iPod. The letter she got back from an Apple senior counsel, advising her of the company’s policy against considering unsolicited ideas, was brusque enough to reduce her to tears. Following bad publicity, Apple apologized to Miss O’Gorman and says it is revising its policies on communicating with children. The policy against considering unsolicited ideas, of course, “is designed to protect Apple from future patent lawsuits should submitted ideas ever be used.” (“Apple legal makes little girl sob”, MacWorld UK, Apr. 17).
Western Digital hard drive settlement
Two readers have written in to call attention to the terms of a settlement by Western Digital of a class action over the disparity between the announced size of its hard drives and the amount that is usable (settlement notice/FAQs). Reader Bill Evans says the settlement will “affect only aftermarket drives, class members to get $7.50 for each drive and will be able to download backup software. Lawyers get $485,000 plus $15,000 for expenses.”
Reader Mickey Ferguson writes:
Some months ago I bought a Western Digital hard drive. I now see that a class action suit was brought against WD, claiming that they misrepresented their drive capacities. What was the remedy? They offered me software – EMC Dantz Retrospect Express version 7.0 for Windows users and version 6.1 for Mac users – for which I have no use or interest. I have much better backup software that I’ve already purchased. Plus, it has been reported in various locations on the network to be incompatible with Microsoft Windows .NET 2.0 framework, a common component in many recent software programs.
There are no other remedies. Either I take the software, which has very little commercial value and none to me personally, or I write a letter to the court, voicing my concerns above, that will immediately be trampled by both plaintiff and defense attorneys, who both want the settlement to go through because the settlement essentially costs WD very little (useless software that they OEM anyway), and the plaintiff attorneys get their percentage of the settlement. As usual, the plaintiff attorneys make huge sums of money, and the actual victims get nothing of any particular value.
P.S. Just to be clear, I don’t feel like I’ve been harmed in any way, nor do I feel entitled to any settlement. I knew ahead of time exactly the game they play. All drive manufacturers have played the game, and this is just a way for an attorney to make a lot of money over nothing. If it were my preference, I’d rather the judge throw the entire suit out and sanction the lawyers for a frivolous lawsuit, but I know that would never happen, and frankly, there are some people out there who don’t know the difference between 1 GB and 1 billion bytes, to whom there is a claim of (very slight) harm.
Update: Jul. 3.
Netflix claims a patent on renting movies on-line
And sues Blockbuster for allegedly infringing the patent, issued Tuesday, which purports to teach “a method for subscription-based online rental that allows subscribers to keep the DVDs they rent for as long as they wish without incurring any late fees, to obtain new DVDs without incurring additional charges and to prioritize and reprioritize their own personal dynamic queue of DVDs to be rented.” Blockbuster Online has 1 million subscribers to Netflix’s 4.2 million. (Reuters, Apr. 4). I’m suddenly a lot less sympathetic about Netflix’s class-action troubles. (Full disclosure: I own stock in Blockbuster.)
If I could sue like the animals
Canadian photographer Gregory Colbert is starting an outfit he calls the Animal Copyright Foundation whose intent is to collect royalty payments on behalf of animal species as compensation for the use in advertising of, for instance, the Budweiser Clydesdales, Target’s spotted dog, the Hartford’s stag, and other furred, finned or feathered creatures, the proceeds to be distributed to conservation causes that benefit animals. In all fairness, media accounts describe Colbert as seeking not obligatory rules requiring payment of the 1 percent royalties when a photo or video is used, but rather a “seal of approval” system in which advertisers vie for consumer favor by voluntarily pledging the set-aside. One almost hesitates to publicize the idea, however, for fear it will percolate in the law schools and emerge after a few years as an asserted new legal entitlement, as “animal standing” has done. (WSJ law blog, Mar. 16; Tim Nudd, AdFreak, Mar. 10; Lunch Over IP, Feb. 25).
“BlackBerry Lawsuit Is Patently Absurd”
So says Rob Pegoraro in today’s Washington Post.
It’s not that NTP never turned its ideas into a product. The patent system doesn’t reserve success to owners of factories and laboratories; the guy living in his parents’ basement is allowed to sell his idea to people with those resources.
No, the problem here is simpler. There are too many bogus patents getting handed out.
Pegoraro also notes that RIM is hardly an innocent in the patent wars. The potential injunction has gotten loads of press coverage; Howard Bashman has roundups here, here, and here. See also Point of Law, Nov. 25, and Overlawyered’s Blackberry litigation coverage.