california
Microsoft to appeal $106 million VirnetX patent verdict
VirnetX , a software corporation founded in 2005, has prevailed in a patent-infringement lawsuit accusing Microsoft of willfully infringing on two patents for automatic and secure Virtual Private Network (VPN) technology. The Texas jury recommended an award of $105.75 million, which is less than half of the $242 million that VirtnetX asked for. Still, the verdict was a very positive one for VirtnetX.
Continue reading »Court: State Can Dump Non-Sex Offenders Into Registry
Georgia’s Supreme Court is upholding the government’s right to put non-sex offenders on the state’s sex-offender registry, highlighting a little-noticed (but growing) nationwide practice. Atlanta criminal defense attorney Ann Marie Fitz estimated that perhaps thousands of convicts convicted of non-sexual crimes have been placed in sex-offender databases. Fitz represents a convict who was charged with false imprisonment when he was 18 for briefly detaining a 17-year-old girl during a soured drug deal.
Continue reading »Feds Bust Cookie-Stuffing Code Seller
Federal authorities are charging a Las Vegas man with marketing a so-called “cookie-stuffing” operation, enriching himself and others while defrauding eBay along the way. The felony conspiracy to commit wire fraud charge levied Tuesday against Christopher Kennedy, who faces a maximum 5-year prison term, centers around his website called saucekit. The now defunct site lets nefarious website owners purchase his cookie-stuffing code to unwittingly dupe eBay to pay those site owners thousands of dollars in advertising referral fees.
Continue reading »Marriage on trial (but not on YouTube)
One of the country’s most important legal trials over gay marriage gets underway today in California, but it won’t be available on YouTube. The US Supreme Court has just put a temporary hold on a plan to allow the uploading of footage (after a brief delay) to sites like YouTube. The Supreme Court also ruled that a separate plan to broadcast the proceedings live in federal courthouses around the country would also be placed on hold.
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