In a ground-breaking vote on an issue that affects all of us, the United Nations Human Rights Council endorsed a resolution upholding the principle of freedom of expression and information on the Internet. The broad support for the resolution demonstrated that maintaining the free flow of information on the Internet is a global call and not something pushed only by a few Western states.
A Shanghai-based voice application developer, Zhizhen Network Technology, has reportedly sued Apple for allegedly infringing a patent it holds related to "a type of instant messaging chat bot system" it calls Xiaoi Bot. The company argues that the patent, which it filed for in August 2004 and was awarded in February 2006, is being violated by Apple's Siri.
Despite repeated alerts, tens of thousands of Americans may still lose their Internet service on July 9 unless they do a quick check of their computers for malware that could have taken over their machines more than a year ago. According to the FBI, the number of computers that probably are infected is more than 277,000 worldwide, down from about 360,000 in April.
With cybercriminals a greater threat to small businesses than ever before, more entrepreneurs are left asking themselves who is to blame for hacking attacks that drain their business accounts. Many smaller businesses find themselves vulnerable to cyberthieves, mainly because they have limited budgets for Web security and few or no technology experts on staff.
The U.S. judge who tossed out one of the biggest court cases in Apple Inc's smartphone technology battle is questioning whether patents should cover software or most other industries at all. Richard Posner, a prolific jurist who sits on the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago, told Reuters that the technology industry's high profits and volatility made patent litigation attractive for companies looking to wound competitors.
HTC Corp., Asia’s second-largest smartphone maker, won a London court ruling against Apple Inc. over patents for touchscreen technology used for its mobile devices, including Apple’s slide-to-unlock feature. HTC’s devices don’t infringe four Apple patents for the technology and three of those patents are invalid, Judge Christopher Floyd said.
The European Parliament rejected a global agreement against copyright theft, handing a victory to protesters who say the legislation would punish people for sharing films and music online. The vote marked the culmination of a two-year battle between legislators who supported the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) and it's largely young, digitally savvy opponents.
The companies that control critical infrastructure in the United States are reporting higher numbers of attacks on their systems over the past three years, according to a report issued by the Department of Homeland Security. The Industrial Control Systems Cyber Emergency Response Team (ICS-CERT) says the number of reported attacks is up and attackers have been targeting companies with access to the country's power grid, water filtration facilities and a nuclear facility.
A European Union court dealt a blow to Oracle Corp. by allowing software licenses to be resold, even if the package has been downloaded directly from the Internet. Oracle had launched proceedings against UsedSoft, a German company that markets used software licenses acquired from customers of the U.S. software company.
Verizon reiterated its opposition to the Federal Communications Commission's net neutrality rules, arguing that they violate the First Amendment and are completely unnecessary, among other things. The rules "impose dramatic new restrictions on broadband Internet access services providers," Verizon wrote in a filing , and seek to "control all aspects of broadband Internet access service."
Twitter released its first Transparency Report that disclosed how many demands for user information it received from governments around the world. As expected, U.S. government agencies filed the most requests.
A U.S. judge on rejected a request by South Korea's Samsung Electronics Co. to lift a ban on U.S. sales of its Galaxy Tab 10.1, a tablet computer that competes with Apple Inc.'s iPad. Last week, U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh in San Jose, California, granted Apple's request to halt sales of the tablet, which runs on Google Inc's Android, giving the iPhone maker a significant win in the tablet patent wars.
The chief executive of Full Tilt Poker, the beleaguered one-time Web poker giant, was arrested at John F. Kennedy International Airport as the government unveiled new criminal charges against him related to an alleged Ponzi scheme. Ray Bitar, 40 years old, is the most significant person yet to turn himself into the Justice Department's 15-month-long effort to prosecute the three one-time leading online poker companies in the U.S.
A New York start-up claims that a video sharing feature in YouTube and Google+ is based on concepts that it showed to Google when the two companies met to discuss collaboration strategies in 2011. In a lawsuit filed in San Jose, CamUp is accusing the search giant of copyright infringement and trade secret misappropriation over a “watch with your friends” button for videos.
Launched by a large coalition of privacy groups, Web sites, and individuals, the Declaration of Internet Freedom is the start of a process striving to keep the Internet free and open. The organizations and people who kicked off this process are looking for other Internet users to discuss the ideas, share their own thoughts, and sign the declaration.
A judge has ordered Twitter to release three months of data from the account of a user being prosecuted for disorderly conduct related to an Occupy Wall Street protest on the Brooklyn Bridge last October. The district attorney's office in New York City wants Twitter to turn over basic user information from Malcolm Harris' Twitter account (@destructuremal), and his tweets.
Google, facing the prospect of formal charges stemming from an investigation in Europe into its search and advertising business, offered concessions to competition regulators in an effort to settle the case and avoid a lengthy and potentially expensive dispute. The offer came in the form of a letter from Eric E. Schmidt, the executive chairman of Google, to Competition Commissioner Joaquín Almunia, a spokesman for Mr. Almunia said.
Apple has agreed to pay a Chinese company $60 million to settle a dispute over ownership of the iPad name, a court announce, removing a potential obstacle to sales of the popular tablet computer in the key Chinese market. Apple Inc. says it bought the global rights to the iPad name from Shenzhen Proview Technology in 2009 but Chinese authorities say the rights in China were never transferred. A Chinese court ruled in December that Proview still owned the name in China and the company asked Chinese authorities to seize iPads.
Amid whispers of sensational online break-ins resulting in millions of dollars in losses, it remains remarkably difficult to identify corporate victims of cybercrimes. Companies are afraid that going public will damage their reputations, sink stock prices or spark lawsuits.
Italy's competition regulator is threatening Apple Inc with further fines of up to 300,000 euros ($381,000) if it does not offer local customers a free two-year warranty as demanded by Italian law, a source close to the watchdog said. In Italy consumers who buy electronic products and other durable goods have the right to get two years of free assistance, irrespective of other warranties offered by a manufacturer.
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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.