'I Believe I'm Trustworthy,' OpenAI CEO Testifies In Musk Trial

By Dorothy Atkins

OpenAI Inc. CEO Sam Altman took the stand Tuesday in the California federal jury trial over Elon Musk's challenge to OpenAI's for-profit conversion, acknowledging that colleagues have accused him of being deceptive while testifying that "I believe I'm a trustworthy person."

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Viewing Seed Genetic Material Not Patent Infringement: DOJ

By Bryan Koenig

The U.S. Department of Justice's Antitrust Division waded into a private patent infringement lawsuit Monday, telling a Delaware federal court that just "reading" a patent, or viewing and sequencing the genetic material that must be submitted for the seed patents at issue, can't on its own count as infringement.

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NCAA Wants Final Whistle On 1983 Team's Appeal Of NIL Suit

By Abigail Harrison

The National Collegiate Athletic Association urged North Carolina justices to keep out of bounds a name, image and likeness lawsuit from members of a 1983 North Carolina State University championship basketball team, arguing that a lower court was right to find the suit several decades expired.

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Cintas Gives FTC More Time To Review $5.5B UniFirst Deal

By Matthew Perlman

Cintas Corp. is giving the Federal Trade Commission additional time to review its planned $5.5 billion acquisition of fellow uniform and facility services supplier UniFirst Corp. for its effect on competition.

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Shopify Must Face Most Buy Now, Pay Later Antitrust Claims

By Emilie Ruscoe

E-commerce company Shopify Inc. can't shed monopolization claims brought by buy now, pay later payment platform Sezzle Inc., although a Minnesota federal judge has trimmed the dispute.

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NextEra Cuts $9.5M Deal In Nuclear Power Wage-Fixing Case

By Hailey Konnath

NextEra Energy has agreed to shell out $9.5 million to put to rest proposed class action allegations it conspired with other nuclear energy producers to fix wages, according to a notice filed Tuesday in Maryland federal court.

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Elanco On Hook For Bulk Of $9M Flea & Tick Meds Deal

By Bryan Koenig

Elanco Animal Health Inc. will pay $6.75 million while Petco, PetSmart, Chewy, Petsense and PetMeds are all on the hook for six-figure payouts under a settlement Tuesday resolving lawsuits accusing Elanco of paying pet supply retailers not to stock generic versions of its Advantix topical flea and tick prevention drug.

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Authors Accuse OpenAI Of Arguing Differently On Each Coast

By Elliot Weld

An attorney representing authors accusing OpenAI of feeding their copyrighted works into training data for large language models told a New York federal magistrate judge Tuesday that the AI startup was asserting vastly different positions in New York and in an ongoing trial in California about whether it ever intended to become a for-profit enterprise.

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Zillow Fights Buyers' Effort To Revise Home Loan Lawsuit

By Grace Dixon

Zillow told a Washington federal court that homebuyers should not be allowed to amend their complaint alleging the real estate platform used its market dominance to inflate costs nationwide, arguing the late changes cure none of the deficiencies in the buyers' claims.

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Fla. Lab-Grown Meat Ban Lacks Legal Basis, Producer Says

By David Minsky

A California producer of lab-grown chicken has asked a Florida federal judge to rule that the state's regulation against its product is unlawful, arguing a total ban on cultivated meat has no basis in public health and amounts to "economic protectionism" in violation of the U.S. Constitution's dormant commerce clause. 

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Sports Broadcasting Protections Need Overhaul, Groups Say

By Aneeta Mathur-Ashton

State broadcasting groups have called on Congress to update the Sports Broadcasting Act of 1961 to protect fan access to programming amid the growing number of streaming paywalls.

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Low-Power TV Group Asks FCC To Allow 5G Broadcast Standard

By Aneeta Mathur-Ashton

The Low-Power TV Broadcasters Association asked the Federal Communications Commission on Tuesday to allow it to use the 5G broadcast standard to deliver content to smartphones.

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Ex-Google Engineer's Bid To Nix Conviction Nears Partial Win

By Bonnie Eslinger

A California federal judge appeared open Tuesday to partly unwinding a jury's decision to convict a former Google engineer of trade secret theft and economic espionage, saying he's "somewhat skeptical" of the economic espionage charges since he doesn't see sufficient evidence the engineer intended to benefit China.

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4 Emerging Approaches To AI Protective Order Language

Over the last year, at least five federal district courts have issued or analyzed specific protective order provisions restricting the use of generative artificial intelligence platforms with protected materials, establishing that proactive AI-specific provisions are now standard practice and demonstrating that no single model works for every case, says Joel Bush at Kilpatrick.

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Murdaugh Murder Conviction Overturned By SC High Court

By Parker Quinlan

The South Carolina Supreme Court on Wednesday overturned a double murder conviction and ordered a new trial for disgraced attorney Alex Murdaugh, finding the jury in his first trial was biased by a clerk of court who allegedly sought a guilty verdict in a ploy to juice sales of her book about the trial.

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Texas Atty Must Pay $5M For Groping Opposing Counsel

By Lynn LaRowe

A Texas state appellate court on Wednesday refused to disturb a $5 million jury verdict against a San Antonio lawyer for grabbing the buttocks of opposing counsel at the courthouse where they were arguing a family law proceeding in 2019.

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DOJ Goes After DC Bar, Courts For Discipline Of Ex-DOJ Atty

By Hailey Konnath

The U.S. Department of Justice on Wednesday sued the D.C. Office of Disciplinary Counsel, D.C. Board on Professional Responsibility, D.C. Court of Appeals and the District of Columbia, claiming that they were "punishing" a former Trump administration DOJ official and trying to "control the executive branch."

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DOJ Fraud Division Set To Shake Up White-Collar Enforcement

By Phillip Bantz

President Donald Trump's administration created the U.S. Department of Justice's National Fraud Enforcement Division with a narrow focus on combating government program fraud, but a move to retain federal prosecutors focused on other types of fraud could signal a wider scope with potential ripple effects across white-collar enforcement.

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Arbitrators See Global Stakes In Trump BigLaw EO Fight

By Caroline Simson

Ahead of a D.C. Circuit hearing on Thursday in the Trump administration's effort to revive executive orders imposed against four BigLaw firms, an official at the College of Commercial Arbitrators told Law360 this week there are several things arbitrators are going to be watching for.

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Apple Targets Hagens Berman 'Gamesmanship' In ICloud Suit

By Bryan Koenig

Apple has lashed out at Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP for trying to withdraw a named plaintiff from an iCloud antitrust case in California federal court without discovery into any directions she received to preserve now-deleted emails, raising concerns that the withdrawal is meant to "paper over lost evidence."

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Michigan Federal Judge Gets Probation For Drunken Driving

By Susan Smiley

Michigan federal Judge Thomas L. Ludington was sentenced by a state judge on Wednesday to six months' probation and fined $1,175 after pleading no contest to a misdemeanor drunken-driving charge last month in Emmet County.

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6th Circ. Says Kentucky Judicial Hopefuls May Tout Ideology

By Emily Sawicki

Kentucky judicial hopefuls are cleared to discuss their political leanings on the campaign trail, according to a precedential ruling by the Sixth Circuit, which permanently enjoined the state's Judicial Conduct Commission from pursuing an enforcement action against two candidates who described themselves as "conservatives" and "Republicans" amid the 2022 election season.

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Judge Says LegalForce Must Pay $93K After Losing TM Suit

By Elliot Weld

A California federal judge on Wednesday ordered LegalForce RAPC Worldwide PC to pay nearly $93,000 in fees and costs to the company that operates LawFirms.com, finding the case to be exceptional because LegalForce alleged facts it knew were false and took steps to obscure other facts that showed its case was meritless.

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CORRECTED: Senate Advances 13 US Attorneys In En Bloc Vote

By Courtney Bublé

The Senate voted 46-45, along party lines, to advance the nomination of 13 U.S. attorneys on Monday as part of a larger nominations package. Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly stated the status of the nominees in the Senate.

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