'Who's Telling The Truth?' Musk-OpenAI Fight Goes To Jury

By Dorothy Atkins

Elon Musk's counsel urged a California federal jury during trial closings Thursday to find OpenAI breached its charitable trust aided by Microsoft Corp. and slammed OpenAI CEO Sam Altman's credibility, while OpenAI's counsel argued Musk is trying to attack his competitor and urged jurors to ask themselves, "Who's telling the truth?"

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Authors' Attys Call Anthropic's $1.5B IP Deal Their 'Creation'

By Rae Ann Varona

Asked to justify a massive $187.5 million attorney fee request in litigation accusing Anthropic of copyright infringement, counsel for the plaintiff class of authors told a California federal judge Thursday that the resulting $1.5 billion settlement was "the creation of class counsel."

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Analysis

States Eye AI Ownership Laws To Fill Federal IP Gaps

By Ivan Moreno

States are beginning to test whether they can fill a gap left by federal copyright and patent law for works created with artificial intelligence, with Arkansas adopting a first-of-its-kind ownership rule for generative content and lawmakers elsewhere weighing their own proposals.

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Analysis

Insider Trading Case Shows BigLaw Associate Vetting Gaps

By Chris Villani

A BigLaw attorney who was able to move through three major firms while allegedly orchestrating a massive insider trading scheme may have been aided by relatively loose hiring practices for associates that firms may consider strengthening moving forward, recruiting experts told Law360.

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Algorithms In Senate Spotlight After Social Media Suit Losses

By Emily Field

Lawyers and parents on Wednesday urged lawmakers to strengthen protections for children online, focusing on the addictiveness of social media algorithms after two recent trial losses for Big Tech.

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NCR To Pay $48M To End Former Execs' Lifetime Benefits Suit

By Patrick Hoff

NCR Corp. will pay nearly $48 million to resolve a class action from former executives who alleged the software company broke its promise to send them annuity payments for life, the workers told a Georgia federal court.

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GoDaddy Overcomes Willfulness Finding From $170M Verdict

By Elliot Weld

A Delaware federal judge on Thursday found that GoDaddy had not willfully infringed two website patents held by Express Mobile Inc., thus sparing the company a verdict greater than the $170 million a jury found but still assessing prejudgment and postjudgment interest.

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Ogletree Fights Atty's Discovery Bid For DQ Push In Bias Suit

By Lynn LaRowe

A Georgia federal court should deny a bid for discovery aimed at disqualifying Ogletree Deakins Nash Smoak & Stewart PC from defending a security company against discrimination claims because the request stems from the plaintiff's lawyer's "personal grievances," the company said Thursday.

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House Panel Backs Bill To Recast Copyright Office Oversight

By Ivan Moreno

A U.S. House committee Thursday unanimously advanced a bill that would change how the Copyright Office chief is selected, requiring congressional leaders to recommend candidates while allowing the president to make the final selection — a shift that would give both branches of government a more direct role in choosing the agency's leadership.

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Senate Bill Would Require Network Outage Refunds

By Christopher Cole

A Democratic senator filed legislation that would require cable, satellite, internet and phone providers to refund customers for service outages lasting longer than four hours.

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New Bill Would Ban Chinese Point-Of-Sale Tech For DOD

By Nadia Dreid

The U.S. Department of Defense would be banned from using any Chinese-made point-of-sale technology — devices like those that allow people to tap their cards to pay — in its buildings, if one Republican congressman gets his way.

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Advocacy Groups, Dems Seek To Restore Digital Equity Fund

By Christopher Cole

A year after the Trump administration abruptly pulled funds set aside for digital equity grants, Democratic lawmakers are joining with public interest groups in trying to block a budget proposal that would permanently stamp out the program.

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AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon Join Forces To End 'Dead Zones'

By Hailey Konnath

AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon have reached an agreement in principle to form a new joint venture aimed at ending wireless dead zones in the U.S. by pooling resources to increase capacity, according to an announcement made Thursday.

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Fed. Circ. Upholds Mercedes, VW Headlight Patent Wins

By Adam Lidgett

The Federal Circuit on Thursday rejected an Israeli inventor's attempts to revive claims in a trio of patents covering adaptive headlights, handing wins to German automakers Mercedes-Benz, Volkswagen and Porsche.

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Google Workers' Attys Get $12.5M In Race Bias Deal Final OK

By Lauren Berg

A California federal judge gave her final approval Thursday to a $50 million settlement that Google reached to resolve claims that it paid thousands of Black workers less than their white colleagues, and awarded the workers' attorneys their fee request of $12.5 million.

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Morgan Stanley Beats Chip Co. Investor's Stock Scheme Suit

By Gina Kim

A New York federal judge Thursday dismissed a stock manipulation suit against Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, finding its temporary policy requiring customers to buy shares in Israeli chipmaker Eltek Ltd. over the phone, which allegedly enabled improper trading, to be "neither manipulative nor deceptive."

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Apple Drops Bid To Transfer Fintiv Suit Due To Albright Exit

By Adam Lidgett

Apple Inc. has abandoned its request to transfer Fintiv Inc.'s trade secret theft and racketeering lawsuit from Georgia to Texas, citing U.S. District Judge Alan Albright's decision to leave the bench in the Western District of Texas.

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Squires Walks Back 5 More IPR Grants Over Inconsistent Args

By Theresa Schliep

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director John Squires has reversed earlier decisions granting five petitions for patent review, citing what he called the challengers' inconsistent positions in parallel proceedings and explaining that four petitions he denied in previous bulk orders were also rejected for the same reasons. 

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Squires Ends AMD Challenges At PTAB Over Sotera Issues

By Adam Lidgett

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director John Squires has terminated reviews of three data processing patents challenged by Advanced Micro Devices Inc. after finding AMD violated a stipulation to limit its invalidity arguments in court.

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Meta Starts NM Defense As Midtrial Win Bid Fails

By Cara Salvatore

A judge denied Meta a midtrial win Thursday morning over harm to underage social media users, prompting the social media giant to call an executive to begin building a defense case that platform changes requested by New Mexico's attorney general are unnecessary or even counterproductive.

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OpenAI Seeks To Overturn Injunction In 'IO' TM Fight

By Ivan Moreno

OpenAI is urging a California federal judge to overturn a preliminary injunction barring the company from using "IO" as a trademark for AI hardware, arguing it has abandoned all federal applications for the mark and has no plans to use it.

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Google Says DOJ's Search Win Can't Help Yelp Suit

By Bryan Koenig

Google urged a California federal judge on Wednesday not to let Yelp invoke the U.S. Department of Justice's D.C. search monopoly win in the local search provider's own antitrust case, arguing that the two lawsuits look at the interconnection between local and general search through fundamentally different lenses.

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Med Device Co.'s CEO Touted Growth, Netted $39M, Suit Says

By Zak Kostro

Medical device maker Integer Holdings Corp.'s former CEO overstated growth prospects of a manufacturing program for the company's electrophysiology business, inflating the firm's stock price and allowing him to reap a nearly $39 million "windfall net profit," according to an investor's derivative lawsuit in Texas federal court.

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'Pig Butchering' Crypto Scam Victim Seeks $962K From IRS

By Kat Lucero

An Ohio man told a district court that the Internal Revenue Service wrongly denied his tax deduction claim for a loss of over $800,000 from a cryptocurrency "pig butchering" scheme despite the extensive documentation of the fraud he said he provided to the agency.

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Text-Marketing Startup Sued In Chancery Over Stock Dilution

By Jarek Rutz

A Texas investor has sued text-marketing company Voxie Inc. in Delaware Chancery Court, claiming the startup pushed through a new financing round and charter amendment that stripped away negotiated protections for early preferred shareholders without getting their required approval.

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Brief

Fed. Circ. Won't Eye Part Of Columbia's Axed $600M IP Win

By Elliot Weld

The Federal Circuit said Thursday it won't take up Columbia University's request for it to reconsider a portion of a panel decision by the appellate court that discarded a nine-figure patent judgment against the maker of Norton antivirus software.

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3 Firms Steer Iridium, Aireon On $367M Aviation Satellite Deal

By Al Barbarino

Iridium Communications Inc. said Thursday it has agreed to acquire the remaining stake in Aireon LLC for nearly $367 million, consolidating full ownership of the space-based aircraft surveillance provider in a deal steered by three law firms.

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Akamai To Buy Cybersecurity Biz LayerX In $205M Deal

By Jade Martinez-Pogue

Cybersecurity and cloud company Akamai Technologies Inc. on Thursday announced plans to acquire Tel Aviv-based tech company LayerX in a $205 million deal.

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Brown-Forman Rejects $15B Takeover Offer, More Rumors

By Jade Martinez-Pogue

Alcoholic drink maker Brown-Forman rejected rival Sazerac's $15 billion takeover offer; fintech Digital Asset is seeking a $2 billion valuation with its latest funding round; and shoemaker Skechers has upped its offer to settle an investor lawsuit.

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Sterne Kessler, Thomson Reuters Launch Patent Eligibility AI Tool

By Matt Perez

Intellectual property boutique Sterne Kessler Goldstein & Fox PLLC announced it has partnered with Thomson Reuters Corp. to develop an artificial intelligence workflow within CoCounsel Legal to analyze patent eligibility under Section 101.

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Ed Tech Co. Conscious Content Nears Ch. 11 Plan OK

By Hilary Russ

The bankrupt education technology company Conscious Content Media on Thursday neared confirmation of its Chapter 11 reorganization plan, after a Delaware judge said he will grant his approval once documents are finalized for $20 million of exit financing.

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Rural Carrier To Pay $80K For Breaking FCC Rules

By Aneeta Mathur-Ashton

A rural telephone company in Colorado has agreed to pay $80,000 and create a compliance plan to resolve a Federal Communications Commission probe into whether it provided unauthorized service.

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Verizon's Array Buy Gets Green Light From FCC Staff

By Christopher Cole

Verizon secured approval Thursday from the Federal Communications Commission to buy up spectrum assets of the former rival UScellular, now known as Array Digital Infrastructure Inc.

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FINRA Official Says Cooperation Credit Updates Incoming

By Sarah Jarvis

The Financial Industry Regulatory Authority's head of enforcement said Thursday that the self-regulating watchdog of brokers will update the credit it offers to firms for cooperation and remediation, amid a broader, ongoing series of efficiency initiatives.

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Nexstar Offers A Cautionary Tale On State-Level Deal Scrutiny

State-enforcement challenges to the $6.2 billion Nexstar-Tegna merger remind legal practitioners that federal approval isn't always sufficient to deliver certainty on closing, integration and timetable assumptions, says Brett Story at Britehorn Securities.

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New Cuba Sanctions Raise Risks For Foreign Banks, Cos.

President Donald Trump's bold move leveling secondary sanctions against Cuba expands enforcement risk for foreign banks and companies with no U.S. nexus, signaling that non-U.S. businesses should reassess related transactions, counterparties and exposure as regulators test this broader authority, say attorneys at Troutman.

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AG Watch: Reconciling 2 Maryland Data Privacy Statutes

In-house counsel should map the interplay between the Maryland Online Data Privacy Act's strictly necessary standard to deliver a requested service, and the Protection From Predatory Pricing Act's exemption of consent-based pricing within loyalty programs, before the state attorney general begins enforcement on the latter in October, says Erek Barron at Mintz.

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Framing AI Risk Management In The Art World

With gallery professionals indicating a widening gap between operational adoption of artificial intelligence and cultural acceptance of AI as an art medium, certain intellectual property, privacy and governance considerations are becoming critical for art industry stakeholders, say attorneys at Holland & Knight.

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Series

Playing Basketball Makes Me A Better Lawyer

My grandfather used to say "I wear your jersey" as shorthand for wholly committing to support someone with loyalty and integrity — ideals that have shaped my life on the basketball court and in legal practice, says Tracy Schimelfenig at Schimelfenig Legal.

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ABA Section Votes To Scrap Law School DEI Standards

By Emma Cueto

The American Bar Association's legal education section on Friday voted to eliminate its requirements that law schools show a commitment to diversity in their student body in order to remain accredited, a policy that has been under fire since a 2023 U.S. Supreme Court ruling striking down affirmative action in higher education.

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Fed. Circ. Drops A Theme Song, Talks Guest Judges

By Dani Kass

The Federal Circuit's full lineup came together Friday to provide practitioners with insight about their experience sitting on other courts, in a conference where the chief judge dropped the court's first (and only) single.

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Alston & Bird, Banks Sued Again Over $328M Goliath Scam

By Jack Karp

Another proposed class of investors sued Alston & Bird LLP and a trio of financial institutions Friday over their alleged roles in a $328 million cryptocurrency scam orchestrated by Goliath Ventures Inc.

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Fed. Circ. Urges Justices To Reject Newman Suspension Case

By Ryan Davis

The Federal Circuit has urged the U.S. Supreme Court not to hear Judge Pauline Newman's appeal targeting a suspension imposed on her by the court's other judges, arguing that a lower court correctly held that her challenges to the order are not subject to judicial review.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton

Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP and Haynes Boone lead this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that federal courts that have sent disputes to arbitration have jurisdiction to confirm or vacate subsequent awards.

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Brief

Colorado Passes Bill Banning Fee Sharing With Nonlawyers

By Emily Sawicki

The Colorado Legislature has approved a bill to bar attorneys and law firms operating in the state from sharing fees and revenue with non-attorney-owned firms, known as alternative business structure firms, making Colorado the latest state to tamp down the practice.

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Girardi Trial Judge Josephine Staton To Take Senior Status

By Ryan Boysen

The California federal judge who sentenced disgraced trial attorney Tom Girardi to prison for wire fraud last year has announced that she'll be taking senior status in the fall, allowing President Donald Trump to appoint her successor.

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Roundup

Balancing The Scales: Justices To Revisit Sentencing Rules

By Orlando Lorenzo

The U.S. Supreme Court will take a closer look at a circuit split over the deference that should be allotted to U.S. Sentencing Commission commentary, and a man convicted in the killing of an infant has been released after 27 years served over evidence that points to pneumonia as the likely cause of death.

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Atty Tied To Trump Pardon Headed For August Extortion Trial

By Stewart Bishop

A New York federal judge on Friday set an August trial date for a South Carolina attorney and lobbyist on extortion charges tied to his work as a purported go-between for people with serious legal troubles seeking clemency from President Donald Trump.

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Roundup

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

By Megan Norcott

The past week in London has seen singer Rita Ora be sued by her management company, the billionaire Gertner brothers file a part 8 claim and Stephenson Harwood lodge a debt claim against a member of the Bulgari jewelry dynasty. Here, Law360 looks at these and other new claims in the U.K.

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Roundup

GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Michele Gorman

PayPal settled with the DOJ to end a probe into what the government agency said was a discriminatory investment program for Black- and minority-owned businesses. Meanwhile, Meta's global head of legal operations during a panel discussion predicted that the billable hour will be the exception — not the rule — in five years. These are among the stories in corporate legal news you may have missed in the past week.

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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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