Jay-Z Can't Undo Buzbee's Win In Rapper's Defamation Suit

By Y. Peter Kang

A California state appeals court has refused to revive claims that Texas attorney Tony Buzbee defamed and extorted music superstar Jay-Z by roping him into a sexual abuse suit against Sean "Diddy" Combs, saying the case was properly thrown out under California's free speech statute.

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Thomson Reuters Says DOJ AI Stance Doesn't Back Ross

By Rae Ann Varona

Thomson Reuters told the Third Circuit Thursday in defunct legal tech startup Ross Intelligence's interlocutory appeal of a summary judgment ruling that it infringed Westlaw headnotes that a statement by the U.S. Department of Justice flagged by Ross does not support its fair-use defense.

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Zuckerberg Testifies List Of Kid-Glove Users Not A Problem

By Cara Salvatore

Mark Zuckerberg strenuously disputed in testimony seen Thursday by a New Mexico jury that Facebook's internal list of parties whose content receives special treatment undercuts the company's public declarations that policy-violating content must be taken down without exception.

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Calif. Enacts Laws To Curb Addictive Feeds, AI Risks For Kids

By Dorothy Atkins

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed more than a dozen kids online safety bills into law Thursday, expanding student data privacy laws while barring social media companies from offering teens personalized accounts with addictive features and requiring artificial intelligence companies to implement guardrails to prevent teen suicide and self-harm.

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Squires Grants 10 Patent Reviews, Rejects None

By Dani Kass

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director John Squires has instituted 10 more Patent Trial and Appeal Board petitions, largely in the pharmaceutical space.

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Huawei Ripped Off Amazon Cloud Platform IP, Jury Hears

By Stewart Bishop

A former engineer for a U.S. subsidiary of Huawei on Thursday testified that she was shocked and upset after a colleague boasted of co-opting patented code used in Amazon's cloud computing platform, the first of several Huawei employees that are expected to take the stand in the Chinese telecommunications company's RICO trial in New York federal court. 

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Cellspin Media Patent Suit Should Proceed, Judge Says

By Adam Lidgett

A Texas federal magistrate judge said Wednesday the court should not throw out Cellspin Soft Inc.'s patent lawsuit against Fossil Stores I Inc. over systems that can automatically publish social media content, years after a similar case was tossed in California.

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11th Circ. Urged To Undo Trial Loss For Hospital Ratings Org

By Gianna Ferrarin

A Florida federal court order requiring hospital ratings nonprofit Leapfrog to revoke poor safety grades it issued to five hospitals owned by Tenet Healthcare Corp. violated the First Amendment, Leapfrog told the Eleventh Circuit in a Thursday opening brief challenging its bench trial loss.

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Apple Data Delay Stalling High 5 Casino App Deal, Player Says

By Rachel Riley

Apple is refusing to hand over data needed to notify class members and tally damages in a multimillion-dollar class action settlement to resolve allegations that High 5 Games harmed players by operating illegal casino-style mobile apps, the lead plaintiff told a Washington federal judge Wednesday.

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DOJ Wants To Quash Apple's Look At Fed Phone-Buying

By Matthew Perlman

The U.S. Department of Justice is asking a New Jersey federal court to overrule an order in the government's monopolization case giving Apple a look at how the Pentagon, CIA, U.S. Department of State and other agencies purchase smartphones and smartwatches.

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Fox Must Produce Carriage Deals In Newsmax Antitrust Suit

By Carolina Bolado

Fox News has to produce its top carriage agreements with cable and streaming providers in Newsmax's antitrust suit accusing Fox of pressuring providers not to carry the rival right-leaning broadcaster, a Florida federal magistrate judge ruled Thursday.

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US Asks 1st Circ. To Back $3.3M Tax Bill For 'Survivor' Winner

By Zak Kostro

A Rhode Island federal court correctly entered a $3.3 million tax judgment against the first "Survivor" winner, the government told the First Circuit, saying the former contestant failed to refute the tax assessments and had agreed to a U.S. Tax Court decision that determined his liability and penalties.

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FCC Ordered To Answer Petition In Discounted Ads Fight

By Aneeta Mathur-Ashton

The Fourth Circuit has ordered the Federal Communications Commission to answer a petition from a group of Democratic candidates seeking to block an agency action that extended discounted television and radio advertising rates to committees that buy spots in coordination with political candidates.

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FCC Looks At Modernizing Rules For Ultra-Wideband Devices

By Christopher Cole

The Federal Communications Commission could soon modernize its decades-old rules governing ultra-wideband devices, which are used in a wide range of applications including key fobs and ground-penetrating radars in construction work.

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Network Group Worries FCC Regs Could Hinder AI Growth

By Christopher Cole

A group advocating for networks that power artificial intelligence has voiced concern that the Federal Communications Commission's latest push to restrict foreign equipment could hinder AI's growth.

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Nielsen Tells 2nd Circ. Court Altered Terms Of Cumulus Order

By Nadia Dreid

Nielsen is headed back to the Second Circuit after a New York federal court changed the terms of a preliminary injunction that the appellate court had already upheld, the company said, requiring Nielsen to not only unbundle its national radio ratings data from its local offerings but also to provide that data on specific terms.

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Brief

Senate Panel To Consider Nominee For 3rd FCC Republican

By Christopher Cole

U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, who chairs the Senate Commerce Committee, announced Thursday that a hearing will be held Sept. 17 for the nomination of Danielle Thumann Severs to the Federal Communications Commission.

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Series

Juggling And Unicycling Make Me A Better Lawyer

Because I juggle (sometimes with fire) and ride the unicycle, friends and family used to joke that I should join the circus, but I pursued the practice of law instead and learned that my hobbies benefit my profession in several important ways, says Morgan Eddy at Smith Currie.

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Senior Lawyers Survey: Tell Us About Your Career

How are senior lawyers adapting to evolving career paths and emerging technologies? Share your perspective in this five-minute survey.

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Engineering Co. Calls Atty-Ouster Bid Retaliatory In Wage Suit

By Benjamin Morse

An engineering company urged a Pennsylvania federal judge to reject a bid to remove its lawyer from a wage case, arguing the worker is retaliating because the company tried to disqualify one of his attorneys from a separate case.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton

Elias Law Group LLP and Stinson LLP lead this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Missouri cannot use a newly drawn congressional map that favors Republicans in the midterms.

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In-House Atty Org. Says Rival Ripped Off Data For AI Tool

By Andrea Keckley

The Association of Corporate Counsel alleges in Delaware federal court that its competitor used the nonprofit's proprietary materials to train its artificial intelligence tool Lloyd and "brazenly promoted its Lloyd product by showing the public that ACC materials could be accessed via Lloyd."

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Greenberg Traurig, Eckert Seamans Hit By Data Breaches

By Ryan Boysen

Greenberg Traurig LLP and Eckert Seamans Cherin & Mellott LLC have publicly revealed that they've been hit by data breaches, adding to the dozens of cybersecurity incidents U.S. law firms have suffered this year.

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Legal Ops Duo Sees AI Driving Department Redesign

By Anna Scott Farrell

Connie Brenton and Jeff Franke consider themselves, and others in the field of legal operations, to be, fundamentally, entrepreneurs. Here, the pair sat down with Law360 Pulse to talk about the state of their field, why legal ops is still misunderstood, and their annual conference, Running Legal Like a Business, which took place this week in Las Vegas.

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GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Sue Reisinger

AI is driving a significant gap between in-house legal departments' budgets and the cost of their workloads, according to a new study. Speaking of gaps, a new Law360 Pulse report on women in law found that men still make up 71% of law firm equity partners and 63% of nonequity partners. These are some of the stories in corporate legal news you may have missed in the past week.​

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Analysis

Midterm Wins Could Help Dems Probe Trump's BigLaw Deals

By Courtney Bublé

If the Democrats take back one or both chambers of Congress in the midterm elections, a big item on their oversight agenda will be to step up ongoing investigations of the deals that nine major law firms cut with the Trump administration last year.

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Personal Injury Firm Beats Atty's Bid For 'Birth Justice' TM

By Adam Lidgett

A former associate at a personal injury and medical malpractice law firm can't register in her own name a trademark for birth-injury legal services that she helped develop before and during her employment with the firm, the Trademark Trial and Appeal Board has ruled.

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Trial Errors 'Crippled Goldstein's Defense,' 4th Circ. Hears

By Jeff Overley

Appellate luminary Tom Goldstein unveiled a sweeping and forceful critique aimed at erasing his felony fraud convictions, telling the Fourth Circuit that prosecutors were hell-bent on convicting him "no matter the facts or law," disregarded a star witness's "incompetence" and benefited from a trial judge's "inexplicable" rulings.

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Interview

ABA Cyber Task Force Co-Chair Eyes AI Education Boost

By Allison Grande

With the legal industry presenting a more and more enticing target for cyberattacks, it's becoming increasingly important for practitioners to know how to best protect clients' data and most effectively use emerging artificial intelligence tools — a task that the American Bar Association's Cybersecurity Legal Task Force is well positioned to assist with, its incoming co-chair recently told Law360.

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Afghan Woman Deported in 1st 'Alien Terrorist' Case

By Aneeta Mathur-Ashton

The Trump administration deported an Afghan woman accused of plotting an ISIS-inspired mass shooting in the first case before the previously dormant Alien Terrorist Removal Court.

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In Case You Missed It: Hottest Firms And Stories On Law360

For those who missed out, here's a look back at the law firms, stories and expert analyses that generated the most buzz on Law360 last week.

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Attys Must Arbitrate $8 Oil To Fight $625K Sanction: 9th Circ.

By Jeff Overley

Class action lawyers slapped with six-figure sanctions for suing Walmart Inc. based on erroneous purchase information can't yet challenge the discipline, the Ninth Circuit ruled, suggesting they may first need to arbitrate grievances over an $8 bottle of avocado oil.

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Ex-Wash. Bench Officer Censured Over Explicit Texts, Emails

By Ben Adlin

The Washington State Commission on Judicial Conduct censured a former Okanogan County Superior Court commissioner Friday, finding that Robert Colbert violated the Code of Judicial Conduct by engaging in what a stipulated agreement describes as "unprofessional, inappropriate communications" with a court employee that involved "sexually explicit language."

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Brief

Colo. Governor Appoints Atty To Denver Court

By Rachel Konieczny

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis appointed Friday an attorney to the Denver District Court, filling the vacancy that will be created by a retirement on the bench.

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