Two African-American plaintiffs have filed a class-action lawsuit against American Broadcasting Companies, Inc. and the producers of "The Bachelor" and "The Bachelorette" reality shows alleging racial discrimination in the selection of the lead roles for the shows. The principal plaintiffs argue that the shows have never featured a person of color in the lead role, and accuse the producers of failing to provide people of color auditioning for lead roles with the same opportunities to compete that their white counterparts received.
The Department of Justice has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Apple, Inc. and several book publishers alleging that the companies conspired to limit e-book price competition in violation of Section 1 of the Sherman Act.
Facebook has filed its answer to Yahoo!'s lawsuit which accused the social networking company of infringing on several of its patents. Not to be outdone, Facebook's answer contains a countersuit that alleges that Yahoo! has infringed on several of Facebook's patents.
Yahoo! has filed a patent infringement lawsuit alleging that Facebook violated several of Yahoo!'s patents related to online communications and social networking. The filing claims that "Facebook's entire social network model...is based on Yahoo!'s patented social networking technology." The complaint requests triple damages and an injunction preventing Facebook from continuing to use the patents in question.
These documents contain details of the national mortgage settlement
reached between the federal government and the five largest loan
servicers operating in the U.S.
A federal district court judge in Washington D.C. has ruled that the
federal governments proposed requirements for graphic warning labels on
cigarette packages violate the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Judge Richard Leon determined that the warning label requirement was
designed only to "disgust the consumer" in order to prevent them from
purchasing a legal product and, as such, was not narrowly tailored to
meet a compelling government interest.
Another battle has opened up in the smartphone patent wars as struggling
photographic equipment manufacturer Eastman Kodak has sued Apple and
HTC over the camera and photography software in the two companies'
smartphone and tablet computer devices. Kodak alleges that Apple and
HTC violated its patents covering the transmission of digital
photographs directly from a camera over a cellular phone network or
WiFi.
Apple has won the latest battle in the ongoing smartphone IP war. The
US International Trade Commission has ruled that HTC phones using
Google's Android operating system violate one of Apple's patents. While
the ruling does not ban the importation of HTC phones outright, Samsung
cannot resume importation of the phones until it remedies the
violation.
The judge overseeing the Department of Justice's antitrust lawsuit
against AT&T regarding the company's planned takeover of T-Mobile
has granted the parties' motion for a stay of proceedings in the case.
The judge gave AT&T a month to file a status report informing the
court about whether or not it plans to continue with the transaction,
whether it plans to engage in some other transaction, and its plans for
seeking any necessary approval from the FCC.
