OpenAI Beats Musk Suit Over For-Profit Restructuring

By Dorothy Atkins

In an advisory decision Monday, a California federal jury cleared OpenAI and executives Sam Altman and Greg Brockman of allegations they breached the nonprofit's charitable trust by converting to a for-profit, handing billionaire Elon Musk a defeat in a closely watched three-week trial that threatened to shake up the artificial intelligence industry.

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Justices Refuse To Review Alice Ax Of $223M USAA Case

By Ryan Davis

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected the United Services Automobile Association's appeal of a Federal Circuit decision that wiped out $223 million in judgments it won against PNC Bank and found the mobile check deposit patents at issue invalid for covering only abstract ideas.

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Squires, Stewart Zero In On PTAB's Burden Of Proof At Panel

By Theresa Schliep

The leaders of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Monday asked intellectual property experts to wade into debates over the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, focusing in part on whether switching to a stricter burden of proof would address disparate outcomes between the board and district court.

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USPTO Data Error Kept Patent Assignment Files From Public

By Ryan Davis

U.S. Patent and Trademark Office data indicates the office mistakenly kept hundreds of thousands of records of patent ownership transfers from becoming public for years, according to researchers who analyzed the files, an error that experts say could cause complications for anyone who relied on the incomplete data.

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Health Co. Wants Kirkland Off IP Case For 'Cardinal Sin'

By Elliot Weld

A healthcare company suing medical technology company Commure Inc. over alleged trade secret theft has said Kirkland & Ellis LLP should be disqualified from representing Commure because the healthcare company had tried to retain Kirkland prior to filing the suit and shared confidential information before anyone asked who the defendant was going to be.

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FTC And Deere In 'Advanced' Right-To-Repair Settlement Talks

By Bryan Koenig

The Federal Trade Commission got an Illinois federal judge to hit pause on its right-to-repair antitrust lawsuit against John Deere, citing ongoing settlement talks less than two months after the company struck a $99 million deal with farmers promising to facilitate independent equipment repairs.

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Musk's XAI Opposes Anonymity In Deepfake Suit

By Mike Curley

Elon Musk's xAI is asking a California federal court to force the use of the real identities of a group of women suing over Grok-generated deepfake images of them in sexual situations, saying they haven't shown that proceeding under pseudonyms is necessary to protect their privacy.

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NYT, Tribune Say Perplexity Can't Fault Users For Bot Outputs

By Ivan Moreno

The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune on Friday urged a New York federal judge to reject Perplexity AI's bid to pare down their copyright and trademark lawsuits, arguing the company cannot blame users for allegedly infringing outputs generated by a system Perplexity itself built with copied news content.

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Kirkland, McGuireWoods Guide NextEra's $67B Dominion Deal

By Al Barbarino

NextEra Energy and Dominion Energy said Monday they will merge in an all-stock transaction that combines two of the largest regulated U.S. utilities, in a roughly $67 billion deal steered by Kirkland & Ellis LLP and McGuireWoods LLP. 

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Calif. Kicks Off Rulemaking For Social Media Addiction Law

By Allison Grande

California Attorney General Rob Bonta is seeking public comment on a new set of proposed regulations for complying with the age determination and parental consent aspects of a looming law that restricts social media platforms from using algorithms to deliver addictive feeds to children.

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Former USPTO Directors Diverge On Patent Injunctions

By Adam Lidgett

The debate over the role of injunctions in patent cases remains active in the U.S., and European leaders shouldn't think that there is a "consensus" in the country, said former U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Director Kathi Vidal.

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Ex-FCC Official Urges Agency To Bring USF Billing In-House

By Christopher Cole

A former top Federal Communications Commission official says it's time for an overhaul of how the agency runs the Universal Service Fund with reforms that should include bringing the program's billions of dollars in yearly revenue collections in-house.

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FCC Told It's Obligated To Answer Petition On Fox Philly

By Nadia Dreid

The D.C. Circuit recently said that the Federal Communications Commission has a "non-discretionary obligation" to respond to applications for review, and an advocacy group that's spent almost three years pushing to strip a Fox affiliate station of its license on allegations it aired election conspiracy theories says that obligation applies to it as well.

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Debate Ramps Up Over Prison Cellphone Jamming

By Christopher Cole

Two GOP lawmakers say the Federal Communications Commission isn't moving fast enough to complete a rule that would effectively let state prisons and jails jam contraband cellphones, but industry pushback remains strong.

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Brief

FCC Commish Focuses On Spectrum In Trips Around Globe

By Christopher Cole

Commissioner Olivia Trusty of the Federal Communications Commission has kept global spectrum policy at top of mind, and her travel schedule shows it.

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Brief

AT&T Seeks FCC's OK To Change Covered Routers

By Nadia Dreid

AT&T is asking the Federal Communications Commission to greenlight hardware changes to foreign-made routers, which the agency recently placed on the covered list, arguing the artificial intelligence boom has created a shortage that makes getting replacements difficult.

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Supreme Court Won't Revive Car ID Patent Claims

By Adam Lidgett

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday shot down a vehicle identification system patent owner's challenge to the Federal Circuit's reversal of the Patent Trial and Appeal Board's decision allowing it to amend claims in two patents challenged by rideshare giant Lyft.

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Justices Deny Loper Bright-Based Challenge To 1-Line Orders

By Dani Kass

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected yet another challenge to the Federal Circuit's use of one-line orders to affirm Patent Trial and Appeal Board decisions, a practice CAO Lighting Inc. argued violates the high court's Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo precedent.

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Justices Won't Decide If Contractor Fees Are Payroll Costs

By George Woolston

The U.S. Supreme Court said Monday that it won't review an information technology company's bid for full forgiveness of a $7.2 million Paycheck Protection Program loan, letting stand the Third Circuit's decision that the Small Business Administration rightfully denied the request because the company's payments to independent contractors did not count as "payroll costs."

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Judge Awards $12.9M, Injunction In E-Bike Patent Case

By Adam Lidgett

A Texas federal judge on Monday found that two Chinese electric motorcycle companies owe nearly $13 million for infringing a design patent owned by a rival manufacturer and issued a rare permanent injunction.

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Game Co. Seeks Damages Boost To $1.4B In False Ad Case

By Elliot Weld

A mobile game company that won a $420 million jury verdict in April against a rival over its use of bots and representations that its games relied on skill has urged a New York federal judge to order an increased disgorgement of $1.4 billion, arguing it was "hard to imagine a civil case with a worse defendant."

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Ex-Detainees Say NC Sheriff Withholding Data In ECourts Row

By Abigail Harrison

Counsel for a putative class of individuals who allege they were wrongfully arrested or detained due to glitches in the state's electronic court system told a North Carolina federal court during a Monday hearing that a county sheriff's office is delaying the release of its own records.

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DOD Says Chipmaker Belongs On Chinese Military List

By Madeline Lyskawa

The U.S. Department of Defense has said it has "substantial" evidence to back labeling Yangtze Memory Technologies Co. a Chinese military company because its products have military applications, urging a D.C. federal judge to reject the chipmaker's lawsuit challenging the label.

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Feds Want Research Coalition's Visa Censorship Suit Tossed

By Tom Lotshaw

The Trump administration told a D.C. federal judge that a technology research coalition's lack of injury should doom a suit challenging its new visa restriction policy targeting noncitizens who help foreign governments censor protected expression by American citizens and tech companies.

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Zillow Looks To Stop Compass From 'Conspiring' With MLS

By Matthew Perlman

Zillow asked an Illinois federal court on Monday to stop real estate brokerage Compass from working with a Chicago-area multiple listing service to block access to home listings after Zillow established new rules around private listings on its site.

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Revised Suit Against Healthcare Data Co. Still Fails, Court Told

By MJ Koo

A former healthcare data platform chief strategy officer's amended complaint against the employer failed again to justify bringing three out-of-state individuals into the litigation, the company told a North Carolina federal court, adding that several key claims remain flawed.

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MIT Accuses Microsoft Of Infringing Patents In Cloud Network

By Rae Ann Varona

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology hauled Microsoft Corp. into Texas federal court, accusing the technology company of infringing a pair of the university's patents related to "physical unclonable function" technology to secure the company's cloud services.

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Disneyland Illegally Collects Visitors' Face Scans, Suit Says

By Gina Kim

Disneyland guests hit the entertainment behemoth with a proposed class action in New York federal court Friday alleging it gathered facial recognition data of children who enter its parks without a meaningful way for them to opt out, arguing "the onus of privacy rights should not be on the victim."

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Amazon's Subscribe & Save Duped Consumers, Suit Says

By Rachel Riley

Two Pennsylvania consumers targeted Amazon's Subscribe & Save feature in a proposed class action filed in Seattle federal court Monday, claiming the e-commerce giant tricks shoppers into registering by pricing eligible items lower than other sellers, then jacks up those prices once customers are committed to automatic future purchases.

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Catching Up With Delaware's Chancery Court

By Jarek Rutz

The Delaware Chancery Court this past week handled a broad mix of celebrity estate litigation, merger disputes, investor suits, record demands, sanctions fights and questions over corporate moves away from Delaware.

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Wachtell Lipton Guides Publicis On $2.2B LiveRamp Deal

By Al Barbarino

France's Publicis Groupe has agreed to acquire data collaboration platform LiveRamp at an enterprise value of nearly $2.2 billion, in a deal steered by Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz and Sullivan & Cromwell LLP.

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Nikola Founder Accused Of Dodging $2.5M Settlement Share

By Lauren Berg

Nikola Corp. founder Trevor Milton "has not paid a dime" of his $2.5 million share of an eight-figure settlement resolving shareholder litigation over a fraud-shadowed special purpose acquisition company merger, the bankrupt electric vehicle company's trustee claims, asking the Delaware Chancery Court to hold the billionaire in contempt.

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Calif. AG Previews Live Nation Remedies At Democratic Forum

By Courtney Bublé

California Attorney General Rob Bonta, one of the state attorneys general of a coalition of states that recently won a jury verdict finding Live Nation illegally established a monopoly over the live music industry, said Monday the next step is a structural overhaul of the conglomerate.

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Amazon Fights Calif.'s Injunction Bid In Antitrust Case

By Matthew Perlman

Amazon is pushing back after California state enforcers accused the e-commerce company of bullying major brands into pressuring competing retailers to raise prices, arguing the case has never involved price-fixing allegations before.

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Okla. AG Says Roblox Fails To Stop Child Predators

By Mike Curley

The Oklahoma attorney general is suing Roblox, saying the massive online gaming platform has failed to take steps to protect its minor users from sexual predation and exploitation from child predators.

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Texas AG Joins DOJ In Investigating Beef Antitrust Claims

By Hailey Konnath

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has launched his own investigation into potential anticompetitive conduct among the country's meatpackers, a probe that will take place alongside the U.S. Department of Justice's ongoing investigation into the same allegations.

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Holland & Knight Taps Wiley Leader As Telecom Chair

By Jack Rodgers

Holland & Knight LLP announced Monday it has hired the former co-chair of Wiley's wireless practice in Washington to take the reins of the Tampa, Florida-headquartered firm's telecommunications, media and technology team as chair.

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AI-Proofing Class Action Notices From Pro Se Objection Surge

Class action practitioners should prepare for a likely surge in artificial intelligence-enabled pro se objections by implementing several practical strategies to navigate this shift, says Britany Wessan at Almeida Law Group.

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Series

Judges On AI: How Courts Can Survive The Tech Revolution

Colorado Supreme Court Justice Maria Berkenkotter and Colorado Court of Appeals Judge Lino Lipinsky de Orlov discuss how artificial intelligence has already fundamentally altered the legal system and offer tips for courts navigating deepfakes, hallucinations and a gap in access to AI tools.

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Murdaugh Sues Ex-Court Clerk Who Tried To Sway The Jury

By Jack Karp

Disgraced attorney Alex Murdaugh is suing the court clerk whose attempt to influence the jury in his murder trial led the South Carolina Supreme Court to overturn his murder conviction.

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Morgan & Morgan Atty Barred From Harvard Suit Over AI Error

By Chris Villani

A Massachusetts judge on Monday said a Morgan & Morgan PA attorney may not appear before him in a suit against Harvard University over the theft of body parts donated to its medical school, saying the lawyer did not learn his lesson after signing off on briefs in another case with fake case law generated by artificial intelligence.

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Trump Seeks Circuit Seats For 2 Judges He Appointed

By Courtney Bublé

President Donald Trump's recent picks for the Eighth and Tenth Circuits mark the first time in his second administration that he's seeking to elevate judges he appointed in his first term.

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Wyoming Prosecutor Confirmed Despite Misconduct Rebuke

By Courtney Bublé

Just a few days ago, federal judges tossed nine criminal indictments after President Donald Trump's pick to lead the U.S. attorney's office of Wyoming was accused of prosecutorial misconduct. On Monday evening, he was confirmed to permanently lead the office.

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Analysis

Half The Nation's Bar Apps Could Remove Rape Questions

By Cara Bayles

By next year, it's possible that about half of U.S. jurisdictions will have amended character and fitness questions to avoid dredging up aspiring lawyers' sexual trauma. But while advocates hail the reforms as progress, concerns linger about the patchwork this could create across the country.

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Ex-Willkie Atty Banned By SEC For Insider Trading

By Emily Sawicki

A former Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP mergers and acquisitions attorney who earlier this month admitted to taking part in a widespread BigLaw insider trading scheme will be barred from representing a client before the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission for a minimum of four years, according to an order the agency issued Monday.

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NY Judge Largely Halts Manhattan Immigration Courts Arrests

By Rae Ann Varona

A New York federal judge Monday largely barred U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement from conducting arrests at three Manhattan immigration courthouses, finding there was no good reason why "unfettered discretion" by ICE officers was better than a policy with arrest limitations.

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