Elon Musk Slams Twitter Stock Verdict Over Jury's $4.20 'Joke'

By Lauren Berg

Elon Musk did not get a fair trial over claims he defrauded Twitter investors before acquiring the social media platform, the tech billionaire's lawyer told a California federal judge Thursday, saying the jury rolled a marijuana "joke" into the verdict form to mock Musk and the trial process.

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Analysis

ITC Domestic Industry Rules Keep Opening Up In Apple Case

By Ryan Davis

A Federal Circuit decision upholding a U.S. International Trade Commission exclusion order on the Apple Watch in a patent dispute with Masimo has again eased hurdles for patent owners aiming to make the ITC's required showing that they have domestic industry, attorneys say.

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Netflix Beats Infringement Claims In Video Patent Trial

By Elliot Weld

A California federal jury has cleared Netflix of allegations that it infringed a set of patents held by DivX covering video compression technology.

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Anthropic Blocks Pentagon's 'Orwellian' Security Risk Label

By Hailey Konnath

A California federal judge Thursday issued a preliminary injunction barring the Trump administration from labeling Anthropic as a supply chain risk to national security, calling the move a "classic illegal First Amendment retaliation" and "Orwellian."

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Ketamine, WilmerHale Probe Off Limits In Musk-OpenAI Trial

By Dorothy Atkins

A California federal judge has placed evidentiary guardrails on an April jury trial over Elon Musk's claims OpenAI duped him, excluding evidence on Musk's ketamine use and WilmerHale's investigation into Sam Altman's dismissal, but allowing evidence on Musk's rival startup, his romance with an ex-OpenAI boardmember and his Burning Man trip.

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Boies Schiller Knocked By Judge In Meta Copyright Fight

By Adam Lidgett

A California federal judge has criticized attorneys from law firms including Boies Schiller Flexner LLP that are representing authors accusing Meta of unlawfully using copyrighted material to train its artificial intelligence models, while still allowing the authors to amend their case again.

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Artist Says Tech Cos. Cut Attribution From Work Used For AI

By Zak Kostro

A Los Angeles 3D artist and visual effects creator accused four tech giants of failing to protect rights on millions of works by artists and designers that were used to train large-scale generative artificial intelligence systems, according to proposed class actions filed in California and Washington federal courts Thursday.

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FTC Antitrust Head Cites Acquihire 'Tension' With Deal Rule

By Bryan Koenig

The Federal Trade Commission's top antitrust official said Thursday that so-called reverse acquihires appear designed solely to avoid merger reporting requirements, while noting that competition enforcers continue to scrutinize the deals that are newly popular in Silicon Valley, especially in the artificial intelligence space.

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States Will Fill DOJ, FTC's Antitrust Void, Ill. AG Atty Says

By Bryan Koenig

The top antitrust attorney at the Illinois attorney general's office predicted Thursday that state enforcers will continue to pick up the pace as the Federal Trade Commission and especially the U.S. Department of Justice's Antitrust Division "become less transparent and less active."

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House Panels Advance Aviation Safety Bill After DCA Collision

By Linda Chiem

Two House committees advanced legislation Thursday that would mandate aircraft-tracking and collision-avoidance technology in some aircraft, and reinforce Federal Aviation Administration and military training and operational procedures, in response to last year's deadly midair collision between an Army helicopter and an American Airlines regional jet near Washington, D.C.

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Antitrust Leaders Say Lobbyists Don't Impact Outcomes

By Matthew Perlman

The leaders of the Federal Trade Commission and U.S. Department of Justice's Antitrust Division said Thursday that companies can lobby the agencies all they want, but enforcers will still make merger and conduct decisions based on the facts and the law.

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FCC Advances IP Networks, But Consumer Worries Persist

By Christopher Cole

Federal regulators pushed ahead Thursday on the national transition to all internet-based phone networks although concerns remain among public advocates that parts of the U.S. population that still rely on copper wires could eventually be left stranded.

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FCC Floats Caps For Offshore Telecom Call Center Work

By Christopher Cole

The Federal Communications Commission Thursday floated new rules to encourage the onshoring of customer call centers in the telecom industry.

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Unified Patents Keeps Win Over Email Filtering IP At Fed. Circ.

By Adam Lidgett

The Federal Circuit on Thursday said it won't restore claims in an email filtering patent challenged by Unified Patents, backing a Patent Trial and Appeal Board's decision that earlier inventions rendered the claims invalid.

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3rd Circ. Sends Harriet Carter Wiretapping Case To Pa. Court

By P.J. D'Annunzio

The Third Circuit on Thursday said the federal courts lacked jurisdiction to hear a case alleging that Harriet Carter Gifts and a third-party company violated consumers' privacy rights under Pennsylvania wiretapping law by collecting their website browsing data, ordering the lower court to remand the case to state court.

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Xfinity Lands $4.9M Win In Imposter Fraud Case

By Elliot Weld

Xfinity has won a $4.9 million judgment against a man and his company accused of impersonating Xfinity to customers and offering them nonexistent services for money.

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Judge Lends Ear To Audi's Caesar Analogy To End Patent Suit

By Craig Clough

A Michigan federal judge on Thursday dismissed a lawsuit accusing Audi of infringing a patent for location-tracking technology, drawing on its analogy of Julius Caesar crossing the Rubicon to find that the patent describes an abstract idea ineligible for protection under the Alice precedent.

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Core Scientific Can't Move Crypto Patent Case Across Texas

By Elliot Weld

A judge in the Eastern District of Texas denied a bid by cryptocurrency mining company Core Scientific Inc. to move a case accusing it of infringing cryptography patents to the Western District of Texas, saying Core had not shown that it was clearly a more convenient venue.

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Acxiom Beats Consumers' Suit Over Data Sales, For Good

By Gina Kim

A Virginia federal judge tossed a complaint alleging data analytics company Acxiom gathers and sells individuals' personal information like their addresses, birth dates and other identifiers to its clients, ruling Wednesday the laws alleged to have been violated only protect a person's name, portrait, or picture, "not any of this other data."

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Crypto Developer Loses Bid To Block Potential DOJ Action

By Sarah Jarvis

A Texas federal court tossed a crypto software developer's suit against U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi seeking protection over his forthcoming software from an enforcement action under federal money transmitting laws, finding the developer failed to show a substantial threat of prosecution.

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Contractor Label Bars Bias Claims Against Cognizant

By Carla Baranauckas

A New Jersey appellate panel on Thursday backed the dismissal of a technology recruiter's sexual harassment and discrimination suit against Cognizant Technology Solutions and a staffing vendor, finding she worked as an independent contractor and therefore could not invoke the protections of the state's Law Against Discrimination.

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Meta Says Smart Glasses Suit Left Out Patent's Co-Owner

By Julie Manganis

Meta Platforms Inc. says a Hong Kong-based technology company cannot on its own pursue claims that smart glasses jointly marketed with EssilorLuxottica USA and Oakley Inc. infringe patents whose ownership is in dispute.

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Co. Accused Of Sharing Mental Health Data With Google

By Zach Dupont

A California resident alleged in Colorado federal court that a Denver-based telehealth mental health provider is providing sensitive customer data to Google without their consent in violation of federal and state privacy laws, according to a proposed class action filed Thursday.

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Ga. Utility Board Sued Over $15B Power Capacity Deal

By Chart Riggall

A group of environmental and faith-based organizations have sued Georgia's elected utility regulators challenging a more than $15 billion deal with Georgia Power approved last year to increase the capacity of the state's largest electricity provider by nearly 50%.

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Imaging Practice Data Breach Class Actions Hit NC Biz Court

By Abigail Harrison

A series of putative class actions resulting from a data breach at imaging practice Triad Radiology Associates PLLC hit North Carolina Business Court this week, with a couple of the cases naming hospitals that partnered with the practice.

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Brief

Ex-Deloitte Workers Can't Undo Charge Revival, 4th Circ. Says

By Abigail Harrison

The full Fourth Circuit has declined to reconsider its late February decision to revive most of the charges against two ex-Deloitte workers accused of stealing the company's trade secrets, after the workers insisted the unfavorable ruling bucked circuit and U.S. Supreme Court precedent.

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Shield AI Hits $12.7B Valuation, Buys Defense Biz Aechelon

By Jade Martinez-Pogue

Defense technology company Shield AI on Thursday revealed that its valuation soared to $12.7 billion after closing a $1.5 billion Series G funding round, which will help finance the company's planned acquisition of private equity-backed defense company Aechelon Technology Inc.

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Deals Rumor Mill

Musk's SpaceX Eyes $75B IPO Raise, Among Other Rumors

By Al Barbarino

The market is anticipating what could be one of the largest initial public offerings ever, after reports this past week indicated that Elon Musk's SpaceX is looking to imminently raise as much as $75 billion.

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Ohio AG Advances Bid For Constitutional Data Center Ban

By Nate Beck

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost on Thursday advanced a petition for a constitutional amendment to prohibit the construction of data centers in the state, in one step toward seeing the question listed on the ballot.

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FBI Agent Doesn't Have To Testify In Ga. Ballot Fight

By Kelcey Caulder

The FBI special agent behind the bureau's seizure of 2020 election records from Fulton County, Georgia, will not have to testify in an upcoming evidentiary hearing in the county's suit seeking return of the materials, a federal judge said Thursday.

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Keys To Federal Carbon Compliance In Data Center Siting

Recent statements from the White House and state governors about making data centers pay for their own power infrastructure have underlined the importance of choosing locations, generation technologies and deal structures to optimize carbon, permitting and compliance costs, say attorneys at Davis Graham.

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Fed. Circ. In February: When Grammar Trumps Patent Specs

The Federal Circuit's decision in Netflix v. DivX last month highlights the challenge of interpreting potentially misplaced modifiers in complicated technological patents, and the potential for grammatical rules to provide a default interpretation for unclear claim language, say attorneys at Knobbe Martens.

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NY Bill Elevates Criminal Risk For 'Shadow' Crypto Firms

New York's proposed CRYPTO Act would expose unlicensed digital asset operators to criminal penalties ranging from state misdemeanor charges to felony convictions, potentially marking a significant shift in how New York — already among the most aggressive crypto regulators — oversees virtual currency businesses, say attorneys at Crowell & Moring.

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BigLaw Races To Capture Expanding Fund Finance Market

By Kevin Penton

Debt financing work at the fund level has long been dominated on the lender side by attorneys from Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft LLP, Haynes Boone and Mayer Brown LLP, but other firms are increasingly crafting formal practices and poaching fund finance stars from the more established players.

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Law360's Legal Lions Of The Week

By Kevin Penton

The Lanier Law Firm, Kiesel Law LLP, Panish Shea Ravipudi LLP, Wagstaff & Cartmell LLP and Beasley Allen Law Firm lead this week's edition of Law360 Legal Lions, after a California state jury in a bellwether trial found Meta and Google liable for harming the mental health of a woman who says she became addicted to their social media platforms as a child.

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NJ Federal Judge DQs Beasley Allen In J&J Talc MDL

By Emily Sawicki

A New Jersey federal judge has disqualified the Beasley Allen Law Firm from representing hundreds of plaintiffs in sprawling multidistrict litigation over Johnson & Johnson's talc-based baby powder, holding that the firm violated ethics rules by collaborating with former outside counsel for J&J, a ruling the law firm has vowed to appeal.

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Atty Sanctioned For AI Hallucinations In Workers' Comp Row

By Gianna Ferrarin

A New Jersey appellate court on Friday ordered an attorney to pay $1,000 in sanctions for failing to rectify AI-hallucinated case citations pointed out to him in an appeal concerning reimbursement sought by a workers' compensation carrier.

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

By Laura Stewart Liberty

The past week in London has seen Apple hit back at a tech company's wireless charging patent claim, a flurry of businesses bring COVID-19 pandemic insurance claims as a key deadline draws closer and Ipulse Partners LLP file a claim against a luxury yacht company it represented in a trademark dispute. Here, Law360 looks at these and other new claims in the U.K.

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Polsinelli Hires Practice Head From McDermott In NY

By Andrea Keckley

Polsinelli PC said Thursday that it has hired a longtime McDermott Will & Schulte LLP attorney to co-lead its special situations and alternative investment practice, saying the move "further advanc[es] the firm's strategic focus on private credit, distressed investing, and complex restructuring matters."

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Apollo, BlackRock Deny Asking Kirkland To Abandon Optimum

By Tracey Read

Apollo, Ares, BlackRock and other major financial companies have denied Optimum Communications' claims accusing them of "bullying" Kirkland & Ellis LLP into withdrawing as the telecommunications company's transaction counsel to get revenge for a collusion lawsuit filed in New York federal court.

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GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Sue Reisinger

A federal judge has stopped the Pentagon from dropping AI giant Anthropic from the government's supply chain, and Latham & Watkins ranked first in a survey of in-house legal leaders on which law firms are most helpful in developing business, followed by King & Spalding, Jones Day and Ropes & Gray.

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Firms Targeted By Trump Urge DC Circ. To Uphold EO Rulings

By Alison Knezevich

Four law firms targeted last year by President Donald Trump urged the D.C. Circuit on Friday to affirm lower court rulings that struck down executive orders restricting their ability to practice law, saying the directives blatantly violate the Constitution.

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Brief

Amazon Swaps MoFo In, Perkins Coie Out In Cooker Suit

By Ben Adlin

Amazon.com LLP switched counsel Friday in a customer's product defect suit accusing the retail giant of selling a faulty pressure cooker that allegedly malfunctioned and caused her severe burns, substituting two Morrison Foerster LLP attorneys in place of an outgoing Perkins Coie LLP lawyer.

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Mich. Judge Signals No Stay If Attys Exit Retaliation Suit

By Melanie Dorsey

A Michigan federal judge said Friday she is not inclined to pause a long-running sexual harassment suit again if counsel for an attorney who is suing her ex-mentor and former firm are allowed to withdraw, telling the parties, "We've been here. We've done this," as she heard arguments over a motion to exit the case.

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Judiciary Nixes Amicus Disclosure Reform Over Potential Chill

By Emily Sawicki

The federal judiciary has been asked not to move forward with a plan to add to amicus brief disclosure requirements designed to curb "dark money" groups from bankrolling amicus briefs, after rules committee chairs pulled the recommendation over concerns of a possible chilling effect.

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Ex-Williams & Connolly Clerk Accused Of Posting Client Info

By Hailey Konnath

A former Williams & Connolly LLP clerk has been posting confidential firm information — including client information and work email exchanges — and he's threatening to "keep leaking" the materials, which he called "a fun read," according to a suit filed in District of Columbia Superior Court.

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Mayer Brown's $21M Fee Bid In RI Truck Tolls Suit Rebuffed

By Linda Chiem

A Rhode Island federal judge on Friday rebuffed Mayer Brown LLP's bid for $21 million in attorney fees for representing the commercial trucking industry's lead trade group in long-running litigation over the state's truck tolling program, saying the American Trucking Associations ultimately was not the "prevailing party."

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FCC Told It Can't Make Foreign Call Centers Speak English

By Nadia Dreid

The National Creditors Bar Association is not pleased with the Federal Communications Commission's plans to pass new rules that would require companies to make sure their foreign call center operators speak "American Standard English," saying the agency has no power over foreign employees.

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