The shares in US VoIP firm Vonage dropped as low as 33.2% down on Tuesday in reaction to yesterday’s patent case order against them. They’re down a further 19.2% 23.1% today, as we write.
Category: Legal
Items involving the law or legal action
GPL Legal Action In USA Against Monsoon Multimedia
US company, Monsoon Multimedia is being taken to court for violating the terms of the open source NGU General Public License (GPL) of the BusyBox project.
This is the first time this has happened in the US, as previous infringements have been sorted out through correspondence and talking. Having been through this process already and not getting the desired outcome, the SFLC (Software Freedom Law Center) feels there is on option by to pursue it through the US courts.
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Microsoft European Anti-Trust Appeal: Actual Judgement Text
With the overview of Microsoft losing of their European appeal against the European court case completed, we thought you’d appreciate the actual judgement handed down.
1. Annuls Article 7 of Commission Decision 2007/53/EC of 24 March 2004 relating to a proceeding pursuant to Article 82 [EC] and Article 54 of the EEA Agreement against Microsoft Corp. (Case COMP/C-3/37.792 – Microsoft), in so far as:
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Microsoft Loses European Anti-Trust Appeal
Microsoft has lost its appeal against a court ruling that they abused their dominant position in Europe.
The judgement released today was handed down by the European Court of First Instance – following the hearings on 24, 25, 26, 27 and 28 April 2006 – is huge, running to 1373 points.
In the courts words “The Court of First Instance essentially upholds the Commission’s decision finding that Microsoft abused its dominant position,” this is despite Microsoft providing their own shortlist of people they found acceptable to provide evident to the court and request to delay the hearing.
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UK Public Slow To VaVaVoom VoIP
Phone services offering freebie calls over the Internet are still only being used by a niche following according to new research.
A study by Ofcom has discovered that Voice- Over-Internet- Protocol (VoIP) services – like those offered by Skype, BT and Tesco – have failed to fire the public imagination.
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OFT Look Into Sky Buying Amstrad
The UK Office of Fair Trading has issued an Invitation to Comment on the proposed deal of Amstrad being bought by Sky.
The OFT does this when they thing that the deal needs to be looked at and is the first stage of possibly taking it further.
We’re sure that this will be welcomed by the various other companies that currently provide Sky with digiboxes around the world, and potentially by other too.
If you want to leave a comment, details can be found on the OFT site.
Google Car License Plate: Sweden
News reaches us from Helsingborg, on the gorgeous west coast of Sweden, that some sneaky chap has registered their car license plate as G O O G L E.
Joakim Jardenberg, the clever fellow who thought up the jolly wheeze, has also blogged the adventure (for those of you who read Swedish!).
He raises some interesting points about brands and by extension, individuals registering trade marks as car registrations, while pointing out that “one of the highest valued brands in the world, Google, is now my number plate.”
Anyone for “adPlate or plateSense,” japes Joakim, who is a development manager at the newspaper, Helsingborgs Dagblad (who have the super cool short domain name hd.se).
What’s Google reaction?
Rather amusingly, Joakim’s been on to Google Sweden and has had a response from Maria Göth, their PR manager.
Google have made a statement about … not making a statement, which reads
We cannot make a statement before we know exactly what has happened. The persons at “Vägverket” (The authority which is responsible for the roads and car regulations) who handles personal number plates is on vacation but we shall contact them on Monday.
We await further news with bated breath …
Many thanks to Anders Olausson, long time chum on Digital-Lifestyles for the pointer.
Illegal Music Downloads Hit All Time High
Illegal music downloads have soared to an all-time high, with more people than ever filling up their hard drives with MP3 booty according to the Digital Music Survey 2007 study.
Now in its fourth year, the survey – carried out by Entertainment Media Research in conjunction with media lawyers Olswang – found that 43% of UK consumers admitted to downloading music without paying for it, adding up to a hefty hike from 36% in 2006.
Ofcom Wants VoIP 999 Services
Ofcom has published a proposal that some VoIP services should allow users to call 999 to connect to emergency services as soon as by early 2008.
They’ve carried out research that has revealed that as many as 78% of those with VoIP thought that they could, or did not know if they could.
Ofcom’s concern is that VoIP users cannot connect to emergency services when they really need it – ie. in an emergency.
If people have to locate a landline or mobile phone, costing them a delay of seconds or minutes in getting through to emergency services, it could prove critical.
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Social Networkers Warned Over ID Theft
A credit information group has warned that users of popular Internet networking sites may be putting themselves at increased risk of suffering identity theft
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