Judge Throws Out $32.5 Million Verdict for Sonos in Patent Case Against Google

A California federal judge has thrown out a $32.5 million verdict for wireless-audio company Sonos against rival Google after finding that the Sonos patents at the heart of the case were unenforceable. U.S. District Judge William Alsup said that Sonos had improperly tried to connect its patents for multi-room audio technology to a 2006 application to claim that its inventions predated Google's devices.

Russian Court Rejects Apple's Appeal of $12.1 Million Fine in Antitrust Case

A Russian court rejected Apple's appeal against the alleged abuse of its dominant market position in terms of in-app payments, for which it was fined 1.2 billion roubles ($12.1 million) in January, the RIA news agency reported. Russia's federal anti-monopoly service (FAS) fined Apple in January over what it said was the U.S. company's abuse of its dominant market position.

Supreme Court to Hear Cases on States' Restrictions on Social Media

The Supreme Court agreed to decide whether Florida and Texas may prohibit large social media companies from removing posts based on the views they express, setting the stage for a major ruling on how the First Amendment applies to powerful tech platforms. The laws’ supporters argue that the measures are needed to combat what they called Silicon Valley censorship, saying large platforms had removed posts expressing conservative views on issues like the coronavirus pandemic and claims of election fraud.

Judge Says X Corp. Must Pay $1.1 Million in Legal Fees to Former Twitter Executives

X Corp., formerly known as Twitter, must pay $1.1 million in legal fees racked up by a group of the social-media platform’s former top executives, a judge ruled. Lawyers for the group — led by ex-Twitter Chief Executive Officer Parag Agrawal and former top lawyer Vijaya Gadde – Tuesday persuaded Delaware Chancery Court Judge Kathaleen St. J. McCormick that Twitter violated its duties to cover legal expenses generated by their work for the company.

Microsoft CEO Testifies in Government's Antitrust Case Against Google

Satya Nadella, Microsoft’s chief executive, testified that Google’s power in online search was so ubiquitous that even his company found it difficult to compete on the internet, becoming the government’s highest-profile witness in its landmark antitrust trial against the search giant. In more than three and a half hours of testimony in federal court in Washington, Mr. Nadella was often direct and sometimes combative as he laid out how Microsoft could not overcome Google’s use of multibillion-dollar deals to be the default search engine on smartphones and web browsers.

Court Limits Cybersecurity Defense Agency's Actions on Online Hoaxes

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled that a key cybersecurity defense agency probably violated the First Amendment in its efforts to coordinate with Silicon Valley to protect elections from online hoaxes, in a decision that could have sweeping implications for government efforts to secure the vote in 2024. The panel of three judges nominated by Republican presidents wrote that the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency “used its frequent interactions with social media platforms to push them to adopt more restrictive policies on election-related speech,” revising an injunction issued last month.

Meta's Oversight Board Investigating Altered Video of Biden on Facebook

Meta's Oversight Board plans to open a case examining an altered video of U.S. President Joe Biden that was flagged by a user on the company's flagship social media service Facebook, the board said in a statement. The board, which is funded by Meta but run independently, said the case would "examine issues related to manipulated media on Meta's platforms and the company's policies on misinformation, especially around elections."

Tom Hanks, Gayle King Warn of Fake Ads Using AI to Impersonate Them

Tom Hanks and Gayle King, a co-host of “CBS Mornings,” have separately warned their followers on social media that videos using artificial intelligence likenesses of them were being used for fraudulent advertisements. “People keep sending me this video and asking about this product and I have NOTHING to do with this company,” Ms. King wrote on Instagram on Monday, attaching a video that she said had been manipulated from a legitimate post promoting her radio show on Aug. 31.

FCC Chairwoman Takes Steps to Reinstate Net Neutrality Regulation

The U.S. Federal Communications Commission Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel said she plans to reinstate net neutrality oversight of broadband providers that was rescinded under former president Donald Trump. She is proposing the FCC take the first steps to commit to rules that would treat broadband internet as an essential service, putting it on par with water, power and phone service.

EU Warns Musk That X Must Comply with Law Against Disinformation

The EU has issued a warning to Elon Musk to comply with sweeping new laws on fake news and Russian propaganda, after X — formerly known as Twitter — was found to have the highest ratio of disinformation posts of all large social media platforms. The report analyzed the ratio of disinformation for a new report laying bare for the first time the scale of fake news on social media across the EU, with millions of fake accounts removed by TikTok and LinkedIn.

Jewish Leaders Call X 'One of the Largest Dangers to Jews in Years'

A group of Jewish leaders published a letter warning of the rise in antisemitic rhetoric on X, formerly Twitter, and placed responsibility largely on owner Elon Musk — whom they claimed has “facilitated and enabled” its growth. “X has become a breeding ground for antisemitism and represents one of the largest dangers to Jews in years,” the leaders warned in their letter.

Judge Requires Jury Trial in Westlaw's AI Suit Against Thomson Reuters

A jury must decide the outcome of a lawsuit by information services company Thomson Reuters accusing Ross Intelligence of unlawfully copying content from its legal-research platform Westlaw to train a competing artificial intelligence-based platform, a Delaware federal judge said. The decision by U.S. Circuit Judge Stephanos Bibas sets the stage for what could be one of the first trials related to the unauthorized use of data to train AI systems. Tech companies including Meta Platforms, Stability AI and Microsoft-backed OpenAI are also facing lawsuits from authors, visual artists and other copyright owners over the use of their work to train the companies' generative AI software.

FTC, 17 States File Antitrust Lawsuit Against Amazon Over Prices, Fees

The Federal Trade Commission and 17 states accused Amazon of illegally protecting a monopoly over swaths of online retail by squeezing merchants and favoring its own services, in the government’s most significant challenge to the power of the e-commerce giant and one that could alter the way Americans shop online for everything from toilet paper to electronics. In a highly anticipated lawsuit, the FTC and state attorneys general from New York and other states said that Amazon had stopped merchants on its platform from offering lower prices elsewhere and forced them to ship products with its logistics service if they wanted to be offered as part of its Prime subscription bundle.

Egyptian Opposition Politician Targeted by Predator Spyware on iPhone

A prominent Egyptian opposition politician who plans to challenge President Abdel Fatah El-Sisi in elections expected early next year was targeted with a previously unknown “zero-day” attack in an effort to infect his phone with Predator spyware, according to new research by Google and the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab. The discovery of the valuable zero-day exploit, designed to install Predator on iPhones running even the most up-to-date operating system, prompted Apple to push a security update to users.

Popular Novelists Join Authors Guild's Lawsuit Against OpenAI's ChatGPT

Some of the world’s best-known novelists banded together to sue ChatGPT maker OpenAI for using their work to train its artificial intelligence tools, adding their efforts to the growing group of artists, musicians and writers trying to stop tech companies from benefiting from their work without paying for it. Blockbuster writers such as George R.R. Martin, Jodi Picoult, Jonathan Franzen and George Saunders have signed on to the lawsuit, which is being led by the Authors Guild, a group that lobbies on behalf of writers.

MGM Resorts 'Back to Normal' as It Recovers from Cyberattack After 10 Days

MGM Resorts brought to an end a 10-day computer shutdown prompted by efforts to shield from a cyberattack data including hotel reservations and credit card processing, the casino giant said Wednesday, as analysts and academics measured the effects of the event. Details about the extent of the MGM breach were not immediately disclosed, including the kind of information that may have been compromised and how much it cost the company.

DOJ Removes Public Access to Google Documents in Antitrust Trial

The U.S. Department of Justice has removed public access to emails, charts and internal presentations from Alphabet Inc.’s Google that had come out as evidence in its landmark antitrust lawsuit against the tech titan. Google had challenged the government’s posting of the documents online, and the court was sympathetic to its concerns. The result: a trial much more difficult for the public to follow than the similarly monumental and widely watched antitrust case against Microsoft Corp. in the 1990s.

Judge Blocks California's Online Child Protection Law, Citing First Amendment

A federal judge temporarily blocked an online child protection law in California and said it probably violates the Constitution. Under the law, known as the California Age-Appropriate Design Code, digital platforms would have to vet their products before public release to see whether those offerings could harm kids and teens.

Britain Passes Online Safety Bill with Age Verifications, Hate Speech Rules

Britain passed a sweeping law to regulate online content, introducing age-verification requirements for pornography sites and other rules to reduce hate speech, harassment and other illicit material. The Online Safety Bill, which also applies to terrorist propaganda, online fraud and child safety, is one of the most far-reaching attempts by a Western democracy to regulate online speech.

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.