Tech Law

Nokia announced Wednesday that it has filed a complaint with the United States International Trade Commission against HTC, as well as lawsuits in the U.S. and Germany against Research In Motion and Viewsonic, claiming the three firms violated a total of 45 patents. The patents in question cover hard...

The England and Wales High Court has ordered that Internet service providers in the UK must block access to The Pirate Bay. The High Court ruled in February that the site and its users were in violation of copyright law and followed with the court order Monday commanding ISPs to restrict access to t...

The Oracle and Google legal teams delivered their closing arguments Monday in the high-profile trial over allegations Google violated Oracle's copyright on Java, and the case was sent to the jury. Oracle's argument, presented by attorney Michael Jacobs, is that Google knew it needed a license for Ja...

Interest in the United States Federal Trade Commission's antitrust probe into Google was given a jolt with the commission's decision to enlist seasoned white-collar crime litigator Beth Wilkinson to head the investigation. "When we have the opportunity to augment our team by bringing on a lawyer wit...

As testimony unfolds in the Oracle-Google lawsuit, now in its second week, it appears that Google's defense against copyright infringement is vulnerable. That is not to say Google will not ultimately prevail in the end. Oracle has alleged that Google's Android OS infringes both Java patents and copy...

Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt defended his company's actions regarding Java and Android as he took the witness stand Tuesday during Google's ongoing trial, in which the company stands accused of misusing Java programming code in the development of its mobile operating system. Oracle, which ...

In an initial determination, International Trade Commission judge Thomas Pender ruled that Apple was violating one of Motorola Mobility's patents for 3G wireless technology. Specifically, the ruling cited a patent that was issued to Motorola in 2001 for a "method and system for generating a complex ...

Just two weeks after forking over more than $1 billion to AOL for hundreds of patents and patent applications, Microsoft resold 650 of them to Facebook on Monday. Each party in this latest transaction will retain licenses to the intellectual property the other will hold when the deal is completed. T...

Google CEO Larry Page continued his testimony on Wednesday in the trial over whether his company violated Oracle's Java patents and copyrights. Like Oracle CEO Larry Ellison attempted to do with his testimony on Tuesday, Page did his best to give little ground to the opposing counsel. Yet they manag...

If there were any doubts as to Oracle CEO Larry Ellison's attitude toward Google, those were dispelled in his testimony on Tuesday morning in a San Francisco U.S. District Court courtroom. Oracle has filed suit against Google, alleging that that its Android mobile operating system infringed on pat...

Google's $12.5 billion acquisition of Motorola Mobility has been characterized, so far, by a few simple and overarching story lines: Will it be approved by U.S. and European regulatory authorities? Ditto for other countries' legal infrastructure, such as China. Will complaints from competitors such ...

In the aftermath of the Watergate scandal in the 1970s, state and federal governments moved to become more open, and the Internet has made the achievement of transparency even easier. Information is now available to the general public on government websites or from federal agencies in response ...

Microsoft has agreed to buy more than 800 patents from AOL for over $1 billion. The deal gives AOL a cross-license to the patents it's selling to Microsoft, a source close to Microsoft confirmed. Further, Microsoft will get a non-exclusive license for the remaining 300+ patents and patent applicatio...

Twitter has taken its battle against spammers to the courtroom. It's sued groups it says are responsible for dumping fast numbers of junk tweets into its network. The suit goes after five of what Twitter called the network's "most aggressive tool providers and spammers." Defendants include the maker...

U.S. District Judge Robert Blackburn has upheld a permanent injunction on a Colorado law that would have required out-of-state online retailers to report their in-state customers' purchases to Colorado tax authorities and notify those customers of the resulting sales tax owed to the state. The repor...