IBM is suing Priceline Group Inc. and its subsidiaries, travel website Kayak and restaurant-reservation tool Opentable, after failing to reach a patent-licensing agreement. International Business Machines Corp. said the Priceline companies aren’t paying royalties to use two patents issued in the late 1990s that were the result of development of the Prodigy online service, one of the earliest means for the public to access the Internet.
Qualcomm Inc. said it agreed to pay China a fine of $975 million, ending a 14-month government investigation into anti-competitive practices. The deal also sees chip-maker Qualcomm lower its royalty rates on patents used in China, the company said in a statement.
Universities have starting issuing blanket bans on all students wearing watches in exam halls – because invigilators can’t tell whether students actually have a mini-computer strapped to their wrist.With the popularity of smartwatches set to rocket when the Apple Watch is released in April, multiple universities having begun taking precautions to stop students cheating by using the devices during this summer’s exams.
Several large-scale cyberattacks in recent months have prompted a number of lawmakers and policy makers to call for a more forceful response, including suggestions that the U.S. engage in counterattacks that would disable or limit the culprits’ own networks. But White House officials and some technology security experts remain skeptical that such “offensive” cyberattacks would work, saying they are concerned about the difficulty in targeting specific hackers without causing widespread spillover, among other things.
China’s Internet regulator said countries must resist making false allegations and manage the web together, after U.S. business groups raised concerns that new security policies may block foreign technology in the country. “Cyberspace is shared by the entire international community,” Lu Wei, minister of the Cyberspace Administration of China, said at the agency’s Chinese New Year reception.
New York's Financial Services Department said it planned to do regular cybersecurity reviews of insurers in the wake of the massive breach at health insurer Anthem Inc. The state agency said in a statement that it will "integrate regular, targeted assessments of cyber security preparedness at insurance companies as part of the department's examination process."
Twitter released its twice-yearly transparency report, showing a surge in government requests for users’ Twitter information. The report, which discloses the frequency with which government agencies from around the world ask Twitter to hand over data on specific users, said total requests rose by 40 percent, to about 2,871, compared with the company’s last report, in July.
An influential engineering group approved policy changes that could weaken the power of patent holders in setting technology standards, after a fierce lobbying battle that shows deep industry divisions over intellectual property. Companies that include Intel Corp. , Apple Inc. and Microsoft Corp. had pressed the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers to change its bylaws in ways that could reduce patent-license fees paid by makers of electronic devices.
As Vietnam’s government overhauls its information technology policies, a growing list of regulations dictates how businesses must be run, including what they can do with their content and even what their owners’ academic credentials must be. Some of the country’s Internet entrepreneurs and multinational technology corporations say the new and pending regulations signal that Vietnam’s regulatory approach to the Internet is increasingly out of step with its blossoming technology scene.
Symantec Corp, maker of the popular Norton antivirus software, was ordered to pay $17 million in damages after a federal jury in Delaware found it had violated two patents owned by Intellectual Ventures, a major patent licensing company. The damages award was far less than the $298 million Intellectual Ventures had been seeking.
Up to 18 states are reporting significant upticks in fraudulent activity and there may be a common thread: tax preparation software. Following up on taxpayer concerns, Intuit announced that it is working with state agencies to address the problem.
Law enforcement cannot indefinitely forbid Yahoo Inc. from revealing a grand jury subpoena that seeks subscriber account information, a U.S. judge ruled, because doing so would violate the company's free speech rights. U.S. Magistrate Judge Paul Grewal in San Jose, California wrote that the government's request would prohibit Yahoo from disclosing the subpoena, even years after the grand jury concluded its probe.
U.S. business lobbies called on the White House for help to overturn new Chinese cybersecurity regulations they say would hurt market opportunities abroad and jobs in the United States. In a letter sent to officials including Secretary of State John Kerry and U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman on Feb. 4, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and 16 other U.S. business lobbies said the new rules raised questions about China's international trade commitments.
Federal Communications Commission Chairman Tom Wheeler’s plan to subject mobile and fixed broadband providers to utility-like regulations avoids legal problems that doomed past attempts to enforce “net neutrality.” But experts say the fight over the future of the Internet is headed back to court anyway.
A U.S. security firm claimed it has evidence Russian hackers have been silently siphoning off information from Sony’s network for the last few months and may even be the ones responsible for the catastrophic attacks in November, which the U.S. blamed on North Korea. The Russians may have just been working unwittingly alongside the Guardians of Peace hackers, however, who were thought to have shut down Sony for its role in the production of The Interview, a film that depicted the assassination of North Korea leader Kim Jong-Un.
As many as 80 million customers of the nation's second-largest health insurance company, Anthem Inc., have had their account information stolen, the company said in a statement. The hackers gained access to Anthem's computer system and got information including names, birthdays, medical IDs, Social Security numbers, street addresses, e-mail addresses and employment information, including income data, Anthem president and CEO Joseph Swedish said.
A type of malware that holds a user's computer files hostage has claimed at least a million victims, ranging from individuals to small businesses to, in at least one case, a local sheriff's department. Security expert say hackers have been using CryptoWall, a family of "ransomware" programs that "lock up" files on a computer, to extort money from computer owners.
A federal judge ruled that Typo Products owes BlackBerry more than $860,000 for violating an injunction barring sales of its original iPhone keyboard case. The contempt finding has to do with BlackBerry’s allegations that Typo continued to sell and market the original Typo case despite a court injunction issued in March of last year.
A jury has ruled Ross Ulbricht, the 30-year-old who founded the black market website Silk Road, guilty on all counts. The FBI arrested Ulbricht in a sting operation in October 2013 accusing him of being the criminal mastermind running Silk Road where items such as narcotics, fake IDs and other illegal goods were sold using bitcoin for payment.
FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler announced he wants to regulate Internet providers with the most aggressive tool at his disposal: Title II of the Communications Act. In addition to covering fixed broadband providers such as Comcast and Time Warner Cable, the draft rules would cover wireless providers such as T-Mobile and Sprint.
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