The same trio of lawyers brought a second complaint in under three weeks (see 1908260018) alleging Apple and Samsung are duping the public into believing their smartphones are safe. Recent testing found “the potential exposure for an owner carrying the phone in a pants or shirt pocket” was well over FCC RF emissions limits, but Apple and Samsung “hide this information from the public,” said the complaint (in Pacer) Tuesday in U.S. District Court in San Jose seeking class-action status. Both companies “intentionally misrepresented” the safety of their phones by assuring the public they had been “adequately tested” and were good to carry in “close proximity” to the body despite knowing RF exposure “was linked to cancer and other health risks,” it said. “Even when repeatedly faced with a wealth of warnings from scientists and the dangers associated with RF exposure from smartphones,” Apple and Samsung “make no effort to protect or warn current or prospective owners” of the health risks, it said. The complaint seeks restitution and other money damage for the profits Apple and Samsung made through their allegedly fraudulent behavior, plus an order demanding they pay the costs of health monitoring. Neither company commented Thursday.
Disney and Warner Bros. received a sought-after permanent injunction against streaming service VidAngel (see 1907300020). In an order Thursday (in Pacer, docket 16-04109), U.S. District Judge Andre Birotte of Los Angeles said the same reasons justify a permanent injunction as did the preliminary injunction previously awarded the plaintiffs. Those include irreparable injury, the inadequacy of legal remedies, the balance of hardships and the public interest, he said. Noting the $62.4 million verdict previously awarded in the copyright violation complain against VidAngel (see 1906180003), the judge said there was little direct evidence of actual money damages, so the high statutory damages reinforces the view the injury to the plaintiffs "is irreparable and that legal remedies are inadequate," especially because VidAngel likely won't be able to pay the award. It said VidAngel indicated it doesn't plan to restart its disc-based business, but there's no guarantee it won't so the permanent injunction isn't moot. VidAngel didn't comment Friday.
New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio and Consumer and Worker Protection Commissioner Lorelei Salas filed a lawsuit in the New York County Supreme Court against T-Mobile for allegedly violating the city’s consumer protection law. T-Mobile “engaged in multiple deceptive practices, including selling used phones as new, enrolling customers in expensive financing plans without their consent, deceiving consumers about its refund policy, overcharging customers and failing to provide customers with legal receipts,” the city alleged. The lawsuit targets T-Mobile, subsidiary MetroPCS NY and more than 50 authorized dealers and corporate stores. T-Mobile takes the allegations seriously and is investigating, a spokesperson said: “What we are seeing alleged here is completely at odds with the integrity of our team and the commitment they have to taking care of our customers.”
A solitary, unsolicited text message isn't enough to establish standing to sue in federal court, the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday, reversing a lower court's decision in a Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) complaint. In the docket 17-14077 order, Judges Lisa Branch and Danny Reeves remanded the complaint with instructions to dismiss without prejudice, with Judge Jill Pryor concurring. A former client of a Florida attorney sued in 2016 after receiving a multimedia text message offering a discount on services. A U.S. District Court judge in Miami rejected a defense motion to dismiss the claim based on lack of standing, but allowed an interlocutory appeal. The appellate court said 11th Circuit precedent and the language of the TCPA are silent on unsolicited text message issues, but lawmaker focus on telemarketing points to a single text message being "qualitatively different from the kinds of things Congress was concerned about." The decision, penned by Branch, likened receiving a single text to having a flyer waved in one's face on a busy sidewalk -- "annoying, perhaps, but not a basis for invoking the jurisdiction of the federal courts." Pryor agreed the plaintiff had no standing to bring a TCPA claim but wrote separately to make clear the opinion was narrow and doesn't address whether a plaintiff receiving multiple unwanted texts would have standing to sue under TCPA. Class litigation defense lawyer Scott Goldsmith of Dorsey & Whitney, who wasn't involved in the Florida litigation, emailed that the 11th Circuit decision "applied a large dose of common sense." He said single-text message cases are usually filed as putative TCPA class actions and the plaintiff's bar will now likely look elsewhere, such as the 9th Circuit, where a single text message can stand up to standing scrutiny. Plaintiff's counsel didn't comment.
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted Qualcomm a partial stay Friday in its appeal of an FTC lawsuit over the company's alleged mobile chip monopoly (see 1907230045). The ruling affects portions of an earlier decision barring the chipmaker “from conditioning chip sales on the purchase of patent licenses.” The court also set oral argument on Qualcomm’s expedited appeal for January. The company believes the district court’s ruling will be overturned, said Executive Vice President Donald Rosenberg. The decision allows the company to “continue to invest in inventing the fundamental technologies at the heart of mobile communications at this critical time of transition to 5G.” The FTC looks forward to defending the district court’s decision, said Competition Bureau Director Bruce Hoffman, noting the agency will continue to monitor whether Qualcomm is meeting obligations. He noted other provisions remain in effect during appeal: “Qualcomm may not enter express or de facto exclusive dealing agreements for the supply of modem chips; Qualcomm may not interfere with the ability of any customer to communicate with government agencies; and Qualcomm must submit to compliance and monitoring procedures.”
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals denied a petition for rehearing Thursday in a lawsuit (in Pacer) alleging Facebook violated a federal robotexting law. The three-judge panel unanimously rejected the petition in Duguid v. Facebook. The case is a class-action lawsuit led by Noah Duguid, a Montana resident, who in 2014 claimed he repeatedly received unwanted text messages from Facebook.
A New Jersey federal court judge dismissed consumer fraud claims Tuesday in an amended complaint (in Pacer) that alleges Samsung and Sony smart TVs spied on the private viewing habits of their owners. U.S. District Judge Madeline Cox Arleo let the case go forward on allegations that the TV makers may have captured more than just "static identifiers" such as IP addresses and ZIP codes, in possible violation of the Wiretap Act. Plaintiffs "have adequately alleged that their 'content' was intercepted," said the judge. On the fraud claim, New Jersey plaintiff Patricia Cauley claimed she wouldn't have purchased her Samsung smart TV -- or would have paid substantially less for it -- if she had known the company would collect her personal and viewing data. The jurist said Cauley failed to demonstrate that her loss was “quantifiable or measurable,” and the claim was dismissed. The findings were similar for Florida resident Thomas White, who filed a consumer fraud claim under Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act over one Sony and two Samsung smart TVs. White alleged the smart TVs he bought had a tracking feature that “impaired the value of the televisions.” Plaintiffs must be able to calculate or quantify an ascertainable loss but did not do so, the judge wrote.
Dish Network seeks to shut down what it calls an “illicit” streaming service called IPGuys for allegedly retransmitting Dish programming without authorization, violating the Communications Act. Dish traced the unauthorized programming to at least seven “seeder accounts,” each created “with what appears to be false or inaccurate information,” said a complaint Wednesday (in Pacer) in U.S. District Court in Brooklyn. A valid “device code” is required to watch Dish on IPGuys, which sells the codes for $15 monthly through “a network of resellers,” said the complaint. The codes are “compatible with various set-top boxes,” it said. The complaint alleged Ottawa resident Tomasz Kaczmarek is the IPGuys ringleader and that John and Julia Defoe, a Brooklyn couple, are his co-conspirators. Dish hopes through discovery to learn the identities of “potentially other responsible parties,” it said. Attempts to locate the defendants' lawyers for comment were unsuccessful. It's the second known legal crackdown in recent weeks of allegedly illicit streaming services for pirating Dish programming (see 1908010016).
The Apple Music service, plus the equipment, software and applications "implementing" it, infringe four U.S. patents dating to 2006 describing methods of creating and posting media for playback or for sharing in a communications network, alleged a complaint (in Pacer) Friday in U.S. District Court in Chicago. Plaintiff Post Media owns the patents, all naming technology entrepreneur Alan Bartholomew as the sole inventor, said the complaint. Patent and Trademark Office records show they were originally assigned to Trio Systems in Pasadena, California. The patents are “rooted in computerized electronic data communications networks,” and describe “an improved method to deliver content and provide interface among different accounts and computing systems,” said the complaint. Bartholomew is nearing retirement and “spent much money and effort to develop his inventions and procure patents,” it said. He “hopes to recoup his costs without incurring financial risk to his family,” and so “turned to Post Media, whose purpose in part is to conduct the work necessary to reward and provide compensation to Mr. Bartholomew for the patents in suit,” it said. Apple didn’t comment.
Florida startup Corellium bases its business “entirely on commercializing the illegal replication of the copyrighted operating system and applications that run on Apple’s iPhone, iPad, and other Apple devices,” alleged an Apple complaint (in Pacer) Thursday in U.S. District Court in West Palm Beach: “This is a straightforward case of infringement of highly valuable copyrighted works,” said the complaint, which was inexplicably terminated early Friday. “The product Corellium offers is a ‘virtual’ version of Apple mobile hardware products, accessible to anyone with a web browser,” it alleged. “Corellium serves up what it touts as a perfect digital facsimile of a broad range of Apple’s market-leading devices.” It recreates them “with fastidious attention to detail not just the way the operating system and applications appear visually to bona fide purchasers, but also the underlying computer code,” it said. It has “no license or permission from Apple,” it said. “Enough is enough.” Apple sought permanent injunction effectively shutting down Corellium, plus an order requiring notifications sent to all Corellium customers that continued use of the products “infringes Apple’s copyrights.” Corellium didn’t comment Friday, nor did Apple.