The makers of an action figure with an uncanny resemblance to the late Apple founder Steve Jobs are reportedly being 'threatened with legal action' by the computing giant. The 12-inch figurine, which comes complete with Jobs's trademark blue jeans, sneakers and black turtleneck sweater, was created by Chinese company In Icons and was set for release in February.
Elan Microelectronics Corp, a Taiwanese touch design company, said that Apple Inc will pay $5 million as part of a settlement in a patent infringement case. The statement said the two companies would also exchange authorizations to use each other's patents.
Quanta Computer Inc., the world’s largest contract maker of notebook computers, sued Advanced Micro Devices Inc. for breach of contract, alleging the chipmaker sold defective products. AMD and its ATI Technologies Inc. unit sold chips that didn’t meet heat tolerances and were unfit for particular purposes, Taoyuan, Taiwan-based Quanta claimed in a federal court filing in San Jose, California.
Social media continues to pose problems for courts across the country, as a Florida man was kicked off a civil trial jury after trying to friend a defendant on Facebook. The juror, Jacob Jock, was in a jury pool for a personal injury lawsuit involving a traffic accident, and said he decided to look up people in the case to see if he knew them.
State media accused the social networking site Twitter of helping spread a rumor that former Cuban leader Fidel Castro had died, and criticized anti-Castro expatriates it dubbed "necrophiliac counterrevolutionaries" for jumping on the story. An article on the state-run Cubadebate Web site accused Twitter of allowing an account holder with the sign-on "Naroh" to start the rumor from an Italian server, possibly after it was taken over by a "robot."
Six U.S. lawmakers have asked the State Department to investigate whether Chinese telecommunications-equipment maker Huawei Technologies Co. has violated U.S. sanctions on Iran by supplying it with sensitive communications technology that has been used for censorship. The lawmakers called on the department to "expeditiously investigate" whether Huawei violated U.S. sanctions passed by Congress in 2010 by providing technology to government-controlled telecoms that "has been used to restrict the speech of the Iranian people and the free flow of unbiased information in Iran."
Google has acquired more IBM patents, adding more than 200 to approximately 2,000 patents it had previously bought from IBM. The move, first reported by the blog SEO by the Sea, was confirmed by a Google spokesman who didn't immediately comment on why the company is interested in these particular patents and on how they may benefit Google products and its customers.
Hackers have announced work on a ground station scheme that would make amateur satellites more viable, as part of an aerospace scheme that ultimately aims for the moon. The Hackerspace Global Grid (HGG) project hopes to make it possible for amateurs to more accurately track the home-brewed satellites.
A group of Saudi hackers dubbed Group-XP claimed to have posted the personal information of nearly half a million Israelis online, though credit card companies said the number of compromised records is actually much lower. The hackers said they broke into one of Israel's top sports Web sites, One.co.il, and redirected visitors to a site where they could download a file containing the personal information of 400,000 Israelis.
British police have found evidence that private investigators working for newspapers hacked into the email account of former Prime Minister Gordon Brown while he was finance minister, The Independent newspaper reported. Hundreds of other people may have also had their emails intercepted, perhaps as many as were caught up in the phone hacking scandal at News International's now defunct News of the World tabloid, the paper said.
A phishing attack aimed at new Mac users was launched the week after Christmas looking to obtain the credit card information of people signing up for a new Apple ID. The well-timed attack tries to redirect users signing up for an Apple ID to a phishing site designed to look like the Apple sign-in page asking users to update their account information.
A small Maryland company that develops accessories for Amazon.com's Kindle e-readers has sued the Seattle Internet giant, accusing it of patent infringement, unfair competition, business interference and false advertising. M-Edge Accessories, of Odenton, Md., says Amazon threatened to "delist" its products and make them harder to find online to extort $6.5 million in extra commissions and fees.
Research In Motion, still smarting over having to change the name of its yet-to-come operating system, faces a similar trademark challenge to its popular instant-messaging service BlackBerry Messenger. The service, which allows BlackBerry users to send each other text and multimedia files and see when they are delivered and read, is widely known and even promoted by RIM via the shorthand BBM.
Following criticism from customers for its support of the Stop Online Piracy Act, domain registrar Go Daddy said that it's no longer backing the legislation. "Fighting online piracy is of the utmost importance, which is why Go Daddy has been working to help craft revisions to this legislation -- but we can clearly do better," said Go Daddy CEO Warren Adelman in a statement.
Hewlett-Packard said that it has taken steps to prevent a "certain type of unauthorized access" to LaserJet printers. HP has steadfastly declared that no customers have reported unauthorized access and that issue was overblown from the start, as in late November when it said "there has been sensational and inaccurate reporting regarding a potential security vulnerability with some HP LaserJet printers."
eBizcuss, the largest Apple reseller in France, has sued Apple alleging that the company competes unfairly by favoring its own retail stores with new product inventory and by undercutting proposals to small businesses. CEO François Prudent has claimed his business, which operates 16 locations throughout France, saw a 30 percent decline in the third quarter of 2011 due to reduced shipments of iPad 2 and MacBook Air units, Le Figaro reports.
An Italian watchdog has fined Apple 900,000 euros ($1.2m, £750,000) for its handling of customer guarantees. The country's Antitrust Authority said Apple had failed to inform shoppers of their legal right to two years' technical support, recognizing instead only a one-year standard warranty.
Hackers affiliated with the Anonymous group published hundreds of thousands of email addresses belonging to subscribers of private intelligence analysis firm Strategic Forecasting Inc. (widely known as Stratfor) along with thousands of customer credit card numbers. The lists included information on people including former U.S. Vice President Dan Quayle, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and former CIA Director Jim Woolsey.
Can a company cash in on, and claim ownership of, an employee’s social media account, and if so, what does that mean for workers who are increasingly posting to Twitter, Facebook and Google Plus during work hours? A lawsuit filed in July could provide some answers.
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The GigaLaw Firm helps companies of all sizes protect their brands online, using domain name dispute policies – such as the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP) – and other legal tools available to copyright and trademark owners on the Internet.