David Kemp

On Friday, a California company called Innovative Automation LLC filed a lawsuit against Apple Inc. Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, the complaint alleges that Apple’s iCloud product infringes on a patent owned by Innovative Automation.

The first patent at issue, U.S. Patent No. 7,174,362, is entitled “Method and System for Supplying Products from Pre-Stored Digital Data in Response to Demands Transmitted via Computer Network” and was issued in 2007. Innovative Automation claims that Apple’s iCloud product and service infringes on this patent in the way that it duplicates digital data.

The complaint also alleges that iCloud infringes on a second patent owned by the plaintiff—U.S. Patent No. 7,392,283, entitled “Method and System for Supplying Products from Pre-Stored Digital Data in Response to Demands Transmitted Via Computer Network” and issued in 2008. According to the complaint, Apple’s iCloud product and service infringes on this patent for the same reason as its other patent.

According to a business search through the California Secretary of State, the company Innovative Automation was created in 2011 and is based in San Jose, the heart of Silicon Valley. Its registered agent is Sungil Lee, who is CEO of an education software company called Innovative Knowledge, Inc. Lee is also named as the inventor of both patents at issue in this case.

As the blog Patently Apple points out, “this plaintiff has filed a similar lawsuit against Amazon within the last 24 hours claiming that their Kindle and distribution service “Cloud Player” violates the very same patents used against Apple.”

Yesterday, Google was named in a class action lawsuit by a plaintiff identified only as “A.K., as next friend of minor child J.K.” Filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois, the lawsuit alleges that Google has violated (and continues to violate) the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986 (the “Act”) and various state privacy laws by its “intentional and willful interception, scanning, and use of” emails sent to and from J.K., a minor child.

The plaintiff claims to represent similarly situated minor children in the state of Illinois and alleges, among other things, that Google’s Gmail product violates federal and state law. Section 2511 of the Act makes punishable anyone who “intentionally intercepts, endeavors to intercept, or procures any other person to intercept or endeavor to intercept, any wire, oral, or electronic communication.”

This is not the first time Google has been sued for Gmail’s use of email scanning to deliver personalized ads. In November 2010, Keith Dunbar filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas alleging the same violations. The case was transferred in June 2012 to Judge Lucy Koh on the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California and is still in discovery at the time of writing.

Annette Shaff / Shutterstock.com

Yesterday, on November 13, 2012, Nevada company 1st Technology LLC filed a lawsuit against Facebook in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, alleging that the social networking company infringed on several patents.

According to the complaint, the managing member of 1st Technology is Dr. Scott Lewis, who invented one of the patents at issue (U.S. Patent No. 5,564,001), which the USPTO issued issued in 1996. The complaint alleges infringement of three patents in total, all owned by 1st Technology:

After President Barack Obama was reelected last week, several petitions to secede appeared on the White House website. The petition feature of the site promises that “if a petition meets the signature threshold [of 25,000 signatures within 30 days], it will be reviewed by the Administration and we will issue a response.” The Houston Chronicle reports that by 3:40 PM EST, the petition to allow Texas to secede had already accumulated over 25,000 signatures. At the time of this writing, it has over 77,000 signatures.

Petitions on behalf of other states have received less attention and fewer signatures, but several have met or are approaching the 25,000 threshold, as well. Louisiana (29,000), Florida (23,000), Georgia (22,000), Alabama (21,300), Tennessee (20,700), and North Carolina (20,200) have all accrued a substantial number of supporters.

On more than one occasion, Texans (both officials and non-officials) have suggested that their state “has the right” to secede. Texas Governor Rick Perry has disavowed the online movement to secede, despite having previously acknowledged that secession might be an option. In 2009, the state legislature passed a resolution asserting state sovereignty—a resolution Governor Perry supported—although it has no binding effect on the federal government.

Yesterday, on November 12, 2012, Texas company NovelPoint Tracking LLC filed a lawsuit against Apple Inc. for patent infringement. Brought in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, the suit alleges that certain Apple products, and specifically the iPhone 4S, infringe on a patent owned by the plaintiff.

That patent, U.S. Patent No. 6,442,485, is entitled “Method and Apparatus for an Automatic Vehicle Location, Collision Notification, and Synthetic Voice,” and was registered with the USPTO on August 27, 2002. NovelPoint Tracking asserts that it is the exclusive owner of all rights, title, and interest in the patent, which was originally invented by Wayne W. Evans. The patent essentially describes using a method of using a GPS module to determine a vehicle or product’s location.

Relatedly, NovelPoint Tracking recently brought a lawsuit against Ford, alleging that its SYNC project infringes on two of its patents—6,442,485 (the patent at issue in the case against Apple) and 6,266,617.

Facebook has launched a special tool for Election Day that tracks (in real time) who is reporting their votes on the social network. Interestingly, throughout the day thus far, women have reported voting at nearly twice the rate of men (see screenshot below taken just after 1:00 PM PDT). This difference could mean any number of things, but the two most salient conclusions are either that women are voting in greater numbers than are men, or that women are reporting having voted on Facebook more than men are. Facebook is unlikely to provide (because it doesn’t have) the information necessary to support one of these conclusions over the other, but the degree of difference is remarkable.

Relatedly, a Pew Study found that earlier today 22% of voters have revealed their choices online.

This past weekend, I attended the Black Tie Dinner in Dallas, Texas. The annual dinner is the nation’s single largest fundraiser for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community. As a former summer intern for Lambda Legal—the nation’s oldest and largest national legal organization working to safeguard and advance the civil rights of LGBT individuals and those living with HIV—I wanted to be a part of this exciting event and contribute to the ongoing fight for equality for all Americans. The proceeds from this event were going to benefit Lambda Legal, the Human Rights Campaign Foundation, and nearly twenty other organizations committed to securing and protecting equal rights for LGBT Americans.

Although the nation’s eyes are focused on the presidential election tomorrow, some other key issues are also at stake. Voters in four states—Maine, Maryland, Minnesota, and Washington—will also be deciding whether to recognize equal rights of lesbian and gay couples in those states. The Supreme Court will likely be announcing soon which case challenging the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act they will review, and the outcomes in these elections may very well influence the Court’s decision on that front.

As the election draws ever closer, we can make guesses and predictions, quote polls and cite studies, but in the end, all we can do is wait and see. Although there have been, and will be, setbacks along the way, I think the America I live in today is a better place than it was yesterday, thanks in no small part to organizations like Lambda Legal, HRC, the ACLU, and others who fight every day for “liberty and justice for all.”

Last week, on October 26, Kickflip, Inc. (doing business as, and hereinafter referred to as, Gambit) filed a lawsuit against Facebook, Inc. in the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, alleging violations of federal antitrust laws.

According to its complaint, Gambit was “a leading virtual-currency and payment-processing provider” to developers that published games for social networks, including Facebook. Gambit explains that “[s]ocial games are usually free to play,” relying on a competitive market of virtual currency and payment-processing service providers to transfer virtual currency into actual revenue for the developer.

However, according to Gambit, Facebook began offering its own virtual-currency services in 2009, but with a 30% fee. When Facebook’s services failed to gain significant market (a failure Gambit attributes to its high fee), it allegedly began engaging in anticompetitive behavior, such as requiring game developers on its platform to use the Facebook virtual-currency services. The complaint alleges that Facebook subsequently required exclusive use of its own virtual-currency services.

Last Friday, Intercarrier Communications LLC (“ICC”), a Texas limited liability company, filed lawsuits against at least thirteen different technology companies, including Apple Inc. Other defendants include the makers of such popular apps as TextNow and PingChat! (by Enflick), Viber, WhatsApp, and Glympse. The lawsuits were filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, which seems on its face unusual for a Texas company.

In its suit against Apple, ICC alleges that Apple Messages and FaceTime products for iOS and OS X infringe on a patent it owns, U.S. Patent No. 6,985,748. According to its description, that patent is entitled “Inter-carrier Messaging Service Providing Phone Number Only Experience” and was invented by Chris Knotts. All of Knotts’s registered patents are related to inter-carrier messaging. According to the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts, ICC registered with the Secretary of State on April 23, 2012.

Complaint in Intercarrier Communications LLC v. Apple Inc.

On Monday, in the shadow of then-Hurricane (now-Superstorm) Sandy, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., a case involving the applicability of U.S. copyright law to copies of works created and legally acquired abroad and subsequently imported into the United States.

In the case, Supap Kirtsaeng, a college student from Thailand studying in the United States, launched a small online business selling textbooks. His family in Thailand bought foreign edition textbooks printed by Wiley Asia and mailed them to Kirtsaeng. Kirtsaeng then sold the textbooks online on sites such as eBay.com and reimbursed his family for the costs of purchase and shipping, retaining the remaining profits from the sale.

John Wiley & Sons subsequently sued Kirtsaeng in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, alleging copyright infringement, trademark infringement, and unfair competition under New York state law. As to the copyright claim, the district court judge determined that the language in 17 U.S.C. § 109(a), known as the “first sale doctrine,” does not include copyrighted goods manufactured abroad.