Amazon.com faces a class action lawsuit (below) over cyber theft of personal account data from more than 24 million customers that did business with the company’s Zappos.com unit.
A Kentucky law firm filed the lawsuit against Zappos.com just one day after the footwear e-tailer’s servers storing customer account information were hacked.
According to Zappos.com CEO Tony Hsieh, customers’ names, e-mail addresses, the last 4 digits of their credit card numbers, birthdays, billing and shipping addresses, phone numbers, and cryptographically scrambled passwords were stolen.
A few years ago, I was visiting Washington, D.C. and stopping by the usual tourist attractions, when I came across this plaque dedicated to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
The U.S. International Trade Commission issued an eagerly awaited determination today in the ongoing Apple iOS v. Android OS patent war, giving a win for Motorola Mobility, whose $12.5 billion acquisition by Google is pending.
ITC Administrative Law Judge Theodore R. Essex’s initial determination was that Motorola’s Droids smartphones do not violate 3 patents at issue: ‘828‘607, and ‘430 patents.
The decision is not final, however, because it still needs to get the official sign-off from all six ITC members.
A Freedom of Information Act (‘FOIA’) lawsuit (below) by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (‘EPIC’) reveals that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security paid contractors to monitor Facebook, Twitter other social networks, blogs, and comments on news media websites.
The documents (below) disclose that the federal government paid at least $1.16 million to private contractor General Dynamics to monitor social networks, blogs, and news media sites for “public reaction to major governmental proposals with homeland security implications.” That’s government bureaucratic-speak for public dissent.
The legal implications of U.S. social networking surveillance programs tracking dissent of its own citizens, even with open source tools, are deeply disturbing.
As you may know, Justia provides free daily opinion summaries for all state supreme courts and the federal courts of appeal. We’ve asked our talented attorney writers to send us the most interesting, funny, or important cases they come across each week, and we’ll run them as a column here on the blog.
Awad v. Ziriax, et. al., US Ct. App. 10th Cir.
This case made the news this week, when the 10th Circuit upheld an injunction against a controversial ballot initiative in Oklahoma that would amend the state constitution to prevent courts from considering or using Sharia law. Plaintiff argued that this law would violate his rights under the Free Exercise and Establishment clause of the Constitution. The 10th Circuit found that his claims were justiciable, and upheld a preliminary injunction against the law.
Super PACs a/k/a “Independent-expenditure Only Committees” . . . they seem to be all over the news these days, don’t they? These organizations, which came to fame through the 2010 Supreme Court Citizen’s United decision, garnered lots of attention right out of the gate. In 2010 alone, almost 80 super PACs emerged to spend more than $60 million to elect or defeat federal candidates. (Super PACs in Federal Elections: Overview and Issues for Congress, CRS 12/2/11). Super PACs stand to be an even bigger force this year as we head into the Presidential primaries and the general election so I thought I’d share the small collection of resources I’ve come across lately which might help us all better understand what kind of ride we might be in for in the coming months.
With a Kodak bankruptcy reportedly in the works, the legendary photography business filed patent infringement lawsuits against Apple and HTC today (see below).
Kodak, the designer and builder of the first operating digital camera, alleges that Apple, Inc. is infringing four of its digital imaging patents, and that HTC is violating five of them.
A FedEx Office employee who worked at the company for more than two decades sued his employer, claiming that FedEx fired him specifically because he was performing jury duty. (Read the lawsuit below)
Federal law prohibits employers from firing, threatening, intimidating, or coercing any permanent employee who performs jury service.
What makes this lawsuit particularly disturbing is that FedEx not only derives substantial profits from serving the legal community’s document and technology needs, but that the company itself has benefitted directly from America’s jury system.
On the Internet, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist to be rich and famous. Popularity can help! Take Snooki for example.
The MTV star extended the reach of her intellectual property by licensing rights to her name, images, and more in a “Snookify Me” app for the iPhone and Android. It lets users Snookify themselves and their pets.
SEC filings reveal that Snooki could make some serious dough from the deal. Oh, and there’s that stock thing too (see below).
The J.M. Smucker Company is mad as hell at Lodsys, and the jam and jelly maker isn’t going to take the firm’s demands for patent licensing fees anymore.
Amazon.com faces a class action lawsuit (below) over cyber theft of personal account data from more than 24 million customers that did business with the company’s Zappos.com unit.
The U.S. International Trade Commission issued an eagerly awaited determination today in the ongoing Apple iOS v. Android OS patent war, giving a win for Motorola Mobility, whose $12.5 billion acquisition by Google is pending.
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As you may know, Justia provides 
Super PACs a/k/a “Independent-expenditure Only Committees” . . . they seem to be all over the news these days, don’t they? These organizations, which came to fame through the 2010 Supreme Court Citizen’s United decision, garnered lots of attention right out of the gate. In 2010 alone, almost 80 super PACs emerged to spend more than $60 million to elect or defeat federal candidates. (Super PACs in Federal Elections: Overview and Issues for Congress, CRS 12/2/11). Super PACs stand to be an even bigger force this year as we head into the Presidential primaries and the general election so I thought I’d share the small collection of resources I’ve come across lately which might help us all better understand what kind of ride we might be in for in the coming months.
With a Kodak bankruptcy 
A FedEx Office employee who worked at the company for more than two decades sued his employer, claiming that FedEx fired him specifically because he was performing jury duty. (Read the lawsuit below)
