Courts

Some of America's leading Internet Service Providers (ISPs) have reached an agreement with movie and music companies to punish customers who breach copyright laws. But while the sanctions are lighter than rights owners would like, the move could ... still spark a legal debate. The deal involves AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner and Verizon, along with industry bodies for Hollywood studios, record labels and TV producers. It's being organized under the newly-formed Center for Copyright Information. Although it's an industry program and isn't governed by legal regulations, there are reports that White ... (view more)

The Supreme Court recently reached a ruling that will be seen by many as a victory for makers of violent video games. At least seven states have passed legislation that bans the sale of violent games, but in every case that legislation was ... overturned by a lower court. California, which passed such a law in 2005 and was immediately blocked from enforcing it, was the first to appeal to the Supreme Court. The California law caused immediate controversy: while it only banned sales where the content was "patently offensive," the threshold also required prosecutors to show a game lacked "serious ... (view more)

Microsoft has failed in a Supreme Court bid to overturn a $290 million patent violation ruling. Not only is it the largest such award ever upheld, but this final ruling has significant consequences for patent law. The case involves XML documents, an ... advanced version of the HTML webpage code that allows data to be tagged to designate its content rather than just the way it appears on screen. The code makes it much easier to organize document content (for example, in a database). Microsoft Office XML Support Began with Office 2003 Microsoft built support for reading XML documents into the 2003 ... (view more)

Until recently, courts of law have had the power to force Internet Service Providers to hand over customer details based on IP (Internet Protocol) address information, which is used to identify a user connected to the Internet. But now one judge has ... refused to make such an order, questioning the accuracy of the method. An IP is a number that identifies a particular device such as a computer or a router connected to a network. In theory, there is a straight correlation between one device and one IP address. In practice, though, a single IP address does not necessarily mean one computer or one ... (view more)

A district court in Massachusetts plans to use social media to improve public understanding of the legal process. The experiment will take place in Quincy District Court, to the south of Boston. Unlike many courts where filming is allowed for use in ... news broadcasts, the plan here is to have a live Internet video broadcast whenever the court is in session. Not only is the court going to allow court visitors to blog, update Facebook and post to Twitter during cases, but it's providing a WiFi connection and even setting up a special seating area for "citizen journalists." Lawyers Fear Privacy ... (view more)

Microsoft and Apple have headed to court over a war of words, or at least, technicalities of their use. Microsoft has filed a petition requesting that the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to deny Apple a trademark on the name "App Store." According ... to Microsoft, the term "App Store" is simply too generic to be the exclusive property of Apple. Apple first applied for the trademark in 2008 when it launched the iTunes App Store for the iPhone. It wanted to cover the term for any form of software retailing provided through the Internet. (Source: pcworld.com ) Microsoft: ... (view more)

A Michigan man could be jailed for up to five years after being charged with illegally accessing his wife's email account. But there are legal questions over the extent of privacy between married couples. The case involves Leon Walker, who shared a ... laptop in his home with his wife Clara, who has been married three times. Walker suspected she was having an affair with her second husband, which he was able to confirm after accessing her Gmail account. He then passed the relevant emails on to her first husband, who is the father of a child living at the couple's home. When the first husband went ... (view more)

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has failed in a bid to win patent damages against numerous online retailers, as well as Google and YouTube. He's been given until late December to come up with more specific claims. Allen's lawsuit named AOL, Apple, ... eBay, Facebook, Google, Netflix, Yahoo and YouTube, plus retailers Officemax, Office Depot and Staples. But a federal judge said Allen hadn't been specific enough in his filing, meaning "the court and defendants are left to guess what devices infringe on the four patents." (Source: wsj.com ) Patent Copyrights Date back to 1992 The patents belong to ... (view more)

In a bid to avoid an enormous $290 million fine, Microsoft is challenging the Supreme Court's handling of patent infringement cases. The company was hit with the financial penalty after it was found that Microsoft Word violated an XML tag patent ... owned by Canadian company i4i. Having failed in a federal appeal, Microsoft is no longer able to challenge the ruling that it did indeed violate the patent. However, Microsoft has continued to argue that the patent is not valid. It claims to have evidence that products using the technology patented by i4i were on sale more than a year before the ... (view more)

The Supreme Court is re-examining the hotly disputed issue of video game violence. In an ongoing case, it's deciding whether to uphold a California law that would ban violent games being sold to kids under 18 years of age. The law, passed in 2005, ... would have introduced a $1,000 fine for any retailer caught selling "violent" games to minors. However, it wouldn't have stopped parents or other adults buying games and letting children play them. The law soon came under challenge and in 2009 California's highest court rejected it. That ruling said that there was no conclusive evidence that playing ... (view more)