Prominent communications and tech companies were among the dozens of firms in a diversity of industries signing off on an amicus brief in favor of “marriage equality” as the Supreme Court prepares to hear Obergefell v. Hodges. Among those adding their names to thee brief were Amazon, Apple, AT&T, Broadcom, Cablevision, Cisco, Comcast, DirecTV, Disney, eBay, Facebook, Google, Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Microsoft, Qualcomm, Twitter and Verizon. The companies said they do business in states that both allow and prohibit same-sex marriage. “It creates legal uncertainty and imposes unnecessary costs and administrative complexities on employers, and requires differential employer treatment of employees who are similarly situated save for the state where they reside,” the brief said. The case examines whether the 14th Amendment requires a state to license a marriage between two people of the same sex or recognize such a marriage that is lawfully licensed and performed in another state. Justices will hear the case April 28.

The Supreme Court ruled in favor of the Direct Marketing Association in its case against Colorado. In the unanimous decision released Tuesday, the court said interstate and remote merchants can challenge state tax issues in federal court, overturning a previous ruling by the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in DMA v. Brohl (see 1411250042). DMA CEO Thomas Benton called the ruling a “landmark victory.” The ruling “protects marketers and all businesses from the overreach of state laws,” he said in a statement. “DMA believes national businesses having access to a neutral, federal forum is a critical aspect of our judicial system.” Legal experts told us last year that the case hinged on the high court’s interpretation of the Tax Injunction Act, which says “district courts shall not enjoin, suspend or restrain the assessment, levy or collection of any tax under State law where a plain, speedy and efficient remedy may be had in the courts of such State.” The "terms ‘assessment,’ ‘levy,’ and ‘collection’ do not encompass Colorado’s enforcement of its notice and reporting requirements,” Justice Clarence Thomas said in the opinion. “These terms … refer to discrete phases of the taxation process that do not include informational notices or private reports of information relevant to tax liability,” he said. “Information gathering has long been treated as a phase of tax administration that occurs before assessment, levy, or collection.”

Apple was ordered to pay $532.9 million because its iTunes software infringed three patents owned by Smartflash, said a verdict from U.S. District Court in Tyler, Texas. The case, filed in May 2013, alleged that Apple’s software infringed three patents held by Smartflash and originally Patrick Racz and Herman-ard Hulst, who signed the patents over to the company in 2002. The jury ruled Apple’s software infringed on those patents, and did so willfully. Apple said it refuses to pay another company for its own ideas and has been left with no choice but to take the fight up through the court system, in a statement Wednesday. It said Smartflash "makes no products, has no employees, creates no jobs, has no U.S. presence, and is exploiting our patent system to seek royalties for technology Apple invented." The patents covered a portable data carrier for storing data and managing access to the data via payment information and/or use status rules, court documents said. They also cover a computer network that serves data and manages access to data by, for example, validating payment information. The complaint said the parts that infringe on Smartflash’s patents include the software components responsible for buying digital content or applications from iTunes, the software components responsible for providing digital content or apps upon payment validation, the software components that provide in-app payment functionality, the software components that provide in-app advertising functionality, the software components that store payment distribution information indicating to whom payments should be made for purchased digital content or apps, and the software components that install, on a computer or server, any version of iTunes that can access the iTunes Store, any version of the App Store app, or any version of the Mac App Store. A lawyer for Smartflash didn't comment.

HDMI Licensing and producers of the InfoComm show “agreed on broad terms” of a settlement in their ongoing legal dispute and “exchanged drafts of a settlement agreement,” but a final resolution in the case remains elusive, their lawyers told the U.S. District Court in Las Vegas. Judge Jennifer Dorsey granted them a final stay in the case through March 19 “to attempt to finalize settlement,” her order said. HDMI Licensing sued InfoComm in mid-September, alleging the InfoComm show in mid-June gave “safe haven” to exhibitors that are “direct infringers” of HDMI trademarks by letting them market, promote and sell unlicensed HDMI products on the show floor, shielded from investigators (see 1409150044). InfoComm countersued a month later accusing HDMI Licensing of “blatant extortion” because it treated any company on the InfoComm show floor that used the "HDMI" acronym "as a common criminal” (see 1410170054).

Blog writer Jessica Bennett alleges violations of California privacy laws and of federal wiretap statutes, in a complaint against Lenovo for installing Superfish software on a Lenovo Yoga 2 convertible laptop she bought late in 2014. The complaint, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in San Diego, seeks class-action status and unspecified statutory damages against Lenovo and Superfish, which also was named as a defendant. Lenovo shipped products that included Superfish software between September and December, but the software has been disabled since January, the company said in a statement last week (see 1502190046). Superfish lets consumers view more advertisements, but some privacy advocates consider the software a security threat. Soon after buying the Lenovo product, Bennett "was writing a blog post for a client when she noticed spam advertisements involving scantily clad women appearing on her client’s website," the complaint said. "A few hours later, Plaintiff was doing research for a different client when she saw the same block of advertisements intruding on a different, very well known site. It was then that Plaintiff knew that her computer was infected with Spyware." Lenovo didn't comment.

RadioShack and its three liquidators will be required through March 31 to accept RadioShack gift cards that were “validly” issued before the chain filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection Feb. 5 (see 1502060023), U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Brendan Shannon said Friday in a final order authorizing RadioShack’s store-closing sales and stipulating how those sales are to be conducted. RadioShack’s liquidators are Hilco Merchant Resources, Gordon Brothers Retail Partners and Tiger Capital Group, the order said. RadioShack and the liquidators also must accept returns of merchandise sold before the fire sales in compliance with return policies that were in effect the date the merchandise was sold, provided that “the customer is not repurchasing the same item so as to take advantage of the sale price being offered” during the store liquidation sale, the order said. All sales of fire-sale merchandise will be “‘as is’ and final,” the order said. However, RadioShack and the liquidators must within seven days accept returns of merchandise with “latent" defects, and signs alerting consumers to that policy must be posted in the “cash register areas” of all participating stores, it said. It defined a product with a latent defect as one that “the lay customer could not reasonably determine was defective by visual inspection prior to purchase.” The order said RadioShack must maintain on its website a list of stores that are still open and directs the company and the liquidators to send copies of the order to all relevant state and local authorities within five days, including attorneys general and consumer watchdog agencies in the locales where stores remain open to conduct the liquidation sales.

Chief U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Brendan Shannon in Wilmington, Delaware, granted RadioShack’s motion Thursday for a fast-track hearings schedule on the sale of leases for the approximately 2,250 stores it’s closing in the wake of its Feb. 5 Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing (see 1502060023). “Good cause and compelling circumstances” warrant the expedited schedule, RadioShack said in its motion, which also was filed Thursday. RadioShack has the “opportunity to secure value for leases” on the closing stores, but must conclude the lease sale process by Feb. 28 to avoid incurring rent and other related expenses that would be due March 1, the motion said. Pursuant to RadioShack’s motion, the court scheduled a hearing for Wednesday to set lease bid procedures and another for Feb. 25 to approve the sale of the leases, Shannon’s order said. He scheduled a Feb. 20 hearing on objections in the case, including a motion for adequate protection filed Feb. 8 by Waste Management, which provided hauling services for roughly half the RadioShack stores nationally, its motion said. RadioShack has moved to have WM classified as a utility. Doing so would force WM to continue to provide hauling services for RadioShack, including for its massive store liquidation sales, and extend the chain $1 million or more of credit "without any reasonable assurance of payment," the hauler said. "As a result of its pre-petition service to RadioShack, WM accrued over $835,000 of unpaid pre-petition receivables in the three months leading up to these chapter 11 filings," the company said.

The U.S. International Trade Commission launched a Section 337 investigation (docket 337-TA-947) into LED light bulbs that allegedly are falsely advertised and infringe patents held by Cree, the agency said Thursday. In its Jan. 12 complaint, Cree said LED light bulbs from Feit Electric and Unity copy its patented designs that improve efficiency, light color and light distribution and allow the LED bulbs to replace normal incandescent “A-shape” bulbs. Cree alleged that Feit Electric and Unity falsely advertise their bulbs by including an Energy Star logo on their bulbs, even though they don't meet the Energy Star program’s LED light bulb requirements for uniform light distribution.

Two separate Alliance of Artists and Recording Companies (AARC) lawsuits alleging several automakers violated the Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA) were consolidated into one in an order signed Monday by U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson. Ford and General Motors and their respective suppliers Clarion and Denso violated the AHRA because they shipped vehicles with CD-copying hard drives without building the Serial Copy Management System into the devices or paying the Copyright Office the required royalties on the hardware's wholesale price, AARC alleged in a July lawsuit (see 1410140084). AARC filed a second complaint in November repeating many of the same allegations against Chrysler and its supplier Mitsubishi. In consolidating the two cases, Brown did so “without prejudice to any future motion to bifurcate proceedings for the purpose of trial,” her order said. Lawyers for Chrysler and Mitsubishi argued the two cases involve "common issues of fact and common questions of law." Brown asked all sides to show cause why the cases shouldn't be combined, and no one objected (see 1501280047).

The Internet Commerce Coalition filed a brief on behalf of Google's case against Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood (see 1502020047). Google filed a lawsuit in December against Hood, alleging he tried to censor the Internet in an administrative subpoena he filed against the company in October (see 1412190045). Online free speech proponents have argued that MPAA’s alleged involvement in Hood’s subpoena proves the entertainment industry is pursuing alternative strategies to the failed Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Act. Hood’s supporters have asked why a state attorney general shouldn’t be allowed to investigate a company for possible consumer violations and condemned Google’s use of stolen documents in the Sony Entertainment Pictures data breach in the case (see 1412170050). ICC argued in its filing that Hood stepped outside his legal jurisdiction. “Congress has determined that all legal claims involving the right to copy, disseminate, sell, and download works within the subject matter of copyright should be determined solely through a copyright infringement action in federal court,” it said. “State consumer protection laws, such as the Mississippi Consumer Protection Act ('MCPA') which provides the authority for the Attorney General’s Subpoena, are completely preempted in such circumstances.”