Articles Posted in Tech Companies

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.

Today Oracle asked U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup to sidestep whatever verdict the jury ultimately reaches in the company’s Java code copyright trial against Google.

Oracle alleged that Google violated copyright law by refusing to license Sun’s Java software code, and allegedly incorporating copyright-protected source code into its Android OS for mobile devices. Oracle completed its acquisition of Sun in January 2010.

Oracle’s legal maneuver, known as judgment as a matter of law, argues that “no reasonable jury could find that Google did not infringe Oracle’s Java-related copyrights.” (Read the legal filing below)

A class-action lawsuit against Apple (read it below) accuses the tech giant of double billing customers for downloads made from the company’s iTunes Store.

The lawsuit filed by New York resident Robert Herskowitz alleges that Apple charged him twice for purchasing a single pop song, “Whataya Want from Me?”

(Note: if you’re going to get double billed for an iTunes download, it should at least be for a decent song or movie.)

Here is what Herskowitz says he did to try and make things right, and Apple’s response.

Enough already! That’s the message from Judge Richard Posner, the federal judge presiding over one of many patent feuds between Apple and Motorola Mobility.

Dagnabbit, Apple, Judge Posner is fed up with your legal team’s motion practice!

“I’ve had my fill of frivolous filings by Apple,” he wrote in a newly released court order (read it below).

The jury in Oracle’s Java code copyright lawsuit against Google began deliberating this afternoon in federal court in San Francisco, California.

U.S. District Court Judge William Alsup gave the jury their final charge today: 19 pages of instructions and guidelines to use in their deliberations (read it below).

Google lawyers claim that the Android OS is “substantially” different than Sun’s Java code, that it used free public domain resources when developing its mobile software, and even received Sun’s approval to do so.

Jerald Bovino, the holder of a U.S. Patent (No. 6,977,809) for a portable computer case made of ‘resilient material’ designed with ‘ribs,’ is suing Apple and Target, claiming that Apple’s manufacture and sale of iPad and iPad 2 cases (inset, right), and Target’s sale of the iPad Smart Cover, infringe his 2005 patent.

The U.S. International Trade Commission (‘ITC’) issued a preliminary ruling today concluding that Apple iPhone and iPad wireless devices violate Motorola Mobility’s U.S. Patent No. 6,246,697.

Patent holder Motorola Mobility — whose acquisition by Android OS maker Google is still pending — holds this more than 10-year-old wireless method and system patent to reduce background signal noise in wireless transmissions.

The IP litigation between Apple and Motorola, however, is far from over.

Aerosoft GMBH, the German software company that makes the ‘Airbus X’ game, add-on program to Microsoft’s Flight Simulator, sued a host of unknown ‘Does’ in federal court, claiming the defendants engaged in copyright infringement via peer-to-peer (‘P2P’) file-sharing of plaintiff’s game.

The Airbus X might have been a game that convicted al Qaeda conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui would have liked to play, given his self-avowed goal of piloting Boeing or Airbus ‘Big Birds.’