lawsuit

A recently-filed lawsuit claims some of Facebook's main features, including the "like" button, copy ideas patented 15 years ago. In fact, the lawsuit is being brought on behalf of a man who died just a few months after Facebook launched. The lawsuit ... has been filed by Rembrandt Social Media, a company set up to handle the intellectual property of Dutch programmer Joannes Jozef Everardus van Der Meer, who died in 2004. At that time Facebook was only available to students in select colleges, though it had just become a corporation. 'Surfbook' the Facebook Framework? The patents at ... (view more)

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is suing Dish Network for breaching rules on telemarketing calls. The government agency claims the satellite TV firm made millions of unsolicited telephone calls aimed at making sales. Some of the people covered by ... the new complaint were on the "National Do Not Call Registry," a central resource set up in 2004 to prevent unsolicited telemarketing phone calls to consumers who want their privacy. Most for-profit companies are banned from calling telephone numbers on the Do No Call list. The FTC had already complained that Dish Network called people ... (view more)

Yahoo is taking Facebook to court for violating approximately ten patents related to Internet advertising systems. It's the first patent showdown between these two web companies. The lawsuit has been filed in a San Jose, California federal court. ... Yahoo is reportedly represented by the law firm of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart ... (view more)

Ohio-based firm Impulse Technology has sued Microsoft for allegedly ripping off the idea behind the Xbox Kinect, Microsoft's new and very popular hands-free gaming peripheral for the Xbox 360 video game console. According to Impulse, Microsoft ... infringed on its patents for motion-sensing technology. The lawsuit was filed earlier this month in the U.S. District Court in Delaware, says Law 360, an American online media company that tracks and publishes legal news. Big-Time Game Companies Named in Suit The suit also names a number of popular video game makers, including Ubisoft (responsible for ... (view more)

A company that rents both furniture and PCs has been accused of spying on its customers. A lawsuit alleges Aaron's Inc remotely accessed a spy camera on a PC to take a shot of a customer using it. No Disclosure of Spy Software The claims arose in a ... case involving a customer who had taken a computer from Aaron's Inc on a rent-to-own agreement. That allows a customer to pay a monthly fee for a set period: after this period they own it outright, but before then they can also simply return it and stop paying. In the case of customer Brian Byrd, Aaron's believed he had stopped paying (which ... (view more)

The California woman suing Microsoft over Windows Vista's downgrade rights has revised her lawsuit to focus on the requirement that users must buy the most expensive versions of Vista if they want to downgrade to Windows XP. Los Angeles resident ... Emma Alvarado repeated her charges that Microsoft violated Washington state's unfair business practices and consumer protection laws by restricting computer makers' ability to offer Windows XP on new PCs after Vista's launch in the amended complaint. Microsoft Took Advantage Of Consumer Demand, Suit Says According to Computer World, the lawsuit says ... (view more)

The long-running "Vista Capable" lawsuit challenging Microsoft's marketing of PCs capable of running only the most basic version of the Windows Vista operating system has reportedly lost its class-action status. Federal judge Marsha Pechman ... decertified the class-action lawsuit, saying that plaintiffs had failed to show that consumers paid more for PCs with the "Vista Capable" label than they would have otherwise. Judge Pechman deemed that instead of quantifying a specific change in demand for PCs because of the marketing program, an expert witness for the plaintiffs relied on ... (view more)

Recently unsealed documents relating to the ongoing "Vista Capable" class-action lawsuit revealed that a group within Microsoft recommended in 2005 that the lowest-priced version of Windows Vista be released without the "Vista" name due to concerns ... over "user product expectations." The lawsuit claims that Microsoft misled consumers with its "Vista Capable" marketing program in the months leading up to the January 2007 release of Windows Vista. Part of the allegations in the lawsuit contend that Windows Vista Home Basic is not the "real" Vista because it lacks the ... (view more)

Not long after Microsoft announced that it would be extending the warranty on Xbox 360 consoles to three years, system owners served up a class action lawsuit against the company, seeking $5 million in damages for scratched discs. The lawsuit, filed ... in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, claims that the plaintiffs "have been damaged in that their game discs were destroyed by the Xbox 360 during reasonable, foreseeable, normal, and intended use." The lawsuit maintains that Microsoft is responsible since "the Xbox 360 was negligently designed and manufactured in that the console's laser disc reading ... (view more)