Articles Tagged with facebook

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.

Facebook and Apple have been hit with another patent infringement lawsuit brought by small, relatively obscure research/technology companies. Yesterday, PersonalWeb Technologies and Level 3 Communications filed a suit against both technology companies in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. The two plaintiff companies allegedly each own an undivided 50 percent interest in the patents at issue.

In the case against Facebook, the patents at issue are:

• U.S. Patent No. 5,978,791: “Data processing system using substantially unique identifiers to identify data items, whereby identical data items have the same identifiers”

Yesterday, the Regents of the University of California and Eolas Technologies, Inc. filed a lawsuit against Facebook in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas. The suit alleges that Facebook has infringed on four different patents owned by the Regents and to which Eolas has an exclusive license.

Eolas was founded by Dr. Michael D. Doyle, who, according to the company website, previously served as Director for the Center of Knowledge Management at the University of California – San Francisco. During his tenure there, Dr. Doyle reportedly led a team of researchers to develop technology that led to the 5,838,906 patent (“’906 Patent”) entitled “Distributed hypermedia method for automatically invoking external application providing interaction and display of embedded objects within a hypermedia document.” According to the Eolas Technologies website, the patent “enabled Web browsers for the first time to act as platforms for fully-interactive embedded applications.”

The ’906 Patent has been the subject of prior litigation. In 2007, Eolas and the Regents of the University of California were awarded a $565 judgment against Microsoft. The award was stayed on appeal, and the parties subsequently settled for a confidential amount.

Blue Spike, LLC filed a patent infringement lawsuit yesterday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas naming 22 defendants, including Facebook. Blue Spike is a technology company owned by self-described inventor and steganographer Scott Moscowitz.

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.

Today, Facebook, Inc. filed a Form S-1 Registration Statement [PDF] with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission in preparation for its initial public offering. Here are some observations from reading this interesting filing.

Billion with a B. Companies that manufacture and sell tangible products are easy to understand. For a company like Facebook, you may be scratching your head wondering if they are making any money at all. In 2011, Facebook reported $1 billion in net income from $3.7 billion in revenue.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit will hear arguments next year over the dismissal of a class-action by Facebook users who claimed they were hurt when Facebook promoted its “Friend Finder” by displaying their profile information.

A briefing schedule is now listed on the court’s case docket.

Last month, Judge Richard Seeborg granted Facebook’s motion to dismiss the Plaintiffs’ first amended complaint in the ‘Find Friends’ class-action, concluding that the plaintiffs failed to plead how they could actually be hurt. (Read the six-page decision below)

Last week, Netflix announced some big changes in their structure and offerings. First, they will split into two companies: one for streaming and one for physical DVD rental. Second, Netflix subscribers will be able to share and discuss their rentals through Facebook. The Netflix blog reports: “The Netflix/Facebook integration empowers you as a Netflix member to share what you watch from Netflix with your friends on Facebook and to discover what your friends are watching both on Facebook and within the Netflix user interface. This makes it easier and more fun to find new television series and movies to watch.” Michael Drobac, Director of Government Relations at Netflix, has a caveat, however. This access will be limited to users outside of the US due to a “1980s law that creates some confusion over our ability to allow U.S. members to share what they watch.” Since Netflix didn’t cite the code or link to which “1980’s law” they are referring to, I thought it might be useful to post about it. Mr. Drobac is talking about  18 USC § 2710, “Wrongful Disclosure of Video Tape Rental or Sale Records.” This law authorizes civil penalties for release of consumer rentals or sales without informed consent of the renter or a court order.

Here is a rundown of August’s highest scoring lawyers on Justia Legal Answers, along with a look at which Onward blog and Facebook posts readers viewed the most.

Justia Legal Answers’ Top 10 Legal Answerers for August 2011

1. Francis M. Boyer, 2,311 points, 48 answers
2. Mark A. Siesel, 801 points, 16 answers
3. Terrence Rubino, 775 oints, 24 answers
4. Milan Marinkovich, 600 points, 12 answers
5. Robert Neal Katz, 551 points, 11 answers
6. Andrew Bresalier, 400 points, 8 answers
7. Dheeraj K. Singhal, 330 points, 14 answers
8. Andrew John Hawes, 310 points, 7 answers
9. Cynthia Jean Nelson, 250 points, 5 answers
10. Donald Joseph Quinn, 250 points, 5 answers

Here is a rundown of June’s highest scoring lawyers on Justia Legal Answers, along with a look at which Onward blog and Facebook posts readers viewed the most.

Justia Legal Answers’ Top 10 Legal Answerers for June 2011

1. Albert Pettigrew Jr, 1,300 points, 26 answers
2. J. Richard Kulerski Esq., 830 points, 17 answers
3. Mr. Andrew T. Bodoh Esq., 550 oints, 11 answers
4. Cedulie Renee Laumann, 550 points, 11 answers
5. Robert James Reynolds, 530 points, 11 answers
6. Nicholas Leydorf, 450 points, 9 answers
7. Andrew Bresalier, 350 points, 7 answers
8. Matthew Lee Spiegel, 330 points, 7 answers
9. Cynthia Jean Nelson, 300 points, 7 answers
10. Craig Orent, 300 points, 6 answers