Lucent sued Microsoft a couple of years ago over their U.S. patent 5,227,878 for a method for “Adaptive coding and decoding of frames and fields of video”. The first case was thrown out in 2005 because the patent contained a typo. This was corrected and now Lucent is at it Read more…
My recent interest in software patents have made me an observer of the U.S. patent system. You know that there is a problem when somebody can patent DVD rental and sue its competitors. This is what happens in the case of popular web-only DVD rental service Netflix, which has sued Read more…
Courts in the Guangdong province of China have upheld a ruling against Yan Yifan, a 20 ear-old man accused of stealing passwords for a Chinese MMORPG and entering into the accounts to steal online currency and equipment that has only a virtual existence. Yan received a $620 USD fine as Read more…
Some pretty good gags this year. IPKat reported that WIPO is about to launch a probe… into space. Wired had a collection of old classics (did you know that dihydrogen monoxide can kill?). Harry Potter fan websites The Leaky Cauldron and Mugglenet merged after their editors got married at Edinburgh Read more…
I believe this is probably the first artist who will top the music charts without having a single CD sale in his name. Gnarls Barkley will probably top the UK charts today with a single that has not been released physically, and is only available as a download. I guess Read more…
Lessig has made some comments about DRM in his blog, particularly about Sun’s project to create some open DRM formats with their Open Media Commons Project. Seems like Karl-Friedrich Lenz was right all along about this specific point. I tend to agree that it should be possible to build some Read more…
Just a reminder that the deadline for the Call for Papers for the VI Computer Law World Conference to take place in Edinburgh this September is this Friday! You only have to send a small abstract.
(via Oren Bracha) Nobody reads what they sign, this seems to be demonstrably true. But this is not only true of click-wrap agreements, it also happens with printed materials. A video store in Austin TX presented their customers with a receipt that includes the clause “I hereby surrender my soul Read more…
Can people “steal” wifi? A man in Illinois has been fined $250 USD and given a one year suspended sentence for sitting in his car at 2 AM and accessing an open Wifi network belonging to a charity. This poses several interesting legal questions . Many legal systems now have Read more…