Prime Global Source (PGS) dupes “unwitting entrepreneurs” to spend thousands on get-rich seminars and training programs by misrepresenting itself as an Amazon affiliate, Amazon alleged in a federal trademark-infringement lawsuit Friday. PGS uses logos “that are confusingly similar or nearly identical to Amazon’s distinctive trademarks,” said the complaint (in Pacer) in U.S. District Court in Salt Lake City. The promised riches “do not materialize for the vast majority of PGS students,” it said. “Those students have then turned to Amazon for answers, mistakenly believing that Amazon” has a PGS affiliation. The misbehavior “seriously damages Amazon’s reputation and the goodwill and trustworthiness associated with the Amazon Marks,” said the complaint. The Better Business Bureau website lists 28 consumer complaints against PGS, many calling the operation a scam for failing to deliver on promised goods or services and refusing to refund their money. Attempts to reach PGS Monday were unsuccessful.

CTIA is back at the Supreme Court with its challenge of an RF disclosure law by Berkeley, California. The Supreme Court filed CTIA’s Monday petition for writ of certiorari in case No. 19-439, the court’s clerk said in a Wednesday notice (in Pacer) to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Answering a Supreme Court remand, the appeals court in July upheld for a second time Berkeley’s law that requires the wireless industry to provide a warning about possible dangers of overexposure to wireless frequencies (see 1907020059). The 9th Circuit expanded the scope of the Supreme Court’s 1985 Zauderer decision and “watered down its requirements, holding that all compelled speech about the speaker’s products is subject to rational-basis review,” said CTIA's petition. “These holdings substantially increase the government’s ability to dictate the speech of commercial actors, in direct conflict with the precedent of this Court and other circuits.” Berkeley expected CTIA’s appeal and is “evaluating the petition,” City Attorney Farimah Brown emailed Thursday.

Samsung “without cause and justification” failed to pay XPO more than $357,000 it owes XPO for warehouse management services it performed at a Samsung facility in Bethel, Pennsylvania, alleged a brief of contract complaint (in Pacer) Monday in U.S. District Court in Wilmington, Delaware. XPO may continue to invoice Samsung for services rendered, but if the invoices aren't “timely paid,” it will “suffer continuing harm and its damages will continue to accrue,” it said. XPO tried unsuccessfully to resolve the “dispute” before filing the lawsuit, it said. Samsung didn’t comment.

Duracell’s product packaging and ads are duping consumers into believing that its Optimum batteries “are more powerful and longer lasting than all other AA or AAA batteries, when they are not -- and Duracell knows they are not,” alleged archrival Energizer in a complaint (in Pacer) in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. “Only those rare consumers” willing to read Duracell’s fine print will “uncover Duracell’s actual, more limited claim” that Optimum cells may provide longer life and more power compared with Duracell’s own Coppertop batteries, it said Monday. “These paltry and sporadic benefits are not the stuff great ads are made of.” Instead of “conspicuously disclosing these numerous caveats and limitations to consumers,” Duracell decided to “conceal them in barely legible disclaimers that contradict the prominent (but false) claims regarding the Optimum batteries’ performance,” it said. Alleging false advertising under the 1946 Lanham Act, Energizer urges an “immediate” injunction “to protect the public from Duracell’s unlawful behavior,” said the complaint. Duracell didn’t comment Monday.

Broadcasters suing streaming retransmission service Locast for copyright infringement (see 1907310043) are trying to intimidate it into shutting down, or to bury it "under costly and needless litigation," Locast answered and counterclaimed Friday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan (docket 19-cv-7136, in Pacer). It said the litigation is part of a broader campaign to undermine Locast and chill potential donations, with current and prospective Sports Fans Coalition (SFC) donors and business partners putting that relationship on hold since the lawsuit. It said the Copyright Act is unambiguous about allowing nonprofits to make secondary transmissions of a performance of a copyrighted work. It said claims against SFC founder David Goodfriend aren't permissible since he isn't compensated by Locast operator SFC. Locast said broadcasters are increasingly failing to make over-the-air signals freely available. It said the "sham copyright infringement claim" is part of an effort to limit access to terrestrial TV so consumers are forced to use subscription video. It asked the court to enjoin the broadcasters from any agreement preventing competition in retransmission services. Outside counsel for broadcast plaintiffs didn't comment.

Nanosys’ deadline was extended to Nov. 4 for filing a response to NNCrystal’s patent infringement complaint, said a stipulation and order signed Wednesday by U.S. District Judge Richard Andrews in Wilmington, Delaware. NNCrystal’s July lawsuit alleged Nanosys produces quantum-dot materials at its Silicon Valley plant using processes that infringe a 13-year-old patent on nanocrystal manufacturing (see 1907150019). The University of Arkansas board of trustees, which actually owns the patent and licenses it exclusively to NNCrystal, joined the case as a co-plaintiff in mid-September (see 1909140001).

Dunkin’ Donuts failed to tell nearly 20,000 customers their accounts were compromised in a 2015 cyberattack, alleged New York Attorney General Letitia James (D) in a lawsuit Thursday. Tens of thousands of dollars from customer “DD” card accounts were stolen after the company failed to take reasonable safeguards to protect the data, said James. The company didn’t notify the customers or reset their accounts to end unauthorized access, she alleged. The company didn't investigate, which would have helped “it determine which other accounts had been compromised, what customer information had been acquired, and whether customer funds had been stolen,” she said. The company didn’t comment.

The NFL and a variety of sports bars and individuals are at odds over potential rehearing of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' reversal of a lower court dismissal of a class-action antitrust complaint on DirecTV's Sunday Ticket package (see 1908140015). The plaintiff-appellants sports fans said Tuesday in a docket 17-56119 opposition to rehearing en banc (in Pacer) that the panel decision that they had a valid claim for relief was unanimous and there's no conflict with any Supreme Court or 9th Circuit precedent. They also said the defendants are free to try to show in the case that their restrictions on football game telecasts aren't anticompetitive. The NFL defendant-appellees, in a petition (in Pacer) for rehearing en banc, said the reversal creates intra-circuit conflicts and goes against the Supreme Court's 1977 Illinois Brick decision on indirect purchasers pursuing antitrust damages claims.

Quantum dots technology developer NNCrystal US added the University of Arkansas board of trustees as a second plaintiff in its patent-infringement lawsuit against Nanosys (see 1907150019), said an amended complaint (in Pacer) Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Wilmington, Delaware. The lawsuit accuses Nanosys of producing QD materials in California using processes that infringe U.S. patent 7,105,051. The school owns the 13-year-old patent, but gave NNCrystal an exclusive license to the invention, including the right to sue for infringement, said the complaint. Xiaogang Peng, one of the patent's three Fayetteville, Arkansas, inventors, who was a chemistry professor at the university before he left teaching and founded NNCrystal in 2001 to commercialize his inventions, it said. Nanosys declined comment Monday. It previously denied NNCrystal’s infringement allegations.

The success AT&T claimed it was having with its DirecTV Now streaming service was "a complete mirage," with the company inflating subscriber numbers with fake customer accounts, and the stock falling when the service's churn issues and unprofitability came to light, said an amended consolidated complaint (docket 19-cv-02892) filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. Union pension fund investors alleged AT&T used "improper" sales tactics such as quotas and heavy pressure on its sales force to artificially inflate DirecTV Now subscriber numbers and create "an unsustainable house of cards," while the company downplayed how much it was relying on discounting and promotions. The suit asks for a determination the defendants violated the Securities Act and/or the Exchange Act, and for unspecified damages. The carrier emailed Monday it "plan[s]to fight these baseless claims in court.”