Joel Zand

Here is a summary of legal developments in five federal and state court cases last week that involved technology companies, or alleged activities by their users.

Samsung Cries Foul, Claiming Jury Foreman in Apple iPhone $1B+ Lawsuit Was Biased

In a motion filed last Tuesday, Samsung’s lawyers asked U.S. District Court Judge Lucy Koh to set aside the jury’s $1.05 billion iPhone lawsuit verdict in favor of Apple. They alleged that jury foreman and retired computer engineer Velvin Hogan failed to disclose that his former Silicon Valley employer Seagate Technology Inc. sued him in 1993, despite being asked by the judge whether he had been involved in any lawsuits.

A former Chairman of the the Advisory Board of a professional mutual fund pleaded guilty today in federal court to a series of charges in a $13 million conspiracy to defraud in investors by falsely claiming that Praetorian Global Fund Ltd. privately owned pre-IPO Facebook and Groupon stock before each of the social media start-ups went public. In reality, the British Virgin Islands-based fund did not.

According to documents in the case, Mattera spent nearly $4 million of approximately $13 million illegally acquired in the conspiracy so that he and his family could have the accoutrements of a luxurious life: buying jewelry, expensive cars, and interior decorating projects.

In a Solomonic ruling, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Manuel Mendez recently denied a defendants’ sweeping Notice to Admit social media account postings by a personal injury plaintiff in Carr v. Bovis Lend Lease (read the decision below). In New York, unless a party objects to another’s pre-trial Notice to Admit, they run the risk of admitting something they don’t disagree with, potentially helping another litigant through inaction. In Carr, the defendants’ Notice to Admit sought to have plaintiff admit to making Facebook, Twitter, and other social media postings online, even though plaintiff only acknowledged having a Facebook account.

Here, Justice Mendez gave each party a little victory, and perhaps a setback too.

Today U.S. Magistrate Judge Leslie Foschio warned that the court is “more than suspicio[us] that” plaintiff Paul Ceglia” filed no less than five (5) motions against Facebook and CEO Mark Zuckerberg, in his lawsuit claiming a fifty-percent (50%) ownership of the company, “solely to unreasonably and vexatiously multiply the proceedings.”

Judge Foschio ordered Ceglia to explain within ten days why he should not be sanctioned yet again in the “contentious” litigation.

This could be the second time that Ceglia would be sanctioned in the case.

The case involves Ceglia’s purported claims to having a 2003 contract with Zuckerberg giving him ownership of one-half of Facebook. The Silicon Valley-based social media giant and CEO Mark Zuckerberg contend that the alleged contract Ceglia claims to have is a forgery, and that the case should be dismissed.

Read the new 43-page order here:

Google and AOL were sued for patent infringement Thursday by New Jersey-based Suffolk Technologies, LLC over their Internet search summary descriptions, or ‘snippets.’

Suffolk’s lawsuit also alleges that AOL and Google are infringing a second patent for an “Internet server and method of controlling an internet server”. The second claim alleges that AOL’s Advertising.com ad platform and Google’s AdSense service each infringe this patent. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District for the Eastern District of Virginia where AOL is based.

Here are more details on the patent lawsuit, and the complaint (below).

Judges know fair use and parody when they see it. Especially when it comes to South Park‘s “distinct animation style and scatological humor” as seen through the eyes of a 4th grade character.

That was the conclusion of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit Circuit today (read it below) when it affirmed a trial court judge’s July 2011 decision to dismiss a copyright infringement lawsuit over the viral “What, What (in the Butt)” internet video by the singer Samwell.

Here is why the decision is an important victory for parody, satire, and fair use on the Internet.

A continuing legal education company headed by Joseph Marino (inset, left), the legendary force behind a 65-year-old family-owned New York and New Jersey bar exam course, sued a former employee for alleged theft of “invaluable data” from his more recent CLE company’s business.

The Marino Institute of Continuing Legal Education, Inc. (‘Marino’ CLE’) accuses ex-employee Omar Issa (inset, right) of lifting Marino CLE trade secrets, breaching a fiduciary duty to his employer “by taking technology and…leaking confidential information and proprietary information” to his competing business while still working for Marino CLE

Days after Cisco sued TiVo in Silicon Valley federal court for a declaratory judgment over four patents, the maker of “God’s Machine” fired back with its own lawsuit in the Eastern District of Texas, accusing Cisco of infringing the very same TiVo patents in dispute.

One of the patents being fought over is Tivo’s “Multimedia Time Warping System.” If you feel like doing the time warp again with your DVR, this patent lets you record one TV program while you’re watching another.

Here is a list and description of the four TiVo patents being litigated with Cisco:

Facebook faces a lawsuit by new shareholders in the social networking company, filed less than a week after its IPO.

The shareholders allege that Facebook misled them by filing untrue statements in legal filings with the S.E.C., failed to prevent such statements from being misleading, and did not properly prepare the documents for prospective shareholders.

While another shareholder sued NASDAQ yesterday over the exchange’s acknowledged trading glitches, but this lawsuit specifically targets Facebook, board members, and investment banks.

That didn’t take long.

A class action lawsuit was filed yesterday against NASDAQ by an individual investor accusing the stock exchange of botching his Facebook stock (FB) orders on the day of the IPO.

Plaintiff Phillip Goldberg alleges that he “placed purchase and cancellation orders for Facebook’s stock that NASDAQ failed to promptly and accurately execute” last Friday, May 18, 2012, causing he and scores of other investors to suffer losses on their trades (view the lawsuit below).