Three coalitions of industry and public interest groups filed amicus briefs with the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans Monday supporting Google's bid to sustain a preliminary injunction barring Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood from enforcing his subpoena of the company’s search practices. Hood, a Democrat, filed an appeal with the 5th Circuit in late March. That was after U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate ordered the preliminary injunction because there was a “substantial likelihood” that Google would prevail in its lawsuit against Hood on claims he violated the company’s First Amendment rights (see 1504010029). If Hood is “allowed to continue, the pressure tactics employed by the Attorney General here would send a dangerous message to large and small service providers, as well as the Internet users who rely on their platforms to communicate, learn, and organize online,” said the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Center for Democracy and Technology and other groups in a joint brief. “That message would stifle innovation, chill online speech, and flout the public’s First Amendment interest in an uncensored Internet.” The Computer & Communications Industry Association, CEA and Engine also urged the 5th Circuit to affirm the injunction. They said in a joint brief that “although state law enforcement officials are not wholly precluded from enforcing state laws that affect the Internet, Congress unambiguously intended to limit states’ ability to regulate Internet intermediaries’ display of third party content -- which is precisely what Attorney General Hood seeks to do here.” Hood “does not, and cannot, demonstrate any compelling interest in the wholesale gathering of information about a wide and disparate array of protected speech on Google’s various services,” the American Civil Liberties Union and its Mississippi chapter said in a joint brief. “Indeed, the subpoena seeks such a vast amount of information about so many people that by its very nature it cannot be narrowly tailored to any legitimate investigative need. As such, the subpoena is presumptively invalid.”

Netflix didn't violate the Video Privacy Protection Act or California Civil Code Section 1799.3 when it disclosed a subscriber’s viewing history to third parties -- specifically a subscriber’s family, friends and guests, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Friday. To assist subscribers in adding videos to their queues or selecting videos to watch instantly, Netflix gives customers lists of recommended videos, the 9th Circuit said. “These recommendations are generated through the use of predictive software that analyzes, among other things, a subscriber’s rental history,” the court said. “Netflix displays a subscriber’s queue and recommendations lists automatically on a subscriber’s account home page.” Subscribers can edit and delete titles from the queue, but can’t hide or remove the queue or other lists displayed by Netflix, meaning they're available for others to see when subscribers accesses their account, said the ruling. Because the personally identifiable information is only available only to those who have been given access to a subscriber’s account, the 9th Circuit said the company didn’t violate the law. Judge Raymond Dearie wrote the opinion on behalf of himself and Judges Johnnie Rawlinson and Richard Tallman. It upheld a lower court's ruling. Plaintiffs Meghan Mollett and Tracy Hellwig couldn't be immediately reached for comment Monday.

Once the government effectuates a warrant by copying a computer hard drive, “it should dispose of the information irrelevant to the crime for which the warrant was issued,” said the Center for Democracy & Technology and five nonprofit advocacy organizations in an amicus brief filed Wednesday with the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a news release said. The brief, filed in the U.S. v. Ganias case by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), ACLU of Connecticut, the Brennan Center, Electronic Frontier Foundation and the Open Technology Institute of the New America Foundation, said law enforcement shouldn't be able to hold copied information indefinitely or have the ability to search the information indefinitely into the future in relation to unrelated crimes, the release said. In the case, the government copied the entire contents of Stavros Ganias’ computer hard drive as part of an Army investigation of improper conduct by a company called Industrial Property Management (IPM), the release said. Ganias’ was IPM’s accountant and the irrelevant data copied from the computers was not destroyed but was retained and searched with a new warrant by IRS investigators 18 months later for “unrelated accounting irregularities,” the release said. CDT Freedom, Security and Technology Project Director Greg Nojeim said: “If the content irrelevant to the warrant is retained indefinitely, it means an individual will be forced to live under a cloud of suspicion forever.” It’s a violation of the Fourth Amendment, which covers searches and seizures, to seize a computer to investigate one crime and then hold irrelevant information on the chance it could be useful later, he said.

Dish Network, CEO Charles Ergen and EchoStar conspired to get LightSquared's spectrum "at fire-sale prices" through widespread racketeering and fraud, Harbinger Capital said in a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Manhattan asking for $1.5 billion in damages from Ergen, Dish, investment banker Stephen Ketchum and his Sound Point Capital Management. The litigation is similar to a Harbinger suit filed one year ago in U.S. District Court in Denver (see 1407100060) and thrown out in April on summary judgment. Harbinger -- which held most of LightSquared's common equity --- also made similar arguments in 2013 in a complaint filed in U.S. Bankruptcy Court as part of LightSquared's Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The latest suit alleges Ketchum, who had a long-standing relationship with Ergen, used Sound Point to set up an investment vehicle, SPSO, through which Ergen bought large amounts of LightSquared debt to get at its spectrum. Meanwhile, Ergen's LBAC -- now a subsidiary of Dish -- also tried to purchase that spectrum with a $2 billion bid -- substantially lower than estimates in a pair of valuations Ergen had. After LightSquared filed for bankruptcy, U.S. Bankruptcy Court decided Harbinger had a conflict in considering that bid between the best course for protecting its stake and best course for LightSquared, and the court ordered creation of an independent committee to handle LightSquared's reorganization or sale, with Harbinger losing its say in the running of the company. Though LightSquared's reorganization plan saw Harbinger made partially whole, the investment company is seeking damages for the loss of the control rights it once had as Dish and Ergen "effectively breached the 'outer limits' of what is acceptable in a bankruptcy proceeding," Harbinger said in its suit filed Tuesday. Dish declined to comment Wednesday. Though Harbinger accused EchoStar of being part of the racketeering effort, it's not among the defendants.

Philips, Samsung, Sony and Toshiba and their various subsidiaries conspired to fix prices of optical disc drives (ODDs) between 2004 and 2010 and sold them at illegally inflated prices, costing Circuit City more than $50 million in damages. So alleged Alfred Siegel, who runs the liquidating trust for the now-defunct Circuit City chain that filed for bankruptcy in November 2008 before moving to liquidate its stores in January 2009 (see 0902230126). Siegel’s trust estimates Circuit City bought $1 billion worth of ODDs and “ODD-containing goods” from Philips during the “relevant period,” and $2 billion worth from Samsung, $4.6 billion worth from Sony, and $2 billion worth from Toshiba, Siegel said in an antitrust complaint filed Monday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco. “As a result of Defendants’ illegal actions, Circuit City was injured by paying substantially more for ODDs than it would have otherwise,” the complaint said. “Defendants and their co-conspirators carried out their price-fixing conspiracy through an integrated and sustained series of anticompetitive acts,” including through the “rigging” of procurement activities and the systematic exchange of confidential business information, the complaint said. Siegel’s trust seeks to recover “treble its actual damages, as provided by applicable federal and state law,” as well as “all other available monetary and equitable remedies available under California’s unfair competition laws,” the complaint said. Representatives for Philips, Samsung, Sony and Toshiba didn’t comment.

U.S. District Judge Phyllis Hamilton in Oakland, California issued a declaratory judgment Wednesday in favor of Netflix, stating the Rovi patents involved in Netflix's litigation against Rovi are invalid, making Rovi's patent infringement claims against Netflix "moot." The complaint for declaratory relief, first filed by Netflix in December 2011, was in response to Rovi's attempts to license five of its patents to Netflix that Rovi said the streaming video service was infringing upon, the complaint submission said. Netflix also claimed the patents Rovi said were being infringed upon were too broad, making them invalid. The court issued a claim construction ruling as well, for the nine disputed claim terms in the case, siding with Rovi in most. "While we are pleased that the court sided with Rovi on the key claim construction issues, we are disappointed in, and strongly disagree with, the Court’s decision finding the five patents invalid and plan to appeal that decision," said Samir Armaly, Rovi executive vice president-intellectual property and licensing, in a written statement Thursday. "We are committed to enforcing our intellectual property against Netflix until the necessary licenses are in place." "We are gratified by the Court’s judgment, which confirmed that Rovi’s patents are so broad and abstract as to be invalid," a Netflix spokesperson said.

Advanced Digital Broadcast, the Swiss-based supplier of HD set-top boxes, residential gateway devices and other products to pay-TV operators worldwide, is seeking a preliminary injunction preventing HDMI Licensing from canceling its license agreement and preventing customs authorities from seizing ADB goods, the company said in a motion filed in U.S. District Court in San Jose. ADB wants the court to set an Aug. 12 motions hearing on the injunction request. ADB moved for the injunction days after its complaint accused HDMI Licensing of “wrongfully” demanding $905,000 in back royalties it doesn’t owe (see 1507010017). The complaint didn’t seek a preliminary injunction, only a court “declaration” that HDMI Licensing “is precluded” from notifying customs that ADB goods “are unauthorized and subject to seizure because they are not.” ADB has argued it has dutifully paid HDMI Licensing the 4 cent-per-unit royalty it owed, but that the licensor is wrongfully demanding 10 cents per unit more on the grounds -- denied by ADB -- that ADB failed to “reasonably” incorporate HDMI trademarks on its product documentation materials. If HDMI Licensing isn't “enjoined” from canceling the license agreement and calling for customs seizures of ADB shipments, ADB “will suffer immediate irreparable harm as it will no longer be able to represent to its customers that it supplies licensed products,” its injunction motion said. “The inability to do so will severely harm the reputation of ADB and the goodwill it has established in the U.S. market and its industry worldwide.” ADB also fears the jobs of its 50 U.S. employees will be “at risk,” it said. HDMI Licensing representatives have declined comment on the case.

U.S. District Judge Jesse Furman in Manhattan gave MPEG LA until July 16 to file a memorandum of law in its legal battle against Toshiba (see 1507060028). MPEG LA alleges Toshiba has shipped DTV sets for years without paying the proper ATSC royalties and says Toshiba is guilty of “unjust enrichment” for portraying itself as a bona fide ATSC licensee without paying for the privilege. Toshiba removed the case to federal court, and MPEG LA wants the case remanded to the New York state court where it originated. MPEG LA’s July 16 memorandum will serve both as its reply to Toshiba’s opposition to the motion to remand and its response to Toshiba’s motion to have the case dismissed, Furman said in the order he signed Tuesday. Toshiba will have until July 23 to respond to the MPEG LA memorandum, Furman’s order said.

Four individuals were arraigned Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Newark, New Jersey, on charges they smuggled tens of thousands of counterfeit Apple and Sony products from China for sale in the U.S., the Justice Department said in a statement. Charged in a 31-page indictment with importing and trafficking illegal goods were Andreina Becerra, 30, a Venezuelan national; Roberto Volpe, 33, an Italian national; Jianhua Li, 40, a Chinese national; and Rosario La Marca, 52, an Italian national, DOJ said. They’re also accused of international money laundering to cover their tracks, DOJ said. The indictment estimates the defendants smuggled in more than 40,000 fake Apple and Sony goods between July 2009 and February 2014 that would have fetched more than $15 million in sales had they been the genuine articles. No information was available Thursday on whether the four defendants entered pleas, and attorneys for the four didn’t comment.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court’s dismissal of a class-action antitrust complaint against Apple and remanded the case to the lower court for further proceedings. Several plaintiffs sued Apple in U.S. District Court in San Francisco soon after it launched the iPhone in June 200, alleging Apple installed “software locks” on each iPhone it sold to “enforce” its five-year exclusivity agreement, said Monday's 9th Circuit opinion. The locks prevented AT&T’s iPhone customers from switching to wireless carriers that competed with AT&T, and the plaintiffs alleged that the five-year exclusivity agreement enabled the carrier to charge “supra-competitive prices for wireless services,” the opinion said. The court dismissed the complaint for failure to name AT&T as a defendant. In reversing the dismissal, the lower court “abused its discretion” in finding that AT&T was a “necessary party” in the complaint, the opinion said. The lower court also failed to identify AT&T’s “interests in this action, or address how those interests, if any, might be impaired if this action were resolved in its absence,” the opinion said. Representatives of Apple, AT&T and the plaintiffs didn’t comment Tuesday.