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Mealey's Cyber Tech & E-Commerce

  • July 17, 2018

    Blind Man Defends Standing To Sue Over Credit Union’s Website In 4th Circuit

    RICHMOND, Va. — In a July 12 reply brief, a blind man tells the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals that he has standing to sue a credit union under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) as a “tester” of its website’s equal accessibility and based on a concrete injury to his dignity (Keith Carroll v. Northwest Federal Credit Union, No. 18-1434, 4th Cir.).

  • July 16, 2018

    Yahoo Seeks Reconsideration Of Judgment Denial In TCPA Text Message Suit

    CHICAGO — Citing a recent change in relevant case law, Yahoo! Inc. on July 12 moved for reconsideration of an Illinois federal court’s December 2014 denial of summary judgment in a lawsuit alleging that the internet firm violated the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), stating that recently decided cases altered the Federal Communication Commission’s definition of an automatic telephone dialing system (ATDS) and erased any liability related to certain text messages sent to users (Rachel Johnson v. Yahoo! Inc., No. 1:14-cv-02028, N.D. Ill.).

  • July 13, 2018

    Coverage Suit Over Claims Club Misappropriated Images On Social Media Terminated

    TRENTON, N.J. — A New Jersey federal judge issued an order on July 10 administratively terminating a commercial general liability insurer’s declaratory judgment lawsuit challenging coverage for underlying claims that its club owner insured misappropriated images and likenesses of alleged models and actresses without their consent for use in its advertising materials on social media after the insurer announced the underlying parties reached a settlement in principle (Capitol Specialty Insurance Corporation v. 35 Club, LLC, et al., No. 18-03399, D. N.J.).

  • July 10, 2018

    Injunctive Relief Denied, Early Discovery Granted In Tutoring Firms’ Dispute

    SAN FRANCISCO — An academic preparation company saw its motion for a temporary restraining order (TRO) to search the computers and email accounts of three ex-employees denied July 6, with a California federal judge, instead, granting the plaintiff’s request for early discovery to determine the extent of the defendants’ accused misappropriation of proprietary materials (C2 Educational Systems Inc. v. Sunny Lee, et al., No. 3:18-cv-02920, N.D. Calif., 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 112882).

  • July 5, 2018

    Harvard Seeks Judgment In Suit Over Website Accessibility For The Deaf

    SPRINGFIELD, Mass. — On June 29, Harvard University asked a Massachusetts federal court to grant it judgment on the pleadings in a lawsuit alleging that its website is not equally accessible for hearing-impaired individuals, arguing that a deaf advocacy group’s claims construe asserted federal law too broadly and fail to account for content created by, and hosted by, third parties (National Association of the Deaf, et al. v. Harvard University, et al., No. 3:15-cv-30023, D. Mass;).

  • July 5, 2018

    California High Court: Yelp Can’t Be Ordered To Remove Defamatory Reviews

    SAN FRANCISCO — A divided California Supreme Court on July 2 ruled that the Communications Decency Act (CDA) prevents consumer review website operator Yelp Inc. from being compelled to take down reviews a court deemed defamatory, because doing so would treat Yelp as the publisher or speaker of the third-party content (Dawn L. Hassell, et al. v. Ava Bird, et al., No. S235968, Calif. Sup., 2018 Cal. LEXIS 4704).

  • June 28, 2018

    Apple, Google, Microsoft Ordered To Preserve Data In Tesla Trade Secrets Suit

    LAS VEGAS — A federal magistrate judge in Nevada on June 25 granted an emergency motion for authorization to issue document preservation subpoenas to Apple Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Google LLC, requiring them to preserve information pertaining to email and cloud storage accounts for a former employee of Tesla Inc. who is alleged to have stolen the company’s confidential and trade secret information in violation of state and federal trade secret misappropriation laws and has threatened to spoliate evidence (Tesla Inc. v. Martin Tripp, No. 18-1088, D. Nev., 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 106678).

  • June 27, 2018

    Apple, Samsung Agree To Settle Patent Case After 7 Years

    SAN FRANCISCO — In a June 27 filing, Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. announced that their longstanding dispute over smartphone design and utility patents has been resolved in a settlement (Apple Inc. v. Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd., No. 11-1846, N.D. Calif.).

  • June 26, 2018

    Apple Petitions Board For Review Of Qualcomm Messaging Patent

    ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A method and device for enabling messaged responses to incoming mobile telephone calls would have been obvious to a person of skill in the art (POSITA), Apple Inc. maintains in a June 22 petition for inter partes review (IPR) by the Patent Trial and Appeal Board (Apple Inc. v. Qualcomm Inc., No. IPR2018-01279, PTAB).

  • June 26, 2018

    Webpage Expert Allowed In Deceptive Marketing Class Suit Over Sales Calls

    CHICAGO — In a class action alleging that an insurance sales company violated federal law by hiding its sales tactics disclaimer on its website, a plaintiffs’ expert can testify that consumers had the same experience with the website no matter what device they used and that the site format did not comply with the industry’s best practices, an Illinois federal judge decided June 25 before certifying the class (John Karpilovsky, et al. v. All Web Leads, Inc., No. 17-1307, N.D. Ill., 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 105259).

  • June 26, 2018

    Dispute Over Tweeting Judge Won’t Be Heard By U.S. Supreme Court

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — In its June 25 order list, the U.S. Supreme Court denied a forest product company’s petition for certiorari, declining to consider the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals’ finding that a federal judge’s purported Twitter post about a case over which he was presiding evinced bias or merited recusal (Sierra Pacific Industries Inc., et al. v. United States, No. 17-1153, U.S. Sup., 2018 U.S. LEXIS 3984).

  • June 21, 2018

    9th Circuit Affirms: Copyright Claims Against Software Provider Fail

    SAN FRANCISCO — Allegations by two residential real estate photographers that the real estate software provider for a multiple listing service (MLS) violated the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) by removing their copyright management information (CMI) were properly rejected on summary judgment, the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled June 20 (Robert Stevens, et al. v. CoreLogic Inc., No. 16-56089, 9th Cir., 2018 U.S. App. LEXIS 16620).

  • June 21, 2018

    Split High Court Clears Way For South Dakota Internet Sales Tax Law

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — Existing case law requiring a retailer to have a physical presence in a state before sales tax can be collected “is unsound and incorrect,” the U.S. Supreme Court ruled June 21, overturning two long-standing high court rulings that had prevented South Dakota from enforcing a new law levying sales tax on certain online retailers with no physical presence in the state (South Dakota v. Wayfair Inc., et al., No. 17-494, U.S. Sup., 2018 U.S. LEXIS 3835).

  • June 20, 2018

    Blind Man Lacks Standing In Credit Union Website Accessibility Case, Judge Says

    ROANOKE, Va. — A visually impaired man failed to allege an injury-in-fact to establish standing under Article III of the U.S. Constitution to sue a credit union for violating the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), a Virginia federal judge ruled June 11, dismissing the suit for lack of subject matter jurisdiction (Keith Carroll v. Roanoke Valley Community Credit Union, No. 7:17-cv-00469, W.D. Va., 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 98284).

  • June 19, 2018

    Dismissal Sought Of Fraud, Trade Secret Claims Over $11.4 Billion In Bitcoin

    WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — A man accused of misappropriating and converting more than $11 billion in assets of a deceased bitcoin miner filed a motion to dismiss in Florida federal court June 15, asserting a lack of jurisdiction and claim preclusion due to Australian judgments in his favor (Ira Kleiman, et al. v. Craig Wright, No. 9:18-cv-80176, S.D. Fla.).

  • June 19, 2018

    9th Circuit Upholds Damages, Fee Award In BitTorrent ‘Swarm’ Cases

    SAN FRANCISCO — In a June 18 ruling, the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed a Washington federal judge’s decision to award a single statutory damage award in each of five cases involving the same BitTorrent “swarm” upload of the film “London Has Fallen” (LHF Production Inc. v. Doe 1, et al., No. 17-35237, 9th Cir., 2018 U.S. App. LEXIS 16360).

  • June 18, 2018

    Facebook Instant Messages Deemed Discoverable In Anthem ERISA Class Action

    INDIANAPOLIS — In light of a defendant’s showing of relevance and the plaintiffs’ failure to establish privilege, an Indiana federal magistrate judge on June 14 concluded that a Facebook instant message string between two named plaintiffs was not covered by a protective order in a putative class action over pension plan administrative fees, leading him to mostly grant a motion to compel (Mary Bell, et al. v. Pension Committee of ATH Holding Company LLC, et al., No. 1:15-cv-02062, S.D. Ind.).

  • June 18, 2018

    RICO Claims Dismissed In Trade Secret Lawsuit Against Google, Others

    SAN JOSE, Calif. — A federal judge in California on June 13 ruled that an architect and his firm have not shown that they have standing to bring claims for violation of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act in a trade secret misappropriation and RICO lawsuit by failing to provide sufficient evidence that they were victims of any predicate act (Eli Attia, et al. v. Google LLC, et al., No. 17-6037, N.D. Calif., 2018 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 99400).

  • June 18, 2018

    Supreme Court To Hear Apple App Store Antitrust Standing Dispute

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — At the federal government’s suggestion, the U.S. Supreme Court in its June 18 orders list granted certiorari to Apple Inc. to decide a question of when consumers are direct or indirect purchasers related to their standing to sue a manufacturer for monopolization under the Sherman Act in the context of prices for iPhone apps set by app developers (Apple Inc. v. Robert Pepper, et al., No. 17-204, U.S. Sup.).

  • June 15, 2018

    High Court Asked To Decide If Nontaxable Costs Can Be Awarded Under Copyright Act

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — In a May 31 petition for certiorari, a software support firm argues that a prevailing party can be awarded only taxable, not nontaxable costs, under the Copyright, asking the U.S. Supreme Court to resolve a difference of opinions among the circuit courts of appeal on the issue (Rimini Street Inc., et al. v. Oracle USA Inc., et al.., No. 17-1625, U.S. Sup.).