In the fast and furious world of app development, time is of the essence. So claims the Plaintiff YoHolla in a lawsuit against an app developer Pinwheel Designs Corp. and its subcontractor Burton Design Group (BDG). Allegedly the defendants’ inability to produce a bug-free app in a timely manner delayed…
On March 15, hours after its asserted patent was issued (U.S. Patent No. 7,908,342), Wireless Ink Corp. filed a complaint for patent infringement against Facebook, Google, YouTube, and MySpace in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, Case No. 1:11-cv-01751-PKC. Wireless Ink is a mobile content…
Microsoft Corp. has recently won a bid to force Datel Holdings Ltd. to produce documents and sample products in an action involving Datel’s Xbox 360 accessories. The Judge has ruled in favor of Microsoft and ordered that certain documents must be produced on behalf of Datel relating to allegations that it hacked the Xbox security system in…
Congressman Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), a senior member and former chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee’s Communications, Technology and the Internet Subcommittee, sent a letter dated February 8, 2011 to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) requesting more information about possible consumer protection issues related to “in-app” purchases, particularly relating to kids. The…
Originally posted on the Gamification Blog. Many people are aware that in 2009, the FTC implemented guidelines that addressed the use of endorsements and testimonials by bloggers. The main stream press highlighted just the part of these guidelines that require disclosure by bloggers of compensation received for recommending a product…
A UK court entered a guilty plea against Ashley Mitchell, an IT guy who hacked into Zynga’s servers last year and stole 400 billion virtual poker chips. His efforts to resell them, which is against Zynga’s terms of service, netted him $86,000 and a yet to be determined jail sentence.…
According to a recent study by OpenDNS, Facebook is both the most widely blocked site in enterprises today and the second most widely allowed site in enterprises today. The study goes on to report that more than 14 percent of all enterprises that block websites on their networks choose to…
Gibson Guitar Corp. recently filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee alleging that Seven45 Studios’ video game “Power Gig: Rise of the SixString,” infringes Gibson’s concert simulation patent. Gibson filed its complaint against 745 LLC (d/b/a Seven45 Studios) asserting “Power Gig” violates its U.S. Patent Number 5,990,405,…
Despite supposedly having millions of users (to Facebook’s 3/4 of a billion), social networking pioneer MySpace appears to be headed out to pasture. Last week, the company laid off 47 percent of its workforce, lopping off 500 employees from its nearly 1,100-person payroll. Rumors that MySpace’s parent company News Corp.…
A new survey by Interactive Age about the best law firms advising on video games and other interactive entertainment named Pillsbury one of the Top 3 firms in the nation. According to the survey, more than 530 attorneys at 30 major law firms now practice in the area of video…