Apple Ducks iPhone Web App Antitrust Suit, For Now

By Bryan Koenig

Consumers will have to rejigger their proposed antitrust class action alleging Apple anticompetitively prevents iPhones from running web-based apps that don't need to be downloaded, after a California federal judge said Thursday that they've failed to show a conspiracy or connect the dots from company rules to customer injury.

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Analysis

Patent Cases To Watch In The Second Half Of 2024

By Ryan Davis

A U.S. Supreme Court case over the reach of the judicially created double patenting doctrine and a dispute over which patents branded drugmakers can list in a federal database are among the cases attorneys will have their eyes on for the rest of the year.

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VLSI Tells Fed. Circ. IPR Should Have Ended After Sanctions

By Dani Kass

VLSI Technology is urging the Federal Circuit to revive the patent it used to win a $1.5 billion infringement verdict against Intel, saying the Patent Trial and Appeal Board's invalidation was tainted by mishandled sanctions proceedings.

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TikTok's Bid For Users' Device Data Found Overbroad

By Dorothy Atkins

A California federal magistrate judge overseeing discovery in multidistrict litigation over claims that social media is addictive denied TikTok's request Thursday for "full" forensic images of all personal devices bellwether plaintiffs used to access its platform, telling defense counsel that he's concerned about the "overbreadth" of the request and privacy issues.

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Media Matters Fights Texas AG's Bid To Revive X Probe

By Ali Sullivan

Media Matters for America is urging the D.C. Circuit to keep intact a court order prohibiting Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton from investigating the media watchdog over its reporting about the social media platform X, asserting that the D.C. courts are the correct place to litigate the "retaliatory" probe.

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Ropes & Gray, Paul Weiss Steer Bain's $4.5B Envestnet Buy

By Al Barbarino

Ropes & Gray-led Bain Capital will buy Envestnet Inc., guided by Paul Weiss, in a take-private deal that values the financial technology company at $4.5 billion, Envestnet said in a statement Thursday. 

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Sens. Say AI Fuels Need For Data Privacy Law But Fail To Act

By Allison Grande

Members of a key U.S. Senate committee Thursday largely agreed that companies' growing efforts to amass private information to fuel artificial intelligence technologies are accelerating the need for a federal data privacy framework, but they failed to make progress on a bipartisan proposal opposed by the committee's top Republican.

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Consumer Groups Get EU Court's OK To Bring Data Claims

By Jamie Lennox

Representative organizations can bring privacy litigation for individuals if the organizations can prove a breach resulted from the processing of personal data, the European Union's top court ruled Thursday in tech giant Meta's dispute with a German consumer rights body.

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ISP Group Says FCC Remote Learning Plan On Shaky Ground

By Christopher Cole

Internet service providers say the Federal Communications Commision needs to revisit a proposal to fund Wi-Fi hot spots for students after the U.S. Supreme Court recently overturned the Chevron doctrine, which gave wide judicial deference to agencies.

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Brief

Feds Seek Input On 37 GHz Sharing Plans

By Christopher Cole

Federal regulators intend to ask for the public's input in August about a possible revamp of the lower 37 gigahertz airwaves, the U.S. Department of Commerce said.

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Judge Won't Dismiss Cannabis Extraction IP Dispute

By Jonathan Capriel

Subsidiaries of Canadian cannabis company Halo Collective Inc. can't escape patent infringement claims by a Colorado-based firm specializing in developing techniques for extracting hemp oil, a California federal judge has ruled, rejecting a slew of motions seeking summary judgment.

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Vidal Says Late Response Isn't An 'Abandonment' Of IPR

By Adam Lidgett

The head of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office has thrown out a Patent Trial and Appeal Board decision that issued a loss to an owner of a patent covering a portable backup charger, sending the case back to the board.

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Customers Want Domino's Kept In BIPA Voiceprint Suit

By Celeste Bott

Domino's Pizza customers told an Illinois federal judge Wednesday that the chain's corporate parent should face their lawsuit over the state's biometric privacy law, saying Domino's can't shield itself given the "unusually high degree of control" it has over the subsidiaries that ultimately own the restaurants they ordered from.

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Expensify Says Suit Over IPO Disclosures, Biden Support Fails

By Sydney Price

Expense management software company Expensify has asked a federal judge to toss a federal lawsuit accusing it of concealing the details of a new pricing strategy and the effects of statements its CEO made urging customers to vote for President Joe Biden in the 2020 election in order to prop up shares ahead of its initial public offering.

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Investor Alleges Sales Changes Hurt Software Co.'s Growth

By Emilie Ruscoe

Software company MongoDB Inc. and two of its executives are facing a proposed investor class action claiming they misguided shareholders about the anticipated impact of a change to the company's sales practices the executives recently cited while revising growth projections downward, causing the company's share price to nosedive.

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South Korea Looks To Nix $32M Award To U.S. Hedge Fund

By Caroline Simson

South Korea said Thursday that it will look to overturn an arbitral award ordering it to pay some $32 million to a U.S. hedge fund following a dispute over a government bribery scandal that allegedly underpinned the $8 billion merger of two Samsung affiliates in 2015.

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Earned Wealth Secures $200M, Buys Peer Thomas Doll

By Jade Martinez-Pogue

DLA Piper-advised Earned Wealth announced on Thursday that it received a $200 million growth investment from growth equity investors while simultaneously unveiling its acquisition of fellow medical professional-focused financial services firm Thomas Doll.

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Chancery Orders Invictus Fund Sides To Provide Case Update

By Jeff Montgomery

Pointing to hints of clarity in a distressed credit and special-situations fund's murky, 9-month-old battle for documents and cash held by its general partner and investment manager, a Delaware vice chancellor on Thursday ordered the two sides to produce a case update by Tuesday.

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Frontier Communications Fined $2.5M Over Quality Standards

By Brian Steele

Connecticut's utility regulator has ordered Frontier Communications to pay nearly $2.5 million in penalties after finding that the company repeatedly violated mandates for maintenance, repair of service problems and filing reports with the state dating back to 2015.

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SF Fed Sues Troubled PPP Lender, Founder For Nearly $67M

By Katryna Perera

The San Francisco arm of the Federal Reserve has sued one of the largest Paycheck Protection Program lenders in Puerto Rico federal court seeking to recover nearly $67 million, alleging the lender has defaulted on the terms of roughly $4.3 billion in credit it advanced for PPP loans.

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MoFo Lands NY Tech Partner From Goodwin

By Tracey Read

Morrison Foerster LLP has added a technology group partner from Goodwin LLP to join its technology transactions group in New York.

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FBI Raid Signals Growing Criminal Enforcement Of Algorithms

The U.S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division's increased willingness to pursue the use of algorithmic pricing as a potential criminal violation means that companies need to understand the software solutions they employ and stay abreast of antitrust best practices when contracting with providers, say attorneys at Rule Garza.

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Trending At The PTAB: Multiple Petitions In IPRs

Recent Patent Trial and Appeal Board decisions and a proposed rulemaking indicate the board’s intention to continue to take a tougher stance on multiple inter partes review petitions challenging the same patent, presenting key factors for petitioners to consider, like the necessity of parallel filings and serial petitions, say Yinan Liu and Cory Bell at Finnegan.

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Unpacking Pressures, Trends Affecting Global Supply Chains

A recent HSBC report reveals a number of trends and challenges for global supply chains in the current uncertain geopolitical landscape, and with constant emerging opportunities, companies that can stay informed, be proactive and adapt to change will be well positioned to succeed, says Michelle Craven-Faulkner at Shoosmiths.

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Opinion

States Should Loosen Law Firm Ownership Restrictions

Despite growing buzz, normalized nonlawyer ownership of law firms is a distant prospect, so the legal community should focus first on liberalizing state restrictions on attorney and firm purchases of practices, which would bolster succession planning and improve access to justice, says Michael Di Gennaro at The Law Practice Exchange.

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In Case You Missed It: Hottest Firms And Stories On Law360

For those who missed out, here's a look back at the law firms, stories and expert analyses that generated the most buzz on Law360 last week.

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Cuomo Beats Retaliation Claims In NY Trooper's Suit

By Gina Kim

Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo defeated retaliation claims in a state trooper's lawsuit alleging she was sexually harassed while serving in Cuomo's security detail, after a federal judge said Friday that no employment relationship existed because Cuomo resigned months before his purported threat to seek prosecution of his alleged victims.

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Whistleblower's Attys Get $5.9M After Losing $11.5M Fee Ask

By Dorothy Atkins

A Massachusetts federal judge on Thursday awarded a whistleblower's counsel $5.9 million in fees plus $651,845 in costs and expenses after slashing their prior "exorbitant" $11.5 million fee request in May in a decade-old False Claims Act lawsuit alleging Fresenius Medical Care billed Medicare for unnecessary hepatitis tests.

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UK Litigation Roundup: Here's What You Missed In London

By Max Austin

This past week in London has seen the owner of the Lambretta scooter brand Innocenti SA embroiled in a trademark dispute with a property developer, a clash between two art dealers over a collection of tapestries, Telecom Italia pursue a debt claim against a competing telecommunications company, and performing arts trade union Equity hit a casting directory for charging unfair subscription fees on actors. Here, Law360 looks at these and other new claims in the U.K.

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Ex-Magellan Execs Waive Conflicts Over Past Shared Counsel

By Julie Manganis

Two former Magellan Diagnostics executives charged with conspiring to hide defects in the company's lead testing devices agreed on Friday to waive any potential conflict created by their prior joint representation by a Donnelly Conroy & Gelhaar LLP attorney.

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Brief

Former Colorado Court Workers Settle Sexism Claims

By Daniel Ducassi

The Colorado State Courts Administrator's Office said in a joint notice that it has settled a lawsuit in Denver District Court with two former workers who said they were laid off as part of a broader pattern of gender discrimination against female employees.

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Conn.'s Child Advocate Departs For Top Role At Nonprofit

By Christine DeRosa

The attorney who led Connecticut's Office of the Child Advocate for more than a decade is stepping down this fall to return to a legal nonprofit as its executive director.

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Analysis

Biggest Colorado Decisions Of 2024: A Midyear Report

By Daniel Ducassi

The U.S. Supreme Court's quick reversal of Colorado justices' decision removing former President Donald Trump from the state's ballots and a Boulder County judge's ruling clearing the way for landmark climate litigation about major oil companies rank among the most important decisions affecting Colorado so far this year.

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Paul Weiss Hopes To Stem Exits With New Partner Structure

By Matt Perez

Brad Karp, chairman of Paul Weiss Rifkind Wharton & Garrison, shared in a podcast published Thursday that the firm has followed a new two-track partnership compensation model as a means to combat retention issues plaguing similar firms.

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Litigation Funding 'Abuses' Targeted By Federal Lawmakers

By Bonnie Eslinger

Federal lawmakers are seeking to put the reins on third-party investors bankrolling litigation, with Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., introducing legislation that would require disclosure of third-party financing deals in civil lawsuits, and Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., asking Chief Justice John Roberts on Friday to have the Judicial Conference review the practice.

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Lin Wood Wants Judge Disqualified In Ga. Defamation Case

By Emily Johnson

Controversial retired Georgia attorney L. Lin Wood has asked that a Georgia federal judge be disqualified from presiding over a defamation case he's facing from his former law partners, arguing that the case involved two witnesses from Alston & Bird LLP, where the judge previously worked.

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GC Cheat Sheet: The Hottest Corporate News Of The Week

By Sue Reisinger

General counsel at companies involved in environmental litigation scored victories and suffered some setbacks this week, including the dismissal of a Baltimore city suit seeking climate damages as well as Marathon Oil's record-setting $241.5 million Clean Air Act settlement.

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Guo Trial Juror Booted For Googling Fugitive Co-Defendant

By Rachel Scharf

The jury in Chinese dissident Miles Guo's $1 billion fraud and racketeering case was forced to restart its verdict deliberations on Friday after a juror was cut loose for Google-searching Guo's fugitive financial adviser and co-defendant William Je.

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