Tech

Supreme Court Rejects Apple Appeal In Patent Fight With VirnetX

New submitter John Trumpian shares a report from Reuters: The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear Apple's bid to avoid paying about $440 million in damages for using patent licensing firm VirnetX's internet security technology without permission in features such as FaceTime video calling. The justices rejected Apple's appeal in the long-running case in which a federal jury in 2016 found that Apple had infringed VirnetX's patents and awarded $302 million. A judge later increased that amo...
Tags: Apple, Supreme Court, Washington, Tech, Vpn, Nevada, Facetime, Reuters, U S Supreme Court, Eastern District of Texas, U S Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit, Cupertino California, John Trumpian

Monday round-up

This morning the justices return to the bench for the February argument session. First on the agenda is the oral argument in U.S. Forest Service v. Cowpasture River Preservation Association, involving the power of the Forest Service to grant rights of way through lands traversed by the Appalachian Trail. Noah Sachs previewed the case for this blog. Philip Duggan and Kaitlyn Marasi have a preview at Cornell Law School’s Legal Information Institute. At Subscript Law, Mariam Morshedi provides a gra...
Tags: Google, Justice, Supreme Court, Law, Washington Post, Oregon, Court, America, Cnn, United States, New York Times, Sudan, SEC, Louisiana, Illinois, Vox

Supreme Court denies Apple's bid to avoid paying $440 million in damages

The United States Supreme Court on Monday dealt a blow to Apple in a decade-long legal battle over whether the iPhone maker infringed on another company's patents.
Tags: Apple, News, Supreme Court, Stories, United States Supreme Court

Supreme Court denies Apple's bid to avoid paying $440 million damages in patent fight

The United States Supreme Court on Monday dealt a blow to Apple in a decade-long legal battle over whether the iPhone maker infringed on another company's patents.
Tags: Apple, News, Supreme Court, Stories, United States Supreme Court

Oracle's Allies Against Google Include Scott McNealy and America's Justice Department

America's Justice Department "has filed a brief in support of Oracle in its Supreme Court battle against Google over whether Java should have copyright protection," reports ZDNet: The Justice Department filed its amicus brief to the Supreme Court this week, joining a mighty list of briefs from major tech companies and industry luminaries — including Scott McNealy, co-founder of Sun, which Oracle bought in 2010, acquiring Sun-built Java in the process. While Microsoft, IBM and others have backed...
Tags: Apple, Google, Supreme Court, America, Tech, Internet Association, Sun, Dell, Java, Oracle, Justice Department, EMC, Linus Torvalds, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Glueck, Center for Democracy and Technology

Friday round-up

As the justices reconvene today for their first private conference in several weeks, Kimberly Robinson reports at Bloomberg Law that “[t]he second half of the Supreme Court’s current term will be chock-full of high-profile arguments and blockbuster opinions, and court watchers say it’s going to be explosive.” Mark Sherman reports at AP (via How Appealing) that “[t]he court is poised to issue campaign-season decisions in the full bloom of spring in cases dealing with President Donald Trump’s tax ...
Tags: Google, Supreme Court, Law, Eric Holder, Ap, United States, Tennessee, Louisiana, Donald Trump, Forest Service, Turner, ABA Journal, Trump, Round-up, Mark Sherman, John Roberts

Oracle has the support of the Trump administration and some big media industry groups in its Supreme Court fight against Google. Here's why they're siding with Oracle. (ORCL, GOOG)

Oracle and Google are scheduled to face off before the US Supreme Court on March 24.  The 10-year-old dispute is based on Oracle's claim that Google stole a key component of its Java technology to build the Android operating system. Google rejects the charge, saying Oracle cannot copyright the code — known as APIs, or application programming interfaces — which allows programs to talk to each other. The Trump administration, through Solicitor General Noel Francisco, argues that Google is using...
Tags: Google, Supreme Court, White House, US, Trends, Larry Ellison, Sun, Ibm, Dell, Francisco, Oracle, EMC, US supreme court, Sun Microsystems, Southern California, Trump

Oracle is accusing Google's chief legal officer of leading a 'coercion campaign' to pressure groups not to support it in their Supreme Court brawl (ORCL, GOOG)

Oracle is accusing Google's chief legal officer of waging a "coercion campaign" aimed at pressuring companies and groups not to endorse its position in their Supreme Court battle. Oracle Executive Vice President Ken Glueck, the tech giant's point man in Washington DC, said Kent Walker, Google's head of global affairs, reached out to "more than half a dozen" parties "to persuade them to stay silent" on the legal dispute. Oracle is accusing Google of copyright infringement and stealing a key com...
Tags: Google, Supreme Court, Trends, Washington Dc, Oracle, Google Photos, US supreme court, Sun Microsystems, Walker, Oracle Google, IBM Microsoft, Scott McNealy, Kent Walker, Trump Administration, Noel Francisco, Kent Walker Google

Trump WH urges Supreme Court to kill Alphabet's appeal vs Oracle on same day Trump attends Larry Ellison's re-election fundraiser

Sure, this absolutely passes the corruption smell test. Everything is fine. Trump and his klepto-regime are (of course) supporting Oracle's Larry Ellison in his Supreme Court fight with Google. The same day the same Larry Ellison hosted a massive fundraiser for Trump in California. From reporting by Malathi Nayak at Bloomberg News: The Trump administration urged the U.S. Supreme Court to reject an appeal by Alphabet Inc.’s Google, boosting Oracle Corp.’s bid to collect more than $8 billion in r...
Tags: Google, Post, Business, Technology, News, Justice, Supreme Court, Law, California, Tech, Tech News, Larry Ellison, Donald Trump, Oracle, Trump, U S Supreme Court

Apple Might Let You Change Your Default Apps, Other Giants Could Finally Get a Fair Shake

Potentially yielding some bitterly-contested ground, Apple is thinking about allowing its users to replace their default essential apps like Safari, Mail, and Apple Music with third-party apps, Bloomberg reports. [Muted golf clap.] This comes less than a year after the Supreme Court paved the way for app-related…Read more...
Tags: Apple, Spotify, Science, Supreme Court, Bloomberg, Antitrust, Safari Mail, HomePod

Thursday round-up

Court-watchers continue to focus on June Medical Services v. Russo, a high-profile abortion case to be argued on March 4. At Vox, Anna North writes that a visit to “Hope Medical Group for Women, one of the last abortion clinics in Louisiana,” the state whose admitting-privileges requirement for abortion providers is at issue in the case, “is a reminder that in many parts of the country, all that stands between pregnant people and the end of Roe v. Wade is a handful of clinics — most of them smal...
Tags: Google, Hollywood, Supreme Court, Law, Bloomberg, Louisiana, Oklahoma, Round-up, U S Supreme Court, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, Eriq Gardner, Russo, Richard Revesz, Goldstein Russell, Oracle America, June Medical Services

Big Tech companies have a new question: Build, Buy or Bail

Welcome to this week's edition of Trending, the newsletter where we highlight BI Prime's biggest tech stories. I'm Alexei Oreskovic, Business Insider's West Coast bureau chief and global tech editor. If this is your first time here, this is how you can get Trending in your inbox every week. This week: To build or to buy, tech's fundamental question takes center stage "Build or Buy?" is one of the fundamental questions for any tech business. The unrelenting rhythm of innovation in technology, ...
Tags: Apple, Google, Amazon, Facebook, Elon Musk, Supreme Court, Microsoft, Softbank, Trends, Tech, Cisco, Pimco, Ibm, Silicon Valley, Jeff Bezos, West Coast

Wednesday round-up

Greg Stohr reports at Bloomberg that “[t]he Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s independence, designed by a Democratic-controlled Congress to insulate the agency from political pressure, now risks being its downfall,” as the court gets ready to hear argument in a constitutional challenge to the structure of the bureau, Seila Law v. CFPB. At Reuters’ On the Case blog (via How Appealing), Alison Frankel writes that “the CFPB has found an unlikely champion” in the case”: “The Trump administratio...
Tags: Google, Supreme Court, Law, Congress, Bloomberg, Louisiana, Usa Today, Smith, Justice Department, Forest Service, Round-up, Reuters, Antonin Scalia, New Republic, U S Supreme Court, Alison Frankel

Kickstarter's historic vote doesn't mean unions are coming back. Here's what the future of labor looks like instead.

Kickstarter became the first tech company to unionize Tuesday. While historic, unions will continue to decline in the US, labor leaders say. The Supreme Court recently ruled to limit unions' power. Instead, non-worker unions that represent workers across an entire industry — like farmers and home healthcare workers — are ushering in a new way to organize. Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. Employees of the crowdfunding company Kickstarter voted to unionize on Tuesday. While p...
Tags: Google, Facebook, Florida, Taylor Swift, Supreme Court, US, Trends, Data, Kickstarter, Seattle, Instacart, Taco Bell, McDonald, Lichtenstein, David Rolf, Rolf

A top Oracle exec says Google is 'virtually alone' in its Supreme Court battle over Java, downplaying IBM and Microsoft's support for its tech rival (ORCL, GOOG, MSFT, IBM)

A top Oracle executive said Google is "virtually alone" in its Supreme Court battle over Java, saying "the technology community is not supporting Google's position. Not even slightly." Oracle Executive Vice President Ken Glueck also downplayed the parties that have publicly supported Google in the Supreme Court case, including tech giants IBM and Microsoft saying they have "commercial interests" in this litigation. Glueck called Microsoft the "original sinner," saying the tech giant had once e...
Tags: Jailbreak, Google, Supreme Court, Microsoft, Washington, Trends, Ibm, Silicon Valley, Java, Major League Baseball, Oracle, Houston Astros, US supreme court, Sun Microsystems, Glueck, Oracle Google

Oracle’s brief: More competing questions

By Jason Rantanen Yesterday, Dennis wrote about competing questions in a Supreme Court cert petition.  In its merits brief in Google LLC v. Oracle America, Inc., filed on Wednesday, Respondent Oracle also frames the issues a bit differently than Google did. Google Questions presented Oracle Questions presented 1. Whether copyright protection extends to a software interface. 1. Under §102(a), computer programs, like all “works of authorship,” have “[c]opyright protection,” as ...
Tags: Google, Supreme Court, Law, Oracle, Patent, Dennis, Court of Appeals, Oracle America Inc, Jason Rantanen, Google LLC, Google Questions, Respondent Oracle, Petitioner Google Read Oracle

Vodafone Idea shares tumble 23% after India orders it to pay billions in dues

Shares of Vodafone Idea fell by more than 23% on Friday after India’s apex court ordered the country’s second-largest telecom operator and Airtel, the third-largest telecom network, to arrange and pay billions of dollars in dues in a month. In a strongly worded judgement, the Supreme Court rejected telecom networks’ application to defer paying historic $13 billion levies to the government. “This is pure contempt, 100% contempt,” Justice Arun Mishra told lawyers. The order today, which may res...
Tags: Asia, Supreme Court, Government, India, Tech, Vodafone, Airtel, Reliance Jio, U K, Bharti Airtel, Mukesh Ambani, Ambani, Vodafone Idea, Kumar Mangalam Birla, Sidharth Luthra, Arun Mishra

10 things in tech you need to know today

Good morning! This is the tech news you need to know this Friday. The US government has filed racketeering charges against Huawei and its CFO, accusing the Chinese telecom giant of conspiring to steal trade secrets from 6 tech companies. The latest indictment includes information alleging Huawei tried to steal trade secrets from six different US technology companies. Alibaba has pledged $140 million to fight the coronavirus outbreak with a platform to coordinate deliveries of crucial medical s...
Tags: Google, Amazon, Facebook, Supreme Court, Microsoft, China, US, Trends, Tesla, Alibaba, SEC, Warren Buffett, Jeff Bezos, Huawei, Oracle, Wuhan

The Supreme Court will decide software developments future in Google v. Oracle

The final steps are being made in the Google v. Oracle copyright case, which will put the fate of programming in the hands of the Supreme Court.
Tags: Google, Supreme Court, Linux, Oracle

YouTube Censors Senate Floor Speech With Whistleblower's Name

SonicSpike shares a report from The Hill: YouTube has removed a video from its platform that shows Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) stating on the Senate floor the name of a person who conservative media have suggested is the whistleblower whose complaint triggered the impeachment inquiry of President Trump. The company, home to millions of hours of video content, said in a statement on Thursday that "videos, comments, and other forms of content that mention the leaked whistleblower's name" violate its co...
Tags: Supreme Court, Youtube, Senate, America, Tech, John Roberts, PAUL R KY, PAUL, The Hill, Ivy Choi, YouTube Censors Senate

Oracle says a Google victory in their Supreme Court battle over Java would hurt small US tech companies (ORCL, GOOG)

Oracle said Wednesday that a Google victory in the two tech behemoths' upcoming showdown before the US Supreme Court would hurt US tech companies, making them vulnerable to foreign competitors. Oracle also accused the search giant of stealing 11,000 lines of code and committing "an egregious act of plagiarism." Oracle made the allegations in a response brief filed late Wednesday; the two companies will appear before the Supreme Court in late March. Oracle also said "numerous" groups and indivi...
Tags: Google, Supreme Court, Microsoft, US, Trends, Ibm, Oracle, US supreme court, Sun Microsystems, Glueck, Google Oracle, Songwriters Guild, Ken Glueck, ORCL GOOG, Jose Castanada

Thursday round-up

Court-watchers and movie-watchers alike are reacting to a new documentary, “Created Equal: Clarence Thomas in His Own Words.” Three takes come via How Appealing. Owen Glieberman reviews the film at Variety, concluding that “there are worse ways to get to know someone like Thomas than to watch him deliver what is basically the visual version of an I-did-it-my-way audiobook memoir, with lots of news clips and photographs to illustrate his words.” At the Los Angeles Times, Gary Goldstein observes t...
Tags: Google, Supreme Court, Law, Washington, Oracle, Los Angeles Times, Round-up, Thomas, Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Goldstein Russell, Oracle America, New York Times Linda Greenhouse, Harvard Law Today, Owen Glieberman, Rebecca Hagelin

United States: Google v. Oracle: Will Software Be Free? - Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft LLP

Referred to as "the copyright case of the century," the Supreme Court could determine the fate of software protection in Google v. Oracle, namely that of Java.
Tags: Google, News, Supreme Court, United States, Oracle, Cadwalader Wickersham, Taft LLP

Empirical SCOTUS: About this term: OT 2019

Even though briefing is not complete in all the cases that will be argued before the Supreme Court this term, interest in the court’s cases is at an apex. There was a lot of hype leading into this term, as it is the first full term for the current Supreme Court, whose bench has been largely in flux since Justice Antonin Scalia’s sudden passing in the middle of the 2015 term. Increased media coverage has also put a spotlight on the court’s integral role in resolving high-profile issues, such as t...
Tags: Google, New York, Supreme Court, Law, Arizona, Donald Trump, Oracle, Paul Clement, Antonin Scalia, Kirkland Ellis, John Roberts, Cato Institute, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, McKinney, U S, Constitutional Accountability Center

ACLU says it’ll fight DHS efforts to use app locations for deportations

The American Civil Liberties Union plans to fight newly revealed practices by the Department of Homeland Security which used commercially available cell phone location data to track suspected illegal immigrants. “DHS should not be accessing our location information without a warrant, regardless whether they obtain it by paying or for free. The failure to get a warrant undermines Supreme Court precedent establishing that the government must demonstrate probable cause to a judge before getting som...
Tags: Supreme Court, Russia, Tech, Dhs, United States, Aclu, Homeland Security, CBP, Department Of Homeland Security, Wall Street Journal, Journal, American Civil Liberties Union, China India, Carpenter, Electronic Privacy Information Center, Customs Enforcement ICE

Justices issue March argument calendar

This morning the Supreme Court issued the calendar for its March argument sitting, which begins on March 23 and continues through April 1. When they announced late last year that they would take up three disputes over access to President Donald Trump’s financial records, the justices indicated that the cases would be set for oral argument in March, but they did not set a date for the arguments then. Today they made it official: Trump v. Vance, arising from efforts by the Manhattan district attor...
Tags: Google, Featured, Supreme Court, Law, United States, Manhattan, Deutsche Bank, Catholic, Carney, Madrid, Donald Trump, Oracle, Delaware, Collins, Briggs, Trump

Federal Circuit affirms Obviousness based upon General Knowledge of PHOSITA

by Dennis Crouch Philips v. Google & Microsoft (Fed. Cir. 2020) Google & Microsoft teamed-up to challenge Phillips’ U.S. Patent 7,529,806 in an inter partes review (IPR).  The Board complied and cancelled claims 1-11 — finding the claimed quasi-streaming method unpatentably obvious.  On appeal here, the Federal Circuit has affirmed — adding important context to obviousness determinations based upon general knowledge. In KSR, the Supreme Court indicated that the obviousness analysis should consid...
Tags: Google, Supreme Court, Law, Philips, AIA, Patent, Apple Inc, Sas, Fed, Board, Phillips, Google Microsoft, Federal Circuit, IPR, SMIL, Hua

Wednesday round-up

Briefly: Mario Ariza reports for the South Florida Sun Sentinel on a cert petition that “highlights what experts say is a glaring legal loophole that allows the federal government to seize the property of innocent citizens at little cost or consequence to itself.” At Bloomberg Law, Jacklyn Wille reports that “[t]he U.S. Supreme Court on Monday signaled its interest in a lawsuit over the University of Pennsylvania’s retirement plan by asking university employees to respond to the school’s petiti...
Tags: Google, Supreme Court, Law, Washington Post, Bloomberg, University of Pennsylvania, Oracle, Round-up, U S Supreme Court, J R R Tolkien, South Florida Sun Sentinel, Clarence Thomas, Goldstein Russell, Oracle America, Wake Forest Law Review, The Daily Caller

10 things in tech you need to know today

Good morning! This is the tech news you need to know this Wednesday. Huawei is set for a 'limited' role in Britain's 5G networks. The UK's decision comes despite US pressure to block the Chinese telecoms giant. The UK's top cyber officials have warned that Huawei has poor cybersecurity and that its processes are opaque, even as it's greenlit for 5G. The UK's National Cyber Security Centre warned that Huawei could be forced by China to hand over information about the UK. Strong iPhone holiday s...
Tags: Apple, Amazon, Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, UK, Cook, Supreme Court, Saudi Arabia, China, US, Samsung, Trends, Bloomberg, Britain, New York Times, Tim Cook

Toothless: Facebook proposes a weak Oversight Board

Facebook’s internal “Supreme Court” can’t set precedents, can’t make decisions about Facebook Dating or Marketplace, and can’t oversee WhatsApp, Oculus, or any messaging feature, according to the bylaws Facebook proposed today for its Oversight Board. It’s designed to provide an independent appeals process for content moderation rulings. But it will only be able to challenge content taken down, not left up, until at least later this year so it likely won’t be able to remove misinformation in ...
Tags: Social, Facebook, Apps, Mark Zuckerberg, Supreme Court, Opinion, Government, Tech, Policy, Nick Clegg, Steven Levy, Board, Clegg, Oversight Board, Facebook Policy, Facebook Dating