Microsoft – Overlawyered

Suit seeks to make tech firms pay for campaign against distracted driving

Walter Olson — Fri, 25 Mar 2016 04:05:45 +0000

“In the lawsuit, the Coalition Against Distracted Driving and Stephen L. Joseph, as an individual, seek an injunction against Apple, Samsung, Google, and Microsoft, requiring those companies to pay $1 billion annually to fund an ‘effective and ongoing national public education campaign’ to educate drivers on the dangers of using smart phones and smart watches while driving.” The suit seeks to define the behavior at issue as a nuisance under California law. [Jared McClain, Washington Legal Foundation]

Tags: Apple, cellphones, Google, Microsoft, nuisance, regulation through litigation

Suit seeks to make tech firms pay for campaign against distracted driving is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Why would the IRS be outsourcing tax audits to a private law firm?

Walter Olson — Fri, 22 May 2015 11:08:26 +0000

Sen. Orrin Hatch wants to know why the Internal Revenue Service has hired Quinn Emanuel to assist in auditing Microsoft, with the power to compel sworn testimony [Sean Hackbarth, Institute for Legal Reform] For a sampling of the complications that can arise when governments hire outside law firms to prosecute tax cases, see our coverage of the Mississippi/MCI case or, in another part of the forest, the IRS’s periodic experiments with using private debt collection lawyers.

Tags: law enforcement for profit, Microsoft, taxes

Why would the IRS be outsourcing tax audits to a private law firm? is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Surveillance roundup

Walter Olson — Thu, 12 Dec 2013 04:05:06 +0000

“That Thing They Said They’re Not Doing? They’re Totally Doing.” [Daily Show with Jon Stewart] “Exactly What the State Says to Deceive You About Surveillance” [Conor Friedersdorf]
“Warrantless Cellphone ‘Tower Dumps’ Becoming Go-To Tool For Law Enforcement” [Tim Cushing, TechDirt; Ellen Nakashima, Washington Post; David Kravets, Wired; USA Today (local law enforcement using, not just federal)]
Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter, Yahoo, AOL, LinkedIn, but telecoms absent: “U.S. Tech Industry Calls for Surveillance Reform” [Corporate Counsel, EFF, Marvin Ammori/USA Today]
New Federalist Society symposium on NSA/FISA surveillance and bulk data collection includes names like Randy Barnett, Jim Harper, Jeremy Rabkin, Stewart Baker, Grover Joseph Rees [Engage, Randy Barnett]
Nowadays “law enforcement can feel free to admit their traffic stops are pretextual” Thanks, Drug War! [Popehat] “Sobriety Checkpoints Paved Path to NSA Email Spying” [Wired]
FATCA, the intrusive overseas tax enforcement law, isn’t couched in public controversy as a federal data-snooping issue, but it should be [Radley Balko, McClatchy]

Tags: Apple, cellphones, Facebook, FATCA, Federalist Society, Google, illegal drugs, Microsoft, surveillance, Twitter

Surveillance roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

September 15 roundup

Walter Olson — Sun, 15 Sep 2013 11:05:47 +0000

Falling tree limb injures woman, jury orders city of Savannah to pay $12 million [Insurance Journal]
Dept. of Interior mulls lowering threshold for federal recognition of Indian tribes [AP]
Section 230: “The Law that Gave Us the Modern Internet, and the Campaign to Kill It” [Derek Khanna, The Atlantic]
Interview with false-memory expert Elizabeth Loftus [Slate]
“No meaningful costs or downsides” to the Microsoft antitrust case? Really? [Tom Bowden]
NSA covertly intervened in standards making process to weaken encryption standards [Mike Masnick, TechDirt] After being rebuffed by public opinion in quest for dragnet surveillance programs, NSA quietly put programs in place through other channels [Jack Shafer; related, Ken at Popehat]
Given the limitations of litigation, better not to lament the shortcomings of the NFL concussion settlement [Howard Wasserman]

Tags: antitrust, football, Indian tribes, Microsoft, roads and streets, surveillance, trees

September 15 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Patent litigation vs. software startups

Walter Olson — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 13:16:30 +0000

Bad enough to be an established software firm and get hit with lawsuits from competitors or patent trolls. But even companies at the early startup stage now face legal attack, and patent law (unlike copyright) assigns liability even if there has been no knowing act of imitation or appropriation, which complicates the task of defense. “Merely asking a patent lawyer to evaluate the case and advise a company on whether it was guilty of infringement could cost a firm tens of thousands of dollars. And a full-blown patent lawsuit could easily carry a price tag in the millions of dollars, with no guarantee of recovering attorney’s fees even if the defendant prevailed.” In practice, some firms like Microsoft whose portfolios amount to “patent thickets” can establish themselves as gatekeepers to the industry. [Timothy Lee, Slate]

And: “New Patent Regs May Inspire More Litigation, Not Less” [Daniel Fisher, Forbes]

Tags: Microsoft, patent law, technology

Patent litigation vs. software startups is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

“I, on the other hand, will not let people push me around”

Walter Olson — Mon, 22 Aug 2011 14:01:54 +0000

Says the Arkansas man who has sued Microsoft for $500 billion over his XBox Live contract. [Seattle Post-Intelligencer]

Tags: contracts of adhesion, Microsoft, serial litigants

“I, on the other hand, will not let people push me around” is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

August 11 roundup

Walter Olson — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 05:25:02 +0000

Seattle’s best? Class action lawyer suing Apple, e-publishers has represented Microsoft [Seattle Times, earlier]
“Disabled” NYC firefighter/martial arts enthusiast can go on getting checks for life [NYPost; compare]
After the FDA enforcement action on drug manufacturing lapses come the tagalong liability claims by uninjured plaintiffs [Beck]
“What If Lower Court Judges Weren’t Bound by Supreme Court Precedent?” [Orin Kerr]
Fark.com settles a patent suit for $0 (rough language);
Canadian law society to pay $100K for asking prospective lawyers about mental illness [ABA Journal]
Self-help eviction? “Chinese Developers Accused Of Putting Scorpions In Apartments To Force Out Residents” [Business Insider]

Tags: Apple, China, disabled rights, FDA, firefighters, Microsoft, patent trolls, Steve Berman, Supreme Court, workers' compensation

August 11 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

Class action over XBox downloads, cont’d

Walter Olson — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 13:58:11 +0000

The actual content of the complaint isn’t quite as reported, per Siouxsie Law (earlier).

Tags: class actions, Microsoft, videogames

Class action over XBox downloads, cont’d is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

November 10 roundup

Walter Olson — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 19:32:17 +0000

Judge vacates $1.2 billion default judgment against PepsiCo [Watertown, Wisc. Daily Times, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, earlier]
“Democrats’ first spokesman on medical malpractice: former head of the Iowa Trial Lawyers Association.” [Ponnuru, NRO, on Iowa Rep. Bruce Braley] Related: Carter Wood at Point of Law, Washington Times, David Frum, Fort Worth Star-Telegram (on provision in health bill discouraging states from adopting limits on lawyers’ fees or awards).
Doubts about “scent lineups” in which police dogs are supposed to sniff out perps [Schwartz, NYT]
Claimant in Staten Island Ferry crash ran into trouble when he couldn’t prove he was on the boat [NYLJ]
New York courts strike out baseball injury claims on assumption of risk grounds [Hochfelder first, second, third posts; NYLJ]
“Microsoft frowned on for smiley patent” [Slashdot via Coleman]
“Step out of the loop, do something unusual” and run into an army of drones “whose sole job is to prevent their bosses from being sued.” [Never Yet Melted quoting British TV presenter Jeremy Clarkson on the U.S.]
“A veterinarian’s view on ‘defensive medicine'” [Patty Khuly, USA Today]

Tags: assumption of risk, baseball, defensive medicine, medical malpractice, Microsoft

November 10 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system

October 22 roundup

Walter Olson — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 04:13:54 +0000

Unsafe at any read: new Ralph Nader novel panned by Chris Hayes, Washington editor of The Nation [Barnes and Noble Review via Suderman, Reason]
Microsoft says “most, if not all” customer data from T-Mobile Sidekick smartphones has been recovered, but class action lawyers say they’re undeterred [Seattle P-I]
Sue them all and sort things out later? Lawsuit over Air France Airbus crash off coast of Brazil names long list of aerospace suppliers as defendants [Reuters]
“No cash for this clunker”: opposition mounts to proposal for Massachusetts public law school [Boston Herald editorial via Legal Blog Watch, earlier link roundup at Point of Law]
Ralph Lauren experiences Streisand Effect over skinny-model nastygram [Althouse, earlier]
High-profile L.A. plaintiff’s lawyer Walter Lack speaks under questioning about role in Nicaraguan banana-worker suit against Dole [Recorder, earlier, background] And: “Dole on a Roll: Court Declines to Enforce $97M Judgment” [WSJ Law Blog, Bloomberg]
Miller-Jenkins lesbian custody case, much meddled in by conservative religious groups, recalls the ways divorced dads get cut out of their kids’ lives [Glenn Sacks/Ned Holstein via Amy Alkon, background]
Daniel Kalder speculates on why the New York Times editorially “purred with approval” of the new FTC blogger regulations in such an “impressively superficial” way [Guardian Books Blog]. More on FTC’s semi-backtracking on the controversy: Media Bistro “Galleycat”, Publisher’s Weekly, Galleysmith. And having been hoping for ages to get a link some day from blogging legend Jason Kottke, this one will go in the souvenir file [Kottke.org]

Tags: aviation, banana pesticide litigation fraud, cellphones, child custody, class actions, FTC endorsement rules, Microsoft, Miller-Jenkins case, Ralph Nader, shotgun defendant selection, Streisand effect

October 22 roundup is a post from Overlawyered - Chronicling the high cost of our legal system