Tech Law

A lawsuit that began as a quest to reimburse customers for alleged collusion among telecom providers to lock upstart companies out of the market and keep prices high has ended with new restrictions on how such class action suits can be brought into court. Plaintiffs in the class action alleged that ...

New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has filed a lawsuit against Dell, saying the personal computer maker misled consumers with its PC financing offers. Dell confirmed the suit on Wednesday, and said it intended to vigorously defend itself against it. The complaint charges that the Round Roc...

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales unveiled on Monday a comprehensive legislative proposal that would toughen copyright protections, including penalties for the attempt to infringe on a copyright. Speaking before members of the Chamber of Commerce Coalition Against Counterfeiting and Piracy, Gonzales...

A former Oracle vice president has settled insider trading charges that he used information gained through his wife -- an assistant to Oracle CEO Larry Ellison and other company leaders -- to buy and sell stock in companies that Oracle was planning to purchase. The Securities and Exchange Commission...

Apple, Microsoft, Adobe Systems and Real Networks are the targets of a Santa Cruz, Calif., maker of copyright protection technologies that has sent letters demanding that the tech heavyweights cease and desist "actively avoiding" the use of its products. Media Rights Technologies and its digital rad...

Vonage may have found a way to provide its services without using disputed technology that Verizon Communications has patented, Vonage said Thursday, offering hope that the troubled VoIP provider can get out from under potentially crushing legal obligations to Verizon. Jeffrey Citron, Vonage's chair...

The billion-dollar lawsuit between Viacom and YouTube feels like a rerun. Haven't we seen this show before? New technology from an upstart company is rapidly adopted by millions of users, transforms traditional media distribution and stretches the legacy copyright framework to its limits. Maybe thes...

The lawsuit IBM filed against Amazon for multiple patent violations has ended amicably, with Amazon agreeing to pay undisclosed license fees. The legal battle over the disputed technologies began with much fanfare last fall, when IBM filed a complaint alleging that Amazon had infringed five of its p...

Marvell Technology Group announced several changes to its leadership after an internal investigation found that stock options grants were routinely backdated, the company announced Monday. The firm indicated that more changes could be on the way. Marvell's CFO George Hervey has resigned, the company...

Google's YouTube-related legal struggles have mounted in recent days, with NBC Universal and Viacom lending support to a California journalist's copyright infringement suit against the video-sharing site, and a third lawsuit filed by England's top soccer league. Both NBC Universal and Viacom -- whic...

An appeals court has denied Vonage's bid for a new trial in its patent spat with Verizon Communications, dashing the VoIP firm's hopes that a recent Supreme Court ruling would pave the way for its case to be reheard. Vonage had asked for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit to issue an ...

Every year, global friends and foes of the United States await the publication of the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative's Special 301 report on intellectual property protection overseas. The report highlights areas of weakness in most of the major markets, which can range from lax enforcement ...

Google filed documents with the U.S. District Court Monday, addressing the $1 billion lawsuit it faces from Viacom. In the response, filed in the Southern District of New York, Google contends that it has not violated the rights of the media conglomerate based on a provision of the Digital Millenniu...

In what one attorney described as "the most important patent case in a generation," the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday issued a decision that's expected to make patents that combine existing technologies more difficult to obtain. The facts in the case before the court, KSI International v. Teleflex, d...

The U.S. Supreme Court has sided with Microsoft in a closely watched patent dispute that could limit the reach of domestic patents in overseas uses. Monday's 7-1 decision overturned a lower court ruling, essentially concluding that Microsoft is not liable for overseas patent infringements in machine...