Tech Policy Summit blog

Inventor Files More Patent Suits Involving Visual Voicemail

Klausner Technologies has once again set its sights on a long list of companies that it claims are violating its patents for visual voicemail technology. 

After settling patent suits with Apple, AT&T, eBay/Skype and Comcast earlier this year, Klausner filed a new patent infringement lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Texas today against nine more companies, including Google, Verizon, LG Electronics, Citrix Systems and Embarq.

And there may be others. According to Reuters, inventor Judah Klausner "said he would consider filing lawsuits against additional companies that failed to license his patents, including Web-based phone service providers, but that many smaller companies have opened settlement talks recently." 

Reuters also reported that one company that doesn't seem willing to settle, at this point, is Verizon. The telco filed its own lawsuit against Klausner earlier this month, asking a federal judge in New York to "declare the inventor's visual voicemail patent invalid."

Coincidentally, visual voicemail on my cellphone was malfunctioning today, which made me realize just how much I've come to rely on it as a quicker way to check who's left a message...hopefully, the technology won't be derailed by the litigation.

MIT Students at Center of Free Speech Case

A U.S. District Court judge in Boston decided yesterday not to lift a temporary restraining order imposed against three Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) undergrads who reportedly uncovered security flaws in the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority's e-ticketing system. He also ordered them to provide more documentation about their research into how the Boston subway system can be hacked.

The 10-day gag order was issued last Saturday after the transit agency filed a lawsuit against the MIT students in an effort to prevent them from discussing their findings at the annual DEFCON conference in Las Vegas. The students are being represented in the case by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), which argues that the order violates their First Amendment rights.

According to Computerworld, yesterday's "ruling reopened the schism in the IT security community over the issue of how vulnerabilities should be publicly disclosed." Read more here.

Court Bolsters Enforcement of Open Source Licenses

Supporters of free/open source licenses like the GNU General Public License and Creative Commons are celebrating yesterday's decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals, which ruled violating such public licenses can be considered copyright infringement.

The case involved commercial software developers who had allegedly used code that was made available with the open source Artistic License without meeting the terms of the original license. The defendents had successfully argued in District Court that the license requirements that stated they needed to credit the program's developer and document any modifications were a matter of contract, not copyright, law.

However, the Court of Appeals overturned the District Court decision and, in doing so, stiffened the penalties for violating the terms of public licenses.

Stanford Law professor Larry Lessig, a founding board member of Creative Commons, described the ruling as a "very important victory" and said it offered "important clarity and certainty by a critically important U.S. Court." Stanford's Center for Internet and Society also played a key role in the case by preparing an amicus brief.

For more background, you can download a PDF of the Court's opinion.

Court Lifts Ban on Cablevision DVR Service

Cablevision won a legal victory yesterday that enables the company to move ahead with its plans for a remote storage digital video recording (RS-DVR) service that allows consumers to record programs using their existing cable box.

Cablevision first announced the RS-DVR technology, which is kind of a hybrid of video-on-demand and DVR, in March 2006. But the company was quickly sued by a number of film and television studios, including Paramount Pictures, Disney, CBS, ABC and NBC.

The content owners alleged that the RS-DVR service violated copyright by creating and storing a temporary buffer of programs on Cablevision's servers, and they won a lower court injunction that prevented Cablevision from marketing the service. However, yesterday's ruling by the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals overturned that decision and cleared the way for RS-DVR.

For more info, check out Ars Technica or download a PDF of the Court of Appeals' decision from the Center for Democracy and Technology.

Qualcomm and Nokia Call Truce In Patent Battle

Wireless communications leaders Qualcomm and Nokia have announced that they're burying the hatchet in their long-standing, trans-Atlantic patent dispute. The companies have signed a 15-year licensing deal that, according to a Qualcomm news release, will "result in settlement of all litigation between the companies, including the withdrawal by Nokia of its complaint to the European Commission."

Specific financial terms remain confidential, but Nokia received a license enabling it to use all of Qualcomm's patents in its mobile devices and infrastructure equipment. In turn, Nokia agreed to allow Qualcomm to use Nokia's technology in its chipsets.

Businessweek columnist Steve Wildstrom, emcee for Tech Policy Summit '08, interviewed Qualcomm CEO Paul Jacobs at the 2008 Summit earlier this year and his opening question for Dr. Jacobs was about the company's patent litigation. You can hear a podcast of that interview in the Media Vault. 

Appeals Court Rules COPA Is Unconstitutional

The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court's ruling today, affirming that the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) is unconstitutional.

It's the latest development in the legal saga surrounding COPA, the 1998 law that would make it a crime to publish online content that is deemed harmful to minors unless it's protected behind an age-verification or credit card screen. According to the Associated Press, the appeals court found COPA to be "overly broad and vague" and agreed with opponents who claimed it violates First Amendment protections.

The Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT), which had filed a briefing in the case opposing COPA, released a statement praising the ruling. Meanwhile, the AP reports that the Department of Justice will review the ruling before deciding what to do next, which may include taking COPA back to the Supreme Court.

Blizzard's WoW Copyright Case

Videogame publisher Blizzard Entertainment, maker of the popular World of Warcraft franchise, won a legal victory yesterday. Though the outcome wasn't quite what Blizzard's legal aces had hoped for.

Blizzard had claimed that a startup named MDY Industries violated copyright law, specifically the Digital Milllennium Copyright Act (DMCA), when it created a product that allows World of Warcraft users to cheat and automatically improve their gameplay.

According to reports by News.com and Ars Technica, U.S. District Court Judge David Campbell agreed in his summary judgement that MDY Industries' MMOGlider software infringes on Blizzard's copyrights. However, he said that it does so not because it violates DMCA but because it breaks the licensing agreement that gamers must adhere to when using World of Warcraft.

Ars Technica writes, "Judge Campbell found Blizzard's argument that [MMO]Glider violates the DMCA unconvincing, and the question of whether it does will be settled at trial. That trial will also determine whether MDY violated Blizzard's copyrights, trademarks, and Blizzard's unjust enrichment claims, as well as putting a dollar figure on the damages." 

Public Knowledge had filed a 25-page amicus brief in support of MDY, which can be downloaded here.

eBay's Legal Victory May Help Other Sites

After losing a similar trademark battle in France only two weeks ago, eBay had reason to celebrate yesterday when U.S. District judge Richard Sullivan sided with the company in its longstanding dispute with Tiffany & Co. over who should be responsible for policing counterfeit merchandise in the online marketplace.

Unlike the French court, which ordered eBay to pay luxury goods giant LVMH over $60 million to compensate it for trademark violations, Judge Sullivan ruled that eBay had done enough through its Verified Rights Owner program to deter the sale of counterfeit goods on its site, concluding that "the law is clear: it is the trademark owner's burden to police its mark."

As Declan McCullagh wrote in News.com, while Tiffany may appeal the ruling, "for now...the decision relieves eBay--and companies such as Amazon.com, Yahoo and Google that provide auction listings or product search results--of what would have been a significant financial burden and legal uncertainty."

The full News.com article is available here, and eBay issued the following statement.

Verizon Wireless Pays $21M To Settle ETF Case

According to the Associated Press, Verizon Wireless has agreed to pay $21 million to settle a California lawsuit brought by a group of customers who were charged early termination fees to cancel their cellphone contracts.

The details are still being worked out, so it's unclear how many Verizon customers will be eligible for a cut of the settlement money. Similar suits are pending in California against Sprint and AT&T.

You might remember that not that long ago we pointed to another AP story about the Verizon Wireless' proposal to the Federal Communications Commission that called for prorating and capping early termination fees and offering mandatory grace periods for customer cancellations.  Several wireless carriers, including Verizon Wireless, have taken steps on their own to implement these types of changes in hopes of avoiding regulatory and legal action.

eBay: Counterfeit Case Is Anti-Competitive

Courts in the Europe and the U.S. have been trying to decide who is responsible when counterfeit goods are sold on online auction sites. The question they've been asking is should site owners like eBay be liable for trademark infringement, or is it up to manufacturers to police such sites for knock-off versions of their merchandise?

Most recently, a French court ordered eBay to pay approximately $61 million to LVMH, the parent company of luxury brands like Louis Vuitton, Dior and Givenchy. The damages are intended to compensate LVMH for the sale of counterfeit goods that it says eBay should have prevented.

But, according to some (including eBay itself), the real debate isn't over protecting intellectual property -- it's about online business models.

Here's an excerpt from the statement eBay issued in response to last week's ruling in the LVMH case: 

If counterfeits appear on our sites we take them down swiftly, but today's ruling is not about our fight against counterfeit; today's ruling is about an attempt by LVMH to protect uncompetitive commercial practices at the expense of consumer choice and the livelihood of law-abiding sellers that eBay empowers everyday.

We believe that this ruling represents a loss not only for us but for consumers and small businesses selling online, therefore we will appeal. It is clear that eBay has become a focal point for certain brand owners' desire to exact ever greater control over e-commerce. We view these decisions as a step backwards for the consumers and businesses whom we empower everyday.

We believe that the overreach manifests itself through an attempt to impose, in France, a business model that restricts consumer choice through an anti-competitive business practice.

The ruling also seeks to impact the sale of second-hand goods as well as new genuine products, effectively reaching into homes and rolling back the clock on the Internet and liberty it has created. The attempt to use the ruling to confuse the separate issues of counterfeit and restrictive sales suggests that counterfeit suits are being used by certain brand owners as a stalking-horse issue to reinforce their control over the market.

While those words may be directed at the French court, eBay no doubt hopes they'll be heard by the judge in another case as well...eBay is awaiting the ruling in its legal battle with luxury jeweler Tiffany & Co. That lawsuit, which dates back to 2004, is still pending and could set a precedent here in the U.S.

For more on the LVMH suit, check out this report from Reuters.