DOJ Clears Paramount's $110B Deal To Acquire Warner Bros.

By Rae Ann Varona

The U.S. Department of Justice is closing its investigation into Paramount Skydance Corp.'s $110 billion deal for Warner Bros. Discovery Inc., the department's antitrust unit announced Friday, saying its review suggests the deal will "increase" and not harm competition in media and entertainment.

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Analysis

4 Key Takeaways From 3rd Circ. Arguments Over AI Training

By Ivan Moreno

The Third Circuit's first major encounter with artificial intelligence and fair use did not turn on futuristic hypotheticals, with a three-judge panel instead posing questions that have long defined copyright disputes over new technologies: what was copied, why was it used, and whether the new product served a different purpose or competed with the original.

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1st Circ. Revives Ricky Martin Song Suit Over Discovery Issue

By Hailey Konnath

A split First Circuit panel Friday vacated a lower court's ruling in favor of Ricky Martin in a long-running copyright dispute over the pop star's 2014 FIFA World Cup song, finding the district court should have allowed for discovery in the case before making that call.

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Lively Can Get Fees In Baldoni Case, But No Damages

By Cara Salvatore

A New York federal judge ruled Friday that actor Blake Lively can recoup legal fees from her "It Ends With Us" costar Justin Baldoni after the dismissal of his defamation claims, but found in an issue of first impression that federal procedure bars her from recovering treble and punitive damages under a new state law.

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Judge Demands Proof $1.8B Trump Settlement Fund Is Dead

By Jack McLoone

A Virginia federal court judge ordered the federal government Friday to submit in writing that it won't create a $1.8 billion payment fund to settle President Donald Trump's tax leak suit against the Internal Revenue Service. 

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Judge Questions Pentagon Claim That Press Escorts Curbed Leaks

By Jared Foretek

A D.C. federal judge pressed a Trump administration attorney to back up her claim that restricting reporters' access to the Pentagon has driven down the amount of classified information reaching the press, saying Friday that he'd seen nothing suggesting that unfettered access to the building was connected with leaks.

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Upper Deck Beats Game Co.'s Bid For $4M Fees After IP Loss

By Rachel Riley

A Washington federal judge denied a bid from toymaker Ravensburger and a game designer for $3.8 million in legal fees after the court mostly sided with them in Upper Deck's copyright case targeting a Disney-branded trading card game, noting that the suit was "neither unreasonable nor frivolous."  

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Bloggers Say EBay Stalking Settlement Has Fallen Apart

By Julie Manganis

A Massachusetts couple who were stalked and harassed by eBay employees after publishing blog posts critical of the online retailer's management asked a Massachusetts federal judge on Friday to reopen their suit against the company and several executives, saying a proposed settlement has collapsed.

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Ice Cube's BIG3 Basketball League Inks $290M SPAC Deal

By Al Barbarino

BIG3's legal adviser Ellenoff Grossman & Schole LLP and Graf Global Corp.'s counsel White & Case LLP are guiding a deal that will take professional 3-on-3 basketball league BIG3 public through a merger with the special purpose acquisition company, the parties said Friday.

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Jury Rejects Nielsen's TV Audience IP Case Against TVision

By Theresa Schliep

A Delaware federal jury has cleared TVision Insights Inc. from claims by The Nielsen Co. that it infringed a patent covering audio recognition software with its products for getting data on TV audiences.

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InterDigital Patent Suit Against Disney Paused For Dolby Feud

By Elliot Weld

A California federal judge has paused a patent infringement suit brought by wireless technology outfit InterDigital Inc. against The Walt Disney Co. while letting play out a dispute involving a request from Dolby to declare one InterDigital patent invalid, as well as Disney's challenges over two other patents at the patent office.

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PTAB Cites Oscar, Emmy In Upholding Zaxcom Recording IP

By Theresa Schliep

The Patent Trial and Appeal Board has declined to invalidate claims in Zaxcom Inc.'s patents covering technology for wireless audio recording, finding that Academy and Emmy awards that Zaxcom received for the technology defeat the challenges to them. 

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X Corp. Says Music Publishers' Copyright Case Must Be Axed

By Hailey Konnath

X Corp. asked a Tennessee federal court to throw out a copyright infringement suit brought by music publishers, arguing the U.S. Supreme Court recently rejected the notion that an online provider can be liable for user piracy, and that "should be the end of this lawsuit."

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Insta360 Hits Back At Drone Giant DJI With Patent Suits

By Craig Clough

Insta360 hit drone and camera maker DJI Technology Co. in the Eastern District of Texas Thursday with two suits asserting infringement of its camera patents, one day after DJI filed suits of its own alleging Insta360's Luna line of handheld gimbal cameras infringes its patents.

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State Privacy & AI Watch: 4 Legislative Developments To Know

By Allison Grande

States are continuing to keep the heat on how companies are using a wide range of consumer data and artificial intelligence models, with Connecticut enacting new laws in both arenas and one Midwest locale eyeing what could become the nation's most stringent AI auditing rules.

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Washington Post Subscribers Sue Over Surveillance Pricing

By Lauren Berg

As The Washington Post's print subscriptions declined and many readers moved online, the company has betrayed readers' loyalty by harvesting their personal information to determine how much more they might tolerate paying to renew their subscriptions, according to a proposed class action filed in Washington, D.C.

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9th Circ. Judge Doubts Google Rival's 'Broad' Antitrust Suit

By Dorothy Atkins

A Ninth Circuit judge appeared skeptical Friday of efforts to revive allegations that Google harmed market competition for digital advertising by booting a now-defunct advertising app from its Play Store, saying Google has many rivals in the "very broad" proposed market and asking the plaintiff, "So what's the injury?"

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Academics Ask 2nd Circ. To Revive Publisher Conspiracy Suit

By Bryan Koenig

Academic researchers are asking the Second Circuit to revive their proposed class action accusing six of academia's largest journal publishers of colluding to stifle their leverage and eliminate pay for peer review work, arguing the district court credited the publishers' "written rules" but "discarded" how those rules were implemented.

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Brief

9th Circ. Tells Serial Litigant App Developer No More

By Nadia Dreid

The Ninth Circuit has said it does not want to hear any more from a serial litigant who has a bone to pick with tech behemoth Apple and a California federal court over the exclusion of an application for tracking COVID-19 cases from the App Store.

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Eutelsat Seeks 'Relative' Payments For Upper C-Band Moves

By Nadia Dreid

The FCC ought to stick with its plan of paying companies who agreed to quickly clear out of the upper C-band "relative" to their contribution, but that doesn't mean using the same percentages it did to dole out payments for clearing out of the lower C-band, one satellite company said.

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Radio Station Group Presses For Relaxed Ownership Caps

By Christopher Cole

Radio station chain Connoisseur Media has called for the Federal Communications Commission to ease the industry's local ownership limits, pointing to rapidly rising competition from digital services.

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'Demonstrably Untrue' Claim Ends Google Teen‑Harm Fee Bid

By Y. Peter Kang

A Florida federal judge has shut down an Orlando firm's bid to get a cut of a pending settlement in a suit alleging Google LLC and a chatbot company caused a teen's suicide, rejecting the firm's "demonstrably untrue" statement supporting its bid.

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Roundup

UK Litigation Roundup: Here's What You Missed In London

By Laura Stewart Liberty

The past week in London has seen the FCA bring a claim against a fund manager it accused of providing investment services despite having been banned, an Ardmore unit sue a contractor two days before the construction group's collapse, and shipping and cruise giant MSC hit back at an entertainment company following separate intellectual property litigation in the U.S. Here, Law360 looks at these and other new claims in the U.K.

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Brief

ACLU Of Pa. Sues DHS, CBP Over Probe Into Online Critics

By George Woolston

The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania sued U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in Pennsylvania federal court on Friday, saying they failed to respond to a records request seeking copies of subpoenas for the identities of anonymous social media users who criticized the agencies.

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Kennedy Center Owes $17M, Washington National Opera Says

By Madeline Lyskawa

The Kennedy Center has refused to return $17 million in funding to the Washington National Opera that the performing arts center managed under the parties' since-terminated affiliation agreement, the opera company said in a complaint at the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. 

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3 Misconceptions About Justices' FCC Fines Ruling

The U.S. Supreme Court's June 4 Federal Communications Commission v. AT&T decision rejecting AT&T’s and Verizon’s argument that the commission's forfeiture process violates the Seventh Amendment has yielded three common reactions that misunderstand the decision as a matter of law and how the FCC actually operates, says Samuel Feder at Jenner & Block.

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More BigLaw Raises Predicted Despite Silence After Milbank

By Alison Knezevich

While boutiques make up many of the law firms that have quickly matched Milbank LLP's recently announced associate raises, recruiters told Law360 Pulse this week that they predict more BigLaw firms will eventually reveal their own salary hikes.

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Analysis

Insider Trading Defense May Draw On 'Varsity Blues' Playbook

By Chris Villani

After enlisting a crew of experienced attorneys, defendants charged in an insider trading case allegedly involving deal information stolen from huge law firms are preparing to use a strategy that could take some cues from the "Varsity Blues" case in the same Boston courthouse.

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Q&A

JAMS Chief Executive Says Mass Arbitrations On The Rise

By Kellie Mejdrich

Mediation giant JAMS says it has seen a major upswing in mass arbitrations in employment and other contexts, as plaintiff-side firms develop new ways of responding to language requiring out-of-court dispute resolution by companies. CEO Kimberly Taylor and veteran JAMS mediator Robert Meyer spoke to Law360 about mediation trends, with a specific focus on employee benefits disputes.

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Atty Faces Sanctions Over Fake Quotes In Taco TM Fight

By Brian Steele

A Connecticut attorney could be sanctioned for including fake case quotes and misrepresentations of the law in court filings that seek dismissal of a trademark case against a taco restaurant, a federal judge said Friday in questioning whether the documents were sullied by artificial intelligence.

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Analysis

3 Things To Know As Judge Stares Down Impeachment Push

By Kelcey Caulder

The scandal that could cost U.S. District Judge Eleanor Ross her job also threatens to cause courthouse chaos in the form of recusal motions, bids to reopen suits and uncertainty for clerks. Here, Law360 looks at three things to know about the calls to impeach the judge and their potential fallout.

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Texas Court Urged To Keep Judge Romance Suit Alive

By Adrian Cruz

In multiple filings, EJS Investment Holdings LLC has asked a Texas federal judge to reject attempts by former U.S. Bankruptcy Judge David Jones and other parties to dismiss its proposed class action over his secret romance with a former Jackson Walker LLP partner.

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'Poor Lawyering': Walmart Flub Haunts Class Attys At 9th Circ.

By Jeff Overley

Amid warnings of a chilling effect on plaintiffs counsel, a Ninth Circuit panel Friday scrutinized six-figure sanctions against attorneys whose false advertising suit targeting Walmart Inc. collapsed because of crucial fine print in an avocado oil receipt.

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No Amici In Comey Seashell Threat Case, Judge Says

By Craig Clough

A North Carolina federal judge on Friday said she will not allow any amici to weigh in on former FBI Director James Comey's criminal charges alleging he threatened President Donald Trump with a social media post, finding the parties are "ably represented" by counsel and public input is not needed.

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Ill. Judge Decries Grand Jury 'Turmoil,' Tosses Fraud Charges

By Lauraann Wood

An Illinois federal judge agreed Friday to dismiss fraud charges against two men ahead of an evidentiary hearing probing recent grand jury misconduct claims, but cautioned that "getting rid" of the case may not have prosecutors' desired effect, as such allegations continue causing "turmoil" throughout the district court.

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Deluge Of Video Evidence Overwhelms Criminal Cases

By Brandon Lowrey

Surveillance cameras and police body cameras are creating a flood of video evidence that can help prosecutors and defense attorneys build strong cases. But many have been struggling with the technical and logistical challenges that come with the sheer volume of footage.

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Roundup

GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Sue Reisinger

Elon Musk and SpaceX's legal team blasted off with the largest IPO in history, with shares priced at $150 each at opening before briefly topping $176. And a new study shows investors have approved 11 of 17 companies' requests to move their incorporation from Delaware to Texas so far this proxy season.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton

Kirkland & Ellis LLP leads this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after a Los Angeles jury in a bellwether trial cleared Johnson & Johnson of any liability in the deaths of three women from ovarian cancer.

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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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