This week, the subject is whether Apple, Google, and other tech giants have conspired to break antitrust laws.
https://archive.org/details/LegalGeekEp10
An initial settlement was announced of a class action lawsuit that had been pending against Apple, Google, Intel, and Adobe since 2011. This lawsuit alleged illegal deals to not hire away each other's employees in an effort to keep salaries down in Silicon Valley.
But does this settlement mean this collusion was actually happening?
As a preliminary matter, a class action lawsuit that extends over a multiple year period can lead to some very extensive discovery of documents and interviews or interrogatories as well. In this pre-trial litigation process, several "smoking gun" e-mails had already been uncovered and made public. Most notably, former CEO's Steve Jobs and Eric Schmidt corresponded about a Google recruiter being fired after soliciting an Apple employee to leave for Google.
In other words, the evidence that came to light does not look good. Rather than go to trial and more publicly have their companies and executives dragged through the litigation mud, these high tech giants are cutting the potential losses by paying some amount to the class of employees, but this payment is certainly far less than the $3 billion of damages sought.
For example, Lucasfilm, Pixar, and Intuit were also defendants in this lawsuit but they settled last year for a total of $20 million between them.
This class action followed a Department of Justice investigation in 2010, where all these companies had to agree to stop using backroom agreements to not compete with one another in the employee market. Thus, at least as recently as a few years ago, these companies were almost certainly acting as a cartel of sorts, at least for this limited purpose, and that restraint of trade is not legal under federal and state antitrust laws.
Bottom Line: Although these companies do love to battle in court when it comes to competing patents, the competition does apparently stop when it inures to the mutual benefit and profit margins of all involved. Hopefully the DOJ investigation and this class action payday will discourage such practices from happening again in the future.
Thursday, April 24, 2014
Thursday, April 10, 2014
Legal Geek No. 9 - Will Apple Make Texting While Driving Legal Again?
Welcome back to Legal Geek! The topic this week is whether a new Apple patent application is the first step in making texting while driving legal again in most jurisdictions.
https://archive.org/details/LegalGeekEp09
One of the more interesting recent Apple-owned patent applications (U.S. Application No. 13/627,959 - Publication No. 2014/0085334) published this week at the US Patent Office. The invention is entitled Transparent Texting, the idea basically boiling down to using the rear-facing camera to stream through an image of what is in front of the user as a background to texting. Thus, someone walking and texting, or even hypothetically, driving and texting, can continue to see in front of them while focusing on the phone screen.
Leaving aside whether Apple will actually be able to secure a patent on this idea (and that is a highly gray area), this application could have far-reaching legal consequences if Apple executes this invention in new phone designs.
For example, if the problem with distracted driving is lost focus on the road, this application could solve that problem by keeping the focus on the message bubbles and the underlying background of the road. While some of the claims are to a mobile device like a phone, the method claims are broader and could encompass phones or displays that are an integral part of the car. Imagine if text bubbles could show up on your windshield as the windshield brings you a high definition look of what cameras outside the car see? Would it still be distracted driving?
Unfortunately, the only way to know is if local lawmakers allow people to try out such freedoms. At least until car safety technology moves beyond automatic emergency brakes to more automated vehicle controls, it is unlikely that this, or a Google glass, or anything of the ilk will make texting while driving legal.
Bottom line: if you need to text, just pull over. Someday technology will help us overcome human focus problems, but until then, patents like this are just mere convenience for pedestrians.
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Thanks for reading. Please provide feedback and legal-themed questions as segment suggestions to me on Twitter @BuckeyeFitzy or in the comments below.
https://archive.org/details/LegalGeekEp09
One of the more interesting recent Apple-owned patent applications (U.S. Application No. 13/627,959 - Publication No. 2014/0085334) published this week at the US Patent Office. The invention is entitled Transparent Texting, the idea basically boiling down to using the rear-facing camera to stream through an image of what is in front of the user as a background to texting. Thus, someone walking and texting, or even hypothetically, driving and texting, can continue to see in front of them while focusing on the phone screen.
Leaving aside whether Apple will actually be able to secure a patent on this idea (and that is a highly gray area), this application could have far-reaching legal consequences if Apple executes this invention in new phone designs.
For example, if the problem with distracted driving is lost focus on the road, this application could solve that problem by keeping the focus on the message bubbles and the underlying background of the road. While some of the claims are to a mobile device like a phone, the method claims are broader and could encompass phones or displays that are an integral part of the car. Imagine if text bubbles could show up on your windshield as the windshield brings you a high definition look of what cameras outside the car see? Would it still be distracted driving?
Unfortunately, the only way to know is if local lawmakers allow people to try out such freedoms. At least until car safety technology moves beyond automatic emergency brakes to more automated vehicle controls, it is unlikely that this, or a Google glass, or anything of the ilk will make texting while driving legal.
Bottom line: if you need to text, just pull over. Someday technology will help us overcome human focus problems, but until then, patents like this are just mere convenience for pedestrians.
------
Thanks for reading. Please provide feedback and legal-themed questions as segment suggestions to me on Twitter @BuckeyeFitzy or in the comments below.
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