Activision Blizzard was mum Monday after Genius Products and Numark Industries joint venture Scratch DJ Game said a California Superior Court judge granted a preliminary injunction in Scratch’s suit against Activision Publishing, developer 7 Studios, and ex-7 Studios owner Lewis Peterson. The judge already issued a temporary restraining order in favor of Scratch (CED April 22 p5) and ordered 7 Studios and Activision to hand over all work product associated with the coming videogame Scratch -- The Ultimate DJ game, including all source code and all of the developer’s pre-existing tool and technology, including the source code to 7 Studio’s game engine, Scratch said. Developer 7 Studios and its new parent company, Activision Blizzard, are continued to be “walled off” from disclosing any aspect of the Scratch game or technology with each other or with any third party, Scratch said. Activision Blizzard didn’t respond to a request for comment by our deadline. “We will continue to vigorously pursue our damages case against Activision, 7 Studios and Peterson resulting from their actions to delay and take over the Scratch game,” said Jack O'Donnell, manager of Scratch and CEO of Numark. “We hope that this clear victory ends the delay tactics employed by the defendants to date to stop our game from being completed and brought to market. With the injunction order, we will also now be able to move forward to complete and launch our much anticipated Scratch game,” he said. Scratch DJ Game had accused Activision Publishing of “intentional interference with contractual relationship,” unfair competition and breach of contract, among other things, in its suit over the game, which Scratch had tapped 7 Studios to develop before the developer was bought by Activision Blizzard (CED April 16 p2).
The Los Angeles Harbor Commission has approved up to $44.2 million in Port funding toward the 2009 Clean Truck Incentive Program at the Port of Los Angeles. The funds will be used to offer concessionaires in the Port of Los Angeles Clean Truck Program (CTP) incentives of up to $80,000 for each Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) or Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) truck they purchase. Port terminal operators or concessionaires can also receive up to 80 percent of negotiated cost for each electric truck they purchase for terminal or drayage truck use. (News release, dated 05/08/09, available at http://www.portoflosangeles.org/newsroom/2009_releases/news_050809_lng.asp)
After a marathon hearing, RealNetworks will have to wait a couple of weeks longer to summarize its pitch to a federal judge to lift her ban on selling the RealDVD technology for copying DVDs. Late Thursday, U.S. District Judge Marilyn Patel in San Francisco scheduled for May 21 closing argument on a preliminary injunction sought by Hollywood studios and the DVD Copy Control Association, a RealNetworks spokesman said. Those bodies persuaded Patel in October to issue a temporary restraining order, ordinarily a short-term measure. When the three days that the judge set aside late last month turned out not to be enough for an evidentiary hearing on extending the ban until a trial or settlement, she extended the proceeding to May 7 and 8. The studios claim that RealDVD would violate copyright. The association alleges that the technology violates RealNetworks’ licensing agreement for the Content Scramble System DRM technology for DVDs. RealNetworks contends that it complied with the agreement and that the copyright claims overreach in seeking to prevent a purchaser’s duplication for personal use.
After a marathon hearing, RealNetworks will have to wait a couple of weeks longer to summarize its pitch to a federal judge to lift her ban on selling the RealDVD technology for copying DVDs. Late Thursday, U.S. District Judge Marilyn Patel in San Francisco scheduled for May 21 closing argument on a preliminary injunction sought by Hollywood studios and the DVD Copy Control Association, a RealNetworks spokesman said. Those bodies persuaded Patel in October to issue a temporary restraining order, ordinarily a short-term measure. When the three days that the judge set aside late last month turned out not to be enough for an evidentiary hearing on extending the ban until a trial or settlement, she extended the proceeding to May 7 and 8. The studios claim that RealDVD would violate copyright. The association alleges that the technology violates RealNetworks’ licensing agreement for the Content Scramble System DRM technology for DVDs. RealNetworks contends that it complied with the agreement and that the copyright claims overreach in seeking to prevent a purchaser’s duplication for personal use.
On April 29, 2009, the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, in American Trucking Associations, Inc. vs. the City of Los Angeles, et al., issued a preliminary injunction against 7 of the requirements in the Clean Trucks Program Concession Plan that the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach had sought to impose on drayage providers, but refrained from enjoining 11 other of the ports' new rules for truckers, pending a trial set for December 15, 2009.
The International Trade Administration has issued the final results of its countervailing duty administrative review of certain hot-rolled carbon steel flat products from India for the period of January 1, 2007 through December 31, 2007.
The International Trade Administration frequently issues notices on antidumping and countervailing duty orders, investigations, etc. which Broker Power considers to be "minor" in importance as they concern actions that occur after an order is issued, neither announce nor cause any changes to an order's duty rates, scope, affected firms, or effective period, etc.
The International Trade Administration has issued an affirmative final determination that imports of folding metal tables with legs connected by cross-bars, so that the legs fold in sets, are circumventing the antidumping duty order on folding metal tables and chairs (FMTCs) from China.
Half-thickness EcoDiscs soon will be made in the U.S., as their Swiss-based owner, EcoDisc Technology (ET), announced it has landed its first American-based replicator. But our poll of the major studios found Hollywood generally is keeping its distance. Of those studio executives we polled, few had even the faintest knowledge of the EcoDisc, and none of those who did wanted to comment on the record, citing the EcoDisc’s questionable status under DVD Forum rules for “non-standard” discs.
The International Trade Administration has issued an affirmative preliminary determination that certain tissue paper products from Thailand exported by Sunlake Dcor Co., Ltd. are made from jumbo rolls and/or cut sheets of tissue paper produced in the China, and are circumventing the antidumping duty order on certain tissue paper products from China.