law

EMG Technology has filed a patent suit against Apple in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.

The suit alleges that Apple is infringing on U.S. Patent No. 7,441,196 in the way the iPhone navigates the Internet. The lawsuit seeks unspecified damages against Apple.

"Web sites are just beginning to develop their mobile sister sites for fast and easy navigation," said Stanley Gibson, an intellectual property expert and partner at the law firm of Jeffer, Mangels, Butler & Marmaro, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of EMG Technology.

In an era of dazzling battery-powered portable devices including iPods, computers and cellphones, it's hard to imagine what it's like to be unable to catch the news and entertainment anytime and anywhere we want.

But millions of people who own portable televisions, including those who depend on them when they flee their homes or lose power during hurricanes and other emergencies, may soon return to the dark ages.

Microsoft will pay comedian Jerry Seinfeld $10 million to advertise its Windows Vista operating system. In all, the campaign, which includes a series of ads featuring Seinfeld and Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates, will cost $300 million.

Based on the theme "Windows Not Walls," the series aims to shed a more favorable light on Windows Vista. Launched by Microsoft's new ad agency, Miami-based Crispin Porter + Bogusky, the campaign is set to debut Sept. 4 and will be one of Microsoft's largest ad blitzes. Crispin is credited with turning around Burger King's image.

Yahoo Inc. shelled out $36 million in the first half of 2008 to the outside advisers that helped the company navigate stormy buyout talks with Microsoft Corp. and the ensuing proxy threat from activist investor Carl Icahn.

Yahoo leaned on investment banks Goldman Sachs Group Inc., Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and Moelis & Co., and the law firm Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom, after Microsoft made its initial $44.6 billion offer, which was made public in February.

In response to demands from game publisher Hasbro, Facebook has disabled the Scrabble-like game Scrabulous on its U.S. and Canadian Web sites.

Hasbro sent Facebook a notification of copyright infringement under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act last week. Users who attempt to access Scrabulous will get a message that says, "Scrabulous is disabled for U.S. and Canadian users until further notice. If you would like to stay informed about developments in this matter, please click here."

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers [ICANN] has voted to allow--in addition to more traditional top-level domains [TLDs], such as .com and .org--theoretically any TLD at all, as long as it is no longer than 64 characters long. The application process for such custom TLDs looks set to be arduous and the criteria reasonably rigorous, but observers say the new system will create confusion.

Spam, one of the most annoying features of the Internet age, is celebrating a milestone.

In the spring of 1978, someone sent a note advertising a new computer system to the addresses of about 600 people on Arpanet, the government-designed precursor to the Web.

The unsolicited message sparked an immediate outcry. "This was a clear and flagrant abuse of the directory!" one user on the electronic list wrote.

This was the first of billions of spam e-mails sent over the next 30 years at a rate that has grown astronomically.

In an ongoing legal battle, a group of Belgian newspapers want Google to pay millions of dollars for publishing and storing copyrighted content. Copiepresse, the newspaper copyright group representing the French-language publishers, has summoned Google to appear before a Brussels court on Sept. 18. The group hopes judges will decide the search company should pay between $51.7 million and $77.5 million in damages for infringing on newspaper copyrights.

Viacom's $1 billion lawsuit against YouTube could mean the end of social networking as we know it, Google has told a U.S. court.

Google, which owns YouTube, said making carriers and hosting providers liable for Internet communications "threatens the way hundreds of millions of people legitimately exchange information, news, entertainment and political and artistic expression."

Viacom, the entertainment titan that owns Paramount Pictures, Dreamworks, and other entertainment properties, is suing YouTube for the posting of some 160,000 unauthorized video clips.

How can Google, the Internet search and advertising giant, contend that teaming up with Yahoo in search ads would not invite an antitrust challenge?

Under a proposed partnership, Google would let Yahoo use its more sophisticated ad technology to deliver ads next to some Yahoo search results. By some estimates this could bring Yahoo $1 billion a year in added cash.