OpenAI Hit With Wave Of Suits Over 'Suicide Coach' ChatGPT

By Dorothy Atkins

ChatGPT users and suicide victims' families hit OpenAI Inc. and its CEO Sam Altman with a wave of lawsuits in California state court Friday, alleging OpenAI knowingly released a dangerously designed sycophantic, psychologically manipulative, addictive version of ChatGPT that at times became a "suicide coach" to vulnerable users who killed themselves.

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Texas AG: Roblox Not Protecting Kids From 'Pixel Pedophiles'

By Rae Ann Varona

Texas has sued Roblox Corp. in state court, accusing the multibillion-dollar company of deceiving parents about the safety of its popular online gaming platform and allowing children to wander in what the state called an "unregulated universe" shared with predators.

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GoDaddy Hit With $170M Verdict In Express Mobile Patent Suit

By Adam Lidgett

A Delaware federal jury said website hosting platform GoDaddy owes $170 million after finding that it willfully infringed two Express Mobile patents covering ways to build a website.

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Fed. Circ. Wary Of Reviving Express Mobile's $40M Win

By Dani Kass

Express Mobile Inc. didn't appear to persuade a panel of the Federal Circuit Friday that a Delaware federal judge erred in overruling a jury's $40 million infringement verdict against Shopify Inc. based on concerns about expert testimony.

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AI Startup CEO Gets 1-Year Sentence For $40M Fraud

By Bonnie Eslinger

A California federal judge on Friday sentenced the founder of a company that purported to sell artificial intelligence-based business automation software to one year behind bars for defrauding investors in what the federal government called a "fake-it-til-you-make-it" scheme that never made it.

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Analysis

Trump's H-1B Moves Have Tech Cos. Making Backup Plans

By Britain Eakin

U.S. tech companies are scrambling to respond to President Donald Trump's $100,000 H-1B visa fee and weighted lottery proposal, with some weighing alternative visa options, scaling back their use of the program or shifting work abroad.

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Drafted Bill Would Have States Return Leftover BEAD Money

By Nadia Dreid

Under the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment program, states that don't use all the broadband infrastructure funds they have been allocated would get to keep whatever is left from the chunk of $42.5 billion they received — but one senator is proposing that any money remaining instead go back to the U.S. Treasury.

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USPTO Extends Deadline For PTAB Institution Rules Feedback

By Theresa Schliep

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has provided a 15-day extension for giving feedback on proposed rules that will likely reduce the institution of certain patent challenges at the Patent Trial and Appeal Board, with Director John Squires saying "now's the time" to finalize rulemaking on discretionary denial issues.

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Fed. Circ. Upholds PTAB Rulings Favoring Uber

By Adam Lidgett

The Federal Circuit on Friday refused to restore claims in a pair of patents used to track individuals, leaving in place Patent Trial and Appeal Board decisions that Uber showed the claims were invalid.

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Panel Weighs If Baby Lounger Co. Can Still Fight CPSC Label

By Jared Foretek

D.C. Circuit judges suggested Friday that the maker of a popular baby lounger may have forfeited its key appellate argument for undoing a U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission rule that has forced the product off the market by failing to address the issue during the agency's rulemaking.

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9th Circ. Pushed To Revive Suit Over $3.8B Failed Tech Merger

By Joyce Hanson

A California federal judge erred in finding that investors in semiconductor company MaxLinear Inc. had no standing to sue it over what they say were misrepresentations about a $3.8 billion merger plan with chipmaker Silicon Motion Technology Corp., they told the Ninth Circuit in a bid to revive their suit.

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Vegas Hotels Say 9th Circ. Shouldn't Rethink Price-Fixing Suit

By Isaac Monterose

Several Las Vegas hotel operators, two software companies and Blackstone all told the Ninth Circuit to reject a rehearing petition for its August decision for a proposed price-fixing class action that accused hotel operators and Blackstone of conspiring to use the software companies' GuestRev software to set prices for Las Vegas hotel rooms.

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Ex-Exec Of Cannabis Co. Wins $104M Over Canceled Stock

By Cara Salvatore

A New Mexico jury has awarded over $104 million to a businessman it found was wrongly stripped of his 5 million shares of bankrupt cannabis processor Bright Green after a handshake deal to bring him on as CEO fell apart.

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TaskUs $17.5M Investor Deal Should Get Final OK, Judge Says

By Emilie Ruscoe

Investors in outsourced digital customer service company TaskUs should get a final nod for their $17.5 million settlement of claims that the company improperly influenced its ratings on the employer review website Glassdoor, a federal magistrate judge has recommended.

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Texas AG Defends App Store Law Against Free Speech Claims

By MJ Koo

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has pushed back on efforts to block the state's new App Store Accountability Act, telling a federal court that the measure's parental-consent and age-verification rules don't restrict speech but simply help parents oversee what apps their kids can download.

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Sleep Apnea Device Co. Investor Says Rollout Was Botched

By Sydney Price

Medical device company Inspire Medical Systems has been hit with a proposed investor class action alleging its shares dropped by nearly a third of their value after the public learned it concealed low demand and rollout shortcomings associated with its newest sleep apnea device.

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Athena Bitcoin Hit With Class Action Over Consumer Fees

By Sydney Price

Athena Bitcoin Inc., an operator of so-called bitcoin automated teller machines, was hit with a consumer's proposed class action in Florida federal court accusing it of charging customers excessive and undisclosed fees and operating without a proper money transmitting license.

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Seattle Pot Shop Slapped With Site Tracking Pixel Privacy Suit

By Rachel Riley

A Seattle cannabis dispensary has been hit with a proposed class action in Washington federal court by a customer who claims the retailer shared his private information about medical marijuana appointments and pot purchases with Google and other third parties by using online browser tracking tools on its website.

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Brief

Radian, Samsung Resolve Solid-State Drive IP Feud

By Elliot Weld

Radian Memory Systems LLC has settled patent infringement claims it had asserted against Samsung related to solid-state drives with zoned namespace capabilities, ending a case in which the federal government had at one point taken an interest.

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Roundup

Taxation With Representation: Kirkland, Cravath, Paul Weiss

By Zak Kostro

In this week's Taxation With Representation, consumer products giant Kimberly-Clark acquires Tylenol maker Kenvue, shale producers SM Energy and Civitas Resources announce a merger, and power management company Eaton buys Boyd Corp.'s thermal business.

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Trump Media Q3 Loss Widens On Rising Legal Costs

By Jade Martinez-Pogue

Truth Social operator Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. on Friday reported larger third-quarter losses than in the year prior due to growing legal expenses related to a special purpose acquisition company merger that took President Donald Trump's media company public last year.

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Ex-Lordstown Execs Fight Bankruptcy Reserve Cut

By Jarek Rutz

Former executives of bankrupt Ohio electric vehicle manufacturer Lordstown Motors urged a Delaware bankruptcy judge to preserve a key financial cushion in the company's post-bankruptcy claims reserve, arguing that the reorganized debtor is improperly seeking to reduce the protections negotiated for unresolved indemnification and defense-cost claims.

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Ex-CFO Convicted Of Bilking Startup To Fund Fintech Co.

By Rachel Riley

A Seattle federal jury convicted a software startup's former executive of wire fraud on Friday, after prosecutors accused him of siphoning $35 million in company funds into his personal fintech project and then losing the money in a cryptocurrency collapse weeks later.

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Block Says Cash App Probe, Bigger SF Tax Bill Could Cost It

By Aislinn Keely

Jack Dorsey's fintech firm Block Inc. told investors that it may take a financial hit from a multistate probe into its mobile payments platform CashApp, and remains locked in a separate multimillion-dollar tax dispute with the County of San Francisco over its bitcoin sales.

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State Child Privacy Laws May Put More Cos. In FTC's Reach

Starting with Texas in January, several new state laws requiring app stores to share user age-related information with developers will likely subject significantly more companies to the Federal Trade Commission’s child privacy rules, altering their compliance obligations, say attorneys at Womble Bond.

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Viral 'Brewers Karen' Incident Teaches Employers To Act Fast

An attorney who was terminated after a viral video showed her threatening to call U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on an opposing team's fan at a Milwaukee Brewers game underscores why employers must take prompt action when learning of viral incidents involving employees, says Joseph Myers at Mesidor.

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Why Appellees Should Write Their Answering Brief First

Though counterintuitive, appellees should consider writing their answering briefs before they’ve ever seen their opponent’s opening brief, as this practice confers numerous benefits related to argument structure, time pressures and workflow, says Joshua Sohn at the U.S. Department of Justice.

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Senate Committee To Investigate Impeachment Of Judges

By Courtney Bublé

The Senate Judiciary Committee will have a hearing next week to consider impeachment of "rogue" federal judges, according to an announcement on Monday.

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Ex-Mass. Judge Joins Todd & Weld After Fiery Resignation

By Emily Sawicki and Chris Villani

A Massachusetts federal judge said Tuesday he would join Boston boutique litigation firm Todd & Weld LLP after resigning from the bench and penning a public letter saying that he could no longer "bear to be restrained" from speaking out against the Trump administration.

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Shutdown Deal Funds Justices' Security, Public Defender Pay

By Courtney Bublé

The government funding agreement reached in the Senate on Sunday includes funding for public defenders, some of whom haven't been paid since July, and security for U.S. Supreme Court justices.

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Judge To Review Grand Jury Materials In Comey Indictment

By Jared Foretek

A Virginia federal judge said he would review grand jury materials in camera to see if any privileged information was used to secure the indictment of ex-FBI Director James Comey on charges of lying to Congress.

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Ex-Judges, US Attys Urge Axing 'Political' Indictment Of NY AG

By Lauren Berg

A bipartisan group of former federal judges and U.S. attorneys on Monday threw their weight behind New York Attorney General Letitia James' bid to dismiss the indictment accusing her of mortgage fraud, rebuking the appointment of interim U.S. Attorney Lindsey Halligan and slamming the prosecution's apparent political motivations.

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Fitch Even, Ex-Client Settle $1.2M Fee Fight

By Lauraann Wood

An Illinois federal judge suspended all briefing deadlines Monday in Fitch Even Tabin & Flannery LLP's $1.2 million fee dispute with a former client and a litigation funder's CEO, following the parties' signal that they've resolved their legal issues in principle.

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Trump Pardons Giuliani, Others Accused Of Election Crimes

By Emily Sawicki

President Donald Trump has reportedly pardoned scores of lawyers accused of attempting to interfere in the 2020 election, including Rudy Giuliani, John Eastman and Sidney Powell, according to a social media post created by the president's pardon attorney, Ed Martin.

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Catching Up With Delaware's Chancery Court

By Jeff Montgomery

Delaware's top court issued a flurry of rulings last week and heard arguments on recently passed legislation that expanded liability shields for some corporate acts while the Court of Chancery passed on another round of arguments over control of Caribbean broadcaster Caribevision.

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