Articles Posted in 2012

We have some interesting employment law cases this week.

At the intersection of employment, civil rights, and religious freedom comes Hamilton v. Southland Christian School, Inc. from the 11th Circuit. In that case, a small Christian school had fired a teacher after she had sought maternity leave, purportedly because she had conceived the child before her recent marriage. On appeal, the 11th Circuit reversed the District Court’s grant of summary judgment in favor of the school on Hamilton’s Title VII pregnancy discrimination claim, finding that Hamilton had presented sufficient evidence that the decision to fire her was more about her pregnancy and request for maternity leave, instead of her admission concerning premarital sex. As such, the Court ruled that resolving this genuine issue of material fact should be reserved for the jury.

Sure, California may be facing a $15.7 billion deficit, but the Facebook IPO has Sacramento singing, “Goodbye grey sky, hello blue.”

State senator Michael J. Rubio already has plans on how to spend the expected bump to the state’s coffers.

A new class-action lawsuit accuses Apple of raining on iCloud users’ service, charging that the company’s promise that “migrating from MobileMe to iCould would be ‘effortless’ was one of many “misrepresentations” to consumers.

The lawsuit alleges that Apple duped MobileMe customers into believing that they would get a newer, improved service, but that “their forced migration to the iCloud platform” has resulted in them “not be[ing] able to access the features they were promised by Apple.”

STMicroelectronics, a Swiss maker of Micro-Electric-Mechanical Systems (‘MEMS’) for accelerometers and gyroscopes in consumer products like iPads and iPhones filed a patent infringement lawsuit today against competitor InvenSense, Inc.

ST’s lawsuit alleges that Sunnyvale, California-based InvenSense is infringing nine (9) of the company’s patents being used in consumer electronic devices like gyroscopes and a “free-fall detection and free-fall protection system for portable electronics,” in addition to other MEMS patents.

Last Monday, Governor Edmund G. Brown, Jr. released a revised budget for the State of California. Initially, Governor Brown had estimated a $9.2 billion budget shortfall for 2012-13, but this sum increased to $15.7 billion “as a result of a reduced revenue outlook, higher costs to fund schools, and decisions by the federal government and courts to block budget cuts.” To bridge the gap, the Governor is proposing to “increase[] the personal income tax on the state’s wealthiest taxpayers for seven years and increase[] the sales tax by one-quarter percent for four years.”

Currently, the California personal income tax rate is capped at 9.30%. Under The Schools and Local Public Safety Protection Act of 2012, the tax rate will increase as follows.

A new patent infringement lawsuit accuses Apple, Electronic Arts, Target, Whole Foods, and other companies of violating a U.S. patent “for selectively rotating windows on a computer display.”

The lawsuit by Rotatable Technologies, LLC, a non-practicing entity (NPE), alleges that Apple iPhones and iPads violate U.S. Patent No. 6,326,978 for letting users rotate their device displays using the patent’s method.

A 1961 Illinois eavesdropping law “likely violates the First Amendment’s free speech-speech and free-press guarantees,” a federal appeals court ruled.

The 69-page decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit blocks enforcement of an Illinois criminal law that made it a felony to make audio recordings of Chicago police without receiving their consent.

What prompted the lawsuit?

Well, it hasn’t been a good week for the reputation of the legal profession.

By now, you’ve heard that the 9th Circuit ruled on Padilla v. Yoo, finding that plaintiffs do not have a cause of action against the former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John C. Yoo for injuries suffered as a result of Mr. Yoo’s “torture memos.” The Court found that Yoo was entitled to qualified immunity under Ashcroft v. al-Kidd, because regardless of the legality of plaintiff’s detention and the wisdom of Yoo’s judgments, at the time he acted the law was not “sufficiently clear that every reasonable official would have understood that what he [wa]s doing violated[d]” plaintiff’s rights.

Zynga, the online game maker of multimillion-dollar blockbuster games like FarmVille, Mafia Wars, and Words with Friends, sued French gaming company Kobojo today for trademark infringement over the company’s Pyramidville game (see it below).

At issue are Zynga’s trademark claims to all games ending with ville, the French word for town or village. Sacré bleu!

Zynga appears to be facing an uphill battle, however. Last month the USPTO sent the company a suspension letter halting the game maker’s attempt to trademark the word Ville. on hold.

Facebook filed its Amended S-1 Registration Statement (read it below) with the SEC today, a little more than two weeks before the social media company’s IPO.

The company, whose NASDAQ ticker symbol will be ‘FB’ estimates “the initial public offering price will be between $28.00 and $35.00 per share.” That would put Facebook’s corporate valuation at approximately $100 billion.

Of course, the company didn’t forget to list a few risks.