Seiko Epson Corporation ("Epson," TSE: 6724) today announced that it has agreed to settle for US$80 million civil lawsuits filed against it in the United States and United Kingdom by Nokia Corporation of Finland and its subsidiaries ("Nokia") seeking damages stemming from purchases of liquid crystal displays.

In November 2009, Nokia filed lawsuits in the United States and United Kingdom against Epson and its subsidiary companies including Epson Imaging Devices Corporation alleging violations of antitrust and competition laws. Epson has denied liability and vigorously defended the lawsuits. Because of the ongoing impacts of the lawsuits on its business and the expense of continuing litigation, however, the company has determined that settlement of the litigation is in Epson's best interests.

Three weeks ago, we brought you news that researchers had apparently found serious vulnerabilities in the firmware of HP printers that can allow hackers to cause the fuser to overheat and almost make the paper inside catch fire. HP dismissed these claims as exaggerated, but said that they would look into it. Three days later, we reported that some enterprising New Yorker called David Goldblatt sued HP, alleging that he would not have bought their printers had he known about this problem beforehand, which seems a bit unlikely when you consider that HP is the number one printer brand by a mile. Now HP have released patches for these vulnerabilities and issued the following press release:

In perhaps one of the more ironic legal moves to be seen recently, Sony's clause in its Terms of Service preventing PlayStation 3 owners from filing class action lawsuits has itself attracted a class action lawsuit! The lawsuit was filed in Northern California in November, by a man on behalf of PS3 owners who signed up for the PlayStation Network before September, when the ToS were updated and this anti-class action clause added.

The killer clause is buried deep into the contract and is very hard to spot, requiring the contract to be read all the way through with a fine toothcomb - if the reader can rise to the challenge of reading the complicated and dry legalese it's written in. Compounding the problem is that the agreement isn't even readily available online for anyone to study - it can only be viewed on the PS3 itself (so the console is already used before you can even see the agreement - hardly fair?) and appears near the bottom of the 21-page form. Previous agreements had been posted online for anyone to inspect. On top of that, the only way of opting out of it, is to mail a physical letter to Sony within 30 days of agreeing to the ToS - very inconvenient and likely to be forgotten by the average person. The main thrust of the lawsuit are allegations of unfair business practices, since PS3 owners are forced to choose between forfeiting their rights or access to the PSN. Note that since Sony introduced this clause, Electronic Arts and Microsoft have both introduced similar clauses, which doesn't put them in a very good light either and potentially at the receiving end of a lawsuit themselves.

Three days ago, we brought you news of how researchers have made proof-of-concept attacks on HP printers by reprogramming their firmware. Among other things, these attacks could deliberately cause the fuser in a printer to overheat and singe the paper, until shut down by a built-in unoverridable thermal switch, preventing a fire. Now, in light of this, a lawsuit has been filed by David Goldblatt of New York, seeking damages for fraudulent and deceptive business practices and is looking for class action status: "As a result of HP's failure to require the use of digital signatures to authenticate software upgrades, hackers are able to reprogram the HP Printers' software with malicious software without detection," the suit says. "Once the HP printers' software is maliciously reprogrammed, the HP printers can be remotely controlled by computer hackers over the Internet, who can then steal personal information, attack otherwise secure networks, and even cause physical damage to the HP printers, themselves." Note that HP has used digital signatures since 2009 to authenticate the firmware updates, helping to mitigate this potential problem in recent models.

Despite this though, HP still intends to patch the firmware to eliminate threats from this hack, which exploits bugs in the firmware. As these attacks have only actually been demonstrated in the lab and no actual losses have been incurred by Goldblatt, it makes one wonder if he is just using the prevailing American "victim culture" to try and make a quick buck off HP. HP are the top printer brand, mainly because their products are excellent, performing well and lasting a long time, plus other companies' printers and embedded devices have the same problems, so it seems unlikely that he would really not have bought HP printers.

In late September, S3 Graphics, still a subsidiary of VIA Technology and soon to be transferred to HTC, dragged Apple Inc. to court over charges of patent infringement related to graphics component IP of nearly all Apple products, including iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, and iMac. Last month, AMD, now a main supplier of graphics processors for Apple's Mac products, intervened with a counter lawsuit claiming it owned the patents that S3 has asserted against Apple, and sought an immediate halt to S3's patent case against Apple.

In an October 28 filing with the ITC, S3 says that a federal judge struck down a request for an immediate halt into S3's case, but the Commission is scheduled to release its final decision on November 15. The case struck down is (rather was) Advanced Micro Devices Inc. v. S3 Graphics Co., 11cv965, U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware (Wilmington).

MOSAID Technologies Inc. (TSX:MSD) today announced that it has initiated patent infringement litigation against NVIDIA Corporation, Freescale Semiconductor, Inc. and Interphase Corporation. The suit was filed on April 7, 2011 in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Texas, Tyler Division.

In its complaint, MOSAID asserts that NVIDIA, Freescale and Interphase have infringed, and continue to infringe certain patents related primarily to power management techniques, and microprocessor architecture. The accused devices include graphics processors, application processors, microcontrollers, and system-on-chip devices. These microcomponents products are used in mobile, automotive, consumer and communications applications.

Spansion Inc., a leading provider of Flash memory solutions, today announced the filing of an additional three separate patent infringement complaints against Samsung to further address past and ongoing widespread patent violations in a broad and growing range of Samsung Flash memory products. Spansion filed the complaints with the International Trade Commission (ITC) and in the U.S. District Courts in the Eastern District of Virginia and (an ITC mirror case) in the Northern District of California. The company first initiated action against Samsung in November, 2008, with the ITC and the U.S. District Court in Delaware. The judge in the first ITC case has set a target date of mid September to issue his initial determination.

Spansion's ITC complaints seek to exclude and enjoin from the U.S. market infringing Samsung Flash memory products and downstream products that contain them. Flash memory is a critical part of billions of dollars worth of consumer electronics such as MP3 players, cell phones, digital cameras, and tablet computers. Over the years, Samsung's infringement has and continues to unjustly enrich Samsung by many hundreds of millions of dollars. The District Court actions also seek compensation for Samsung's unjust enrichment in disregard of Spansion's extensive patent holdings.

Toshiba Corporation announced today that on May 14, 2009, Toshiba filed suit in the United States District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin against Imation Corp. ("Imation"), several manufacturers and several distributors of recordable DVD media, as a means to prohibit infringement of Toshiba's DVD patents. Toshiba's complaint seeks damages for past infringement and requests that the court enjoin the sale, manufacture, and importation into the United States of recordable DVD media by the defendant companies named in the complaint. The infringing recordable DVD media is sold in the United States under at least the Imation and Memorex brand names.

None of the big record labels support music piracy, but it has to be said that Sony BMG has come into the spotlight more than most about this topic, especially when it sold CDs which secretly installed a rootkit on the customer's computer in an attempt to prevent them illegally sharing songs. However, the company is now on the receiving end of an anti-piracy case regarding software installed on four of its servers. French software developer PointDev discovered that Sony BMG was supplying pirated license keys to some employees for the company's Ideal Migration software, which meant it was able to mandate a seizer of Sony BMG's assets. The subsequent raid has revealed that as much as 47% of software on Sony BMG's servers may be pirated, and the music label now faces a €300,000 (over $470,000) lawsuit from PointDev.

Lawsuit filed against Microsoft's Vista Capable certification

A federal lawsuit has been filed against Microsoft, claiming that thier "Vista Capable" stickers are misleading. Many of the computers sporting them will only run Vista on the lowest, most basic settings. The lawsuit has been accepted by US District Judge Marsha Pechman. The issue is whether or not Microsoft tried to sell more "Vista Capable" computers by misleading customers.

A woman in Washington D.C. has filed a $54 million lawsuit against Best Buy after the Geek Squad lost her $1,100 laptop when it was taken in for repairs. When Raelyn Campbell purchased the laptop she was persuaded to buy Best Buy's $300 extended warranty which offered three years of free repairs. In under a year the laptop in question developed a fault with the power switch so she took it to Best Buy where she was told it would take two to six weeks to repair. Campbell made numerous calls to Best Buy to check on how the repair was progressing and was continually told it should be fixed soon, however nothing happened so she left a message for the manager of the branch but received no reply.

Eventually one worker she spoke to revealed that the laptop had never been sent away for repair and had been lost in store - and all Best Buy were willing to offer was a $900 gift card, leaving Campbell $500 out of pocket. She then demanded $2,100 in cash, which Best Buy rejected, before contacting the Washington D.C. attorney general's office who contacted the store. The compensation was then raised to $1,100 cash and a $500 gift card, however Campbell discovered that her identity was at risk and filed a $54 million lawsuit against the firm, rejecting a further offer of $2,500 cash and a confidentiality agreement. Campbell admits that she doesn't expect to win a multi-million dollar settlement but is still chasing substantial damages.

A Pennsylvanian company called Copper Innovations Group has filed a lawsuit against Sony and Nintendo for the wireless technology used in their PS3 and Wii consoles respectively. The firm is arguing that the controllers infringe on a "Hand Held Computer Input Apparatus and Method" patent filed in 1996, which covers a method for connecting devices to a system and sorting their inputs by means of hardware identification numbers tied to each transmission. The devices in question are the Wii Remote, the Wii Nunchuk, the Sixaxis controller and the Blu-ray Remote. Copper Innovations is seeking damages plus interest, legal fees and an injunction prohibiting Sony and Nintendo from infringing on the patent.

Some readers may remember the story posted on techPowerUp! at the end of November about a Nigerian firm which was trying to sue the non-profit One Laptop Per Child project regarding some of the features on the XO laptop's keyboard. According to Groklaw, this lawsuit has now begun and an interim injunction is preventing the laptop being distributed in Nigeria - an interim which could potentially last for months. The Nigerian firm, known as Lagos Analysis Corp (LANCOR), is also seeking a permanent injunction and $20 million in damages. The OLPC project did not appear in court but it is expected to "aggressively respond shortly" according to the site.

There seem to be more lawsuits than normal as Christmas approaches, this time it's Google in the spotlight. Google, which is known as "Guge" in China, is being sued by a firm based in Beijing called Guge Sci-Tech. Guge Sci-Tech was registered on April 26th last year, with Google not being filed there until November 24th later in the year, and now Guge Sci-Tech is claiming that Google's name has caused confusion and damage to its business and wants Google to change its Chinese firm and reimburse its legal costs. So far, Google's response has been to say that its Chinese name was already circulating the Internet before Guge Sci-Tech was registered and that it may have been looking to intentionally cash in on a copyright infringement lawsuit.

Opera Software, best known for its free web browser, has filed an antitrust lawsuit against software giant Microsoft for abusing its dominant position by integrating its Internet Explorer web browser into Windows. Opera, which filed the lawsuit in the EU, is asking the European Commission to force Microsoft to unbundle Internet Explorer from Windows or include other browsers as standard. It is also claiming that Microsoft is not following accepted standards for Internet Explorer and is calling for it to adhere to them. Opera's Deputy General Counsel, Jason Hoida, said:

Our complaint is necessary to get Microsoft to amend its practices. The European Court of First Instance confirmed in September that Microsoft has illegally tied Windows Media Player to Windows. We are simply asking the Commission to apply these same, clear principles to the Internet Explorer tie, a tie that has even more profound effects on consumers and innovation. We are confident that the Commission understands the significance of the Internet Explorer tie and will take the necessary actions to restore competition and consumer choice in the browser market.

Some people may remember that Microsoft was forced to sell a modified version of Windows XP which excluded Windows Media Player back in 2004 after complaints about that being integrated into Windows, which was a similar case to this.

No doubt most techPowerUp! readers will have heard of the One Laptop Per Child project which aims to help developing companies by providing them with cheap (the aim is $100 eventually) laptops, primarily focused on education purposes. However, the project could face some trouble as a Nigerian firm, Lagos Analysis Corp., is now trying to sue the OLPC foundation for illegally reverse engineering the company's software drivers in order to make the keypad on the laptops more accent mark friendly to users. According to Lagos Analysis Corp., the 'alt gr' key on the laptop's keyboard has the same functionality as the 'shift2' button on the firm's own keyboard. The OLPC foundation has responded with the following comment:

One Laptop per Child, a non-profit educational organization, has hear that Lagos Analysis Corp. (LANCOR) has sued OLPC in Nigeria, but OLPC has not seen any legal papers related to the alleged suit at this time. OLPC has the utmost respect for the rights of intellectual property owners. To OLPC's knowledge, all of the intellectual property used in the XO Laptop is either owned by OLPC or properly licensed. Until we have a copy of the claim and have had time to review it, we will not be commenting further on the matter.

Microsoft and Bungie have received both good and bad press from Halo 3. On the one hand, they claim record sales and profits. On the other, a sizable portion of the disks were faulty anyways. Thanks to a trivial packaging mistake, most of the "Legendary edition" disks came loose and scratched themselves during shipping. Even when the Halo 3 disks arrived in one piece, there was a certain chance that the game would not even load correctly, which Microsoft was well aware of. This inability to load correctly causes Xbox360s to "crash, freeze or lock up". That's the case that Californian gamer Randy Nunez is making against Microsoft. His class-action lawsuit seeks $5 million USD, and claims that Microsoft should have recalled Halo 3 after they knew about the crashing, freezing, and locking-up that Halo 3 would cause. What could really win this case in favor of Nunez is the fact that quite a few gamers get disk read error messages in the middle of a Halo 3 battle.

It's no secret that to get many famous songs while avoiding ridiculous royalties (and to also avoid the inconvenience that half the artists included are dead anyways), the majority of Guitar Hero songs are "covers", or similar versions of the song performed by a completely different artist. 'The Romantics', a classic band that wrote such hits as "What I Like About You", recently picked up Guitar Hero 3. When they heard the rendition of one of their songs, and how it was "virtually indistinguishable" from the real version, they sued Activision. After all, nobody had asked The Romantics if they wanted their song included in Guitar Hero 3. The Romantics are seeking ridiculous amounts of money in compensation, and for Guitar Hero 3 to be pulled off the shelves.

While we frequently hear about Company X suing Company Y over some copyright infringement, rarely do we hear about a lawsuit that actually matters. Maria Ruiz, a former employee of AMD, worked at Fab 14 between 1988 and 2002. When she gave birth to her son, she was horrified to discover multiple birth defects. Now 16, her child (Ryan) was born missing his lower right arm, and suffers brain injury and lifelong cognitive deficits.

In the lawsuit, which was filed in the Travis County District Court in Texas, Maria Ruiz claims that she was frequently exposed to such toxic chemicals as ethylene glycol monethyl ether acetate and 2-ethoxyethyl acetate. Ruiz reported needing to receive prompt medical attention on at least two occasions, after unintentionally inhaling chemical fumes. Overall, the lawsuit claims that AMD "breached its safety warranty and neglected to provide employees with adequate protection against exposure to dangerous chemicals". The lawsuit also includes medical malpractice allegations against the clinic Maria Ruiz was treated at.

AMD had this to say about the lawsuit:

We take the health and safety of our employees very seriously. We have a long history of supporting independent research on health and safety in semiconductor manufacturing and are confident in our systems and procedures. Our thoughts go out to Ms. Ruiz and her family, but we do not believe there is any connection between Ms. Ruiz's employment with AMD and her son's medical conditions as alleged in this case.

The rejection of Microsoft's appeal to the European antitrust ruling against it means that there remains, at least in theory, a significant threat to Microsoft's way of doing business: bundling new features and products into its dominant Windows operating system.

In the United States, the Bush administration chose to settle the Microsoft antitrust case without challenging the company's freedom to put whatever it wants in its operating system. But in Europe, Microsoft's bundling practice became a key element in the European Commission's antitrust suit.

The iPhone battery replacement policy is causing quite a lot of controversy. Some allege that it costs over $100USD to replace your iPhone's battery, including the cost of an iPhone rental while Apple replaces the battery on the iPhone you actually own. And so, it's only natural that consumers who feel they have been swindled start a class action lawsuit. Plaintiffs Zoltan Stiener and Ynez Stiener accuse Apple of breach of contract, fraud, and violations of California law for not telling users how expensive an iPhone replacement really is. This is the third time someone has tried to hit Apple with a class action lawsuit for the cited reasons, and Apple has settled in all the previous cases.

Back in February, when Vista was just starting to gain momentum in the PC world, people got a nasty surprise when installing Vista Home Premium or higher on a 'Vista Capable' PC (instead of a 'Vista Premium Ready' PC): if it installed at all, it ran as slow as molasses, and features that people paid for such as Aero and Windows Media Center did not work, due to higher system requirements. This misconstrued marketing angered consumers over time, and now Microsoft is facing a class action lawsuit. Microsoft asked for the case to be thrown out, but a Federal judge agreed to hear the case just last Tuesday. The trial is scheduled for October, but we should see Microsoft settling this case long before then.

When Google was sued by pornographers for letting anyone who typed in "porn" at the Google Image Search prompt peek at pay-per-view porn, the courts upheld Google's rights to do just that. Now, Perfect 10 recently accused Microsoft's MSN search engine finding and posting porno that was hosted by an illegal distributer of Perfect 10's porn. Perfect 10 also is also accusing Microsoft of letting people successfully find passwords to their pay-per-view materials using MSN search. Perfect 10 has tried to sue both Google and Amazon with similar cases, and both cases were thrown out. Perfect 10 is appealing the court's decision while waiting for the results of this suit.

Acer Inc said Friday that it has filed a counterclaim of patent infringement against Hewlett-Packard Development Co before the Eastern District of Texas Court in the United States. The latest counterclaim is part of Acer's response to HP's patent infringement suit against the company filed at the same court earlier this year, Acer said in a statement. Acer claimed that HP has infringed its patents on dual-frequency antenna and DVD-ROM head technologies.

While subpoenas and ex parte discovery have worked well for the RIAA in its legal fight against suspected file-sharers, the music industry in Europe looks to be facing a tougher battle. Today, an advocate general for the European Court of Justice, the highest court in the EU, released an opinion saying that ISPs are not required to disclose information that could identify subscribers in civil copyright infringement cases. The court in most cases shall stick with the advocate general's opinion although there is a slim to none chance that they may not. The originsal case involved Promusicae, a Spanish music industry association a lot like RIAA, and Spanish ISP Telefonica.