Meta Loses Appeal Days Before Social Media Trial Begins

By Bonnie Eslinger

The Ninth Circuit said Monday it lacks jurisdictional authority over Meta's appeal in a social-media-addiction multidistrict litigation at this stage, saying Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act can provide a defense to liability but not immunity from a lawsuit.

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IBM Defeats Software Co. In Copyright Fight At 2nd Circ.

By Adam Lidgett

A software company failed to persuade the Second Circuit to undo a federal judge's decision allowing IBM to dodge a copyright suit, with the appellate court on Monday agreeing the case was time-barred.

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Michel, Startups Back Injunction Bid In Samsung Patent Case

By Ryan Davis

Former Chief Federal Circuit Judge Paul Michel, patent law professors and a group of startup companies on Monday backed Collision Communications Inc.'s bid for a permanent injunction on Samsung products found to infringe its patents, saying courts have misread U.S. Supreme Court precedent.

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Lighting Co. Won't Get Fees Or Triple Damages In Patent Case

By Ryan Davis

A Nevada federal judge has rejected lighting company Signify's motion for treble damages and $4.3 million in attorney fees atop an over $410,000 patent infringement verdict against its rival Lepro, ruling that Lepro's conduct was not malicious or in bad faith.

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Verisk Told It Can't Abandon $2.35B AccuLynx Deal

By Jarek Rutz

The Delaware Chancery Court has ruled that data analytics and insurance technology company Verisk Analytics Inc. improperly walked away from its $2.35 billion acquisition of roofing software company AccuLynx and must keep pursuing regulatory approval for the deal.

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Roblox, TikTok, Discord Say CDA Blocks Teen Suicide Suit

By Mike Curley

Roblox, Discord and TikTok are urging a Kentucky federal court to throw out a suit alleging a young teen died by suicide as a result of using their platforms, saying the claims are blocked by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

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Calif. Unveils Novel AI Cyber Defense Plan For Critical Assets

By Allison Grande

California's governor on Monday rolled out a first-of-its-kind initiative to help state agencies, local governments and critical infrastructure providers use artificial intelligence to detect and respond to increasingly sophisticated cyberthreats and be better prepared for incidents fueled by emerging AI technologies.

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House Dems Seek AI Hearings After OpenAI, Anthropic Hacks

By Courtney Bublé

On the heels of major cybersecurity incidents with OpenAI and Anthropic, Rep. Greg Casar, D-Texas, is leading a group of House Democrats in calling for the heads of the major artificial intelligence companies to come before Congress.

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Scammers Claim They're FCC Enforcers, Consumers Warned

By Christopher Cole

If a consumer is contacted by someone purportedly with the Federal Communications Commission claiming their phone number is being investigated and demanding personal and financial details, it's a scam.

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FCC Urged To Tighten 'Covered List' Regs

By Aneeta Mathur-Ashton

A foreign policy think tank has asked the Federal Communications Commission to adopt a more comprehensive set of regulations to bar devices containing parts that are made by entities on the agency's Covered List, which identifies equipment and services deemed national security risks.

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Fed. Circ. Won't Hit Refresh On Patent Claims Against Netflix

By Adam Lidgett

The Federal Circuit on Monday refused to restore a content streaming patent Netflix was accused of infringing, agreeing with the Patent Trial and Appeal Board that an earlier patent rendered the claims of the patent invalid.

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Fed. Circ. Backs Axing Of Digital Chart Patents Under Alice

By Theresa Schliep

The Federal Circuit on Monday said a California federal court was right to find that patents covering digital interactive charts are invalid under the U.S. Supreme Court's Alice decision, saying the patents "provide no meaningful limitation to the abstract idea" of creating charts.

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Boeing Must Face Depositions In Moon Exploration IP Row

By Benjamin Morse

A Washington federal magistrate judge has partly granted a Colorado aerospace company's bid for more depositions in an intellectual property suit against Boeing over technology used in NASA's moon program, while rejecting broader requests for financial information and documents.

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CREXi Can't Stay CoStar Case For Quinn Emanuel DQ Appeal

By Matthew Perlman

A California federal court rejected a bid Monday from Commercial Real Estate Exchange Inc., or CREXi, for a stay in CoStar's copyright case while CREXi looks to undo the disqualification of its attorneys from Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan LLP.

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Google Is 'Last Bastion' Of Reviewers' Free Speech, Court Told

By Brian Steele

A Connecticut law firm's efforts to force Google to unmask users who left potentially defamatory online reviews pose a question of "constitutional magnitude," a Hartford state judge heard Monday as the company tried to move a pre-litigation discovery bid to the West Coast.

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Crypto, Data Center Noise Has 'Shattered' NC Town, Suit Says

By Hayley Fowler

A cryptocurrency mining and artificial intelligence data center in rural North Carolina is emitting a cacophony that is destroying local residents' quality of life, according to neighbors who allege the operators have refused to take steps to mitigate the alleged nuisance.

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Mich. Journalist Challenges Drone Law Over Police Ban

By Melanie Dorsey

A Michigan citizen journalist convicted of interfering with police by flying a drone near a law enforcement operation has sued Bay County officials in federal court, arguing that the state's drone law is unconstitutional when used to restrict nonobstructive recording and livestreaming of police.

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Catching Up With Delaware's Chancery Court

By Jarek Rutz

The Delaware Chancery Court last week tackled disputes involving merger settlements, contract claims, controlling stockholders, music rights, prejudgment interest, absentee voting and stockholder standing.

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3 Firms Guide Teledyne's $1.1B Varex Imaging Deal

By Al Barbarino

Teledyne Technologies Inc. said Monday it has agreed to purchase Varex Imaging Corp. in a deal valued at about $1.1 billion, with Latham & Watkins LLP and McGuireWoods LLP advising Teledyne and Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP representing Varex.

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Defense Tech Startup Lyntris Launches Plans For $492M IPO

By Jade Martinez-Pogue

Private equity-backed defense technology company Lyntris Inc. on Monday filed plans with U.S. regulators to raise roughly $492 million in its initial public offering led by Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP and Latham & Watkins LLP.

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Team Telecom Probing T-Mobile's Plan To Buy Fiber Co. Stake

By Nadia Dreid

T-Mobile has a $2 billion plan to acquire a 50% stake in a joint venture that seeks to combine two fiber companies, but the FCC won't say yea or nay to the deal until Team Telecom — a multiagency group that vets transactions involving foreign individuals and U.S. telecom companies — finishes looking into the matter.

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Fox Gives DOJ More Time To Review $22B Roku Deal

By Matthew Perlman

Fox Corp. has given antitrust enforcers at the U.S. Department of Justice additional time to review its planned purchase of Roku, a deal that values the television streaming platform operator at around $22 billion.

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Latham Hires Hg Capital GC To Bolster London Tech Bench

By Ashish Sareen

Latham & Watkins LLP said Monday that it has hired the general counsel at private equity firm Hg as it continues to recruit partners who specialize in technology for its office in London.

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Data Center Risks Include Schedules, Supply Chain, Labor

Managing the dynamic technical and legal risks related to data center development requires sophisticated strategies for dealing with compressed schedules and liquidated damages, supply chain and long-lead equipment challenges, and labor shortages and productivity issues, say Randa Adra and Lily Geyer at Crowell & Moring, and Natasha Dahl at Ankura.

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How To Limit Trading Risk When AI Accesses Nonpublic Info

Financial firms' increasing adoption of artificial intelligence raises questions about how to control AI tools' access to nonpublic information to mitigate the risk of a trading, surveillance or enforcement problem, but designing policies to prevent misuse may help, say attorneys at Skadden.

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Rethinking Risk And Value In Private Credit Disputes

Private credit disputes will increasingly turn on whether lenders recognized enterprise-value risk and updated marks as borrower conditions changed, making valuation processes, trigger frameworks and portfolio oversight critical for investors and litigants, say Isil Erel at the Ohio State University and Farooq Javed at The Brattle Group.

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Trump Picks Ex-Personal Lawyer As New White House Counsel

By Courtney Bublé

President Donald Trump's incoming White House counsel is a former personal attorney for the president who is already working for the White House and was at the U.S. Department of Justice during his first term.

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Ill. Gov. Signs Bill Restricting PE Role In Legal Industry

By Emma Cueto

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker has signed into law a bill designed to target nonlawyer ownership of law firms, outlawing fee sharing with out-of-state alternative business structures and attempting to place restrictions on law firms' use of managed services organizations.

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Spa Fights 9th Circ.'s 'Swinging Dicks' Order At High Court

By Jeff Overley

The Ninth Circuit's rejection of a spa's religious objections to serving transgender customers is incompatible with several major precedents, according to a U.S. Supreme Court petition filed Monday in litigation that soared in prominence when dozens of circuit judges decried a salacious dissent.

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Biz Owners Appeal Morgan Lewis Win In Tax Shelter Suit

By Andrea Keckley

A pair of business owners asked the Florida Supreme Court to reverse a decision affirming judgment in favor of Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP in a dispute over whether the law firm had routed income through illegal tax shelters.

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