Here’s what Texas-based law firm AbingtonIP says to justify their new suit:

Although modification of Xbox consoles is arguably against the terms of use for Xbox/Xbox Live, Microsoft ‘conveniently’ timed the Xbox console ban to coincide with the release of the new Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 game and less than two months after the release of the very popular Halo 3: ODST game.

I’m not sure that modding consoles is “arguably” against the terms of use; it is against the terms of use. And why wouldn’t they want to keep people from pirating their biggest game of the year?

Certainly, anyone who is banned who hasn’t modded their console has a legitimate bone to pick with Microsoft, and there’s no defending their heavy-handed banning tactics and their collateral damage. But to suggest they’re intentionally banning legit accounts in order to get people to sign up again, well, that’s pretty stupid. [TG Daily via Engadget]

US District Court Judge Timothy Batten Sr remarked that people might “misunderstand” the commercials, “but that doesn’t mean they’re misleading”. He continued to add that “most people who are watching TV are semi-catatonic” to begin with. Let’s hope his train of thought remains during the follow-up hearing on December 16, because the case is starting to lose any entertainment value. [AJC via Engadget]

When your lawsuits sound like press releases, it’s because they probably are (not that we care, the whole case is pretty entertaining). Check out this opening statement from Verizon:

AT&T did not file this lawsuit because Verizon’s “There’s A Map For That” advertisements are untrue; AT&T sued because Verizon’s ads are true and the truth hurts.

YA BURNT, AT&T! Verizon goes on to accuse AT&T of failing to adequately expand its 3G coverage to match demand for its smartphones, which is sort of a hard point for AT&T to argue. Verizon claims that its advertisements are “literally true” (instead of philosophically true? Metaphorically true? True in the sense in which it is used in animal husbandry, as in purebred? What?) and not misleading, and that AT&T has failed to provide customers with an accurate map of its coverage. It’s pretty great, really — if you’ve ever wished the American legal system was more like it is on Law and Order, this whole statement is a gift. [Engadget]

Here’s how Intel describes the settlement:

Intel Corporation and Advanced Micro Devices today announced a comprehensive agreement to end all outstanding legal disputes between the companies, including antitrust litigation and patent cross licence disputes.

So, they’re not fighting directly anymore, and the mountains of patent and antitrust disputes are resolved: Intel will pay this ridiculously large sum of money to AMD, and agree to not engage in anything even resembling monopolistic behaviour, and both companies will live in harmony, cross-licensing technologies and competing, but softly! Great. Well, sort of: Intel’s biggest problems right now don’t come from other companies, but from governments: Complaints from AMD no doubt helped spur investigations by the European Commission and New York Attorney General into Intel’s business practices, and as part of the agreement AMD is withdrawing their complaints with both agencies, but the EC issued their $US1 billion+ fine quite a while ago and from the looks of it, the AG’s office is eager to move forward with their investigation too. In other words, this probably isn’t the end of the pain for Intel.

That, kids, is why you don’t engage in anticompetitive practices in a two-company industry. [WSJ Law Blog]

Hank calls the technique equivalent to a virtual cover-band playing The Beatles’ songs. He bought all of their albums, had a computer analyse the waveforms to determine their pitch, timbre and other defining qualities, then destroyed the original copies of the music.

He then had a computer reconstruct the songs based on the data it collected from analysing the waveforms. It wasn’t a recording, but a complete mathematical rebuild of the song.

That’s really cool and incredibly impressive that he managed to recreate the tracks from scratch like that, but there’s no way the defence stands a chance against EMI’s lawyers. I think I remember this argument being tried before with MP3s. A defendant claimed that because a majority of the waveform data was thrown away during encoding, it was not identical to the original recording.

Nice try, said the judge. As long as it’s audibly identifiable as a certain recording, it constitutes as copyright infringement. At least that’s what I remember. If anyone knows the specific case or I’m completely wrong, please chime in. Have fun in court on November 20, Mr Risan. [FastCompany]

It’s a tale of two nutters and I can barely keep the facts straight.

The first lawsuit is Franz A. Wakefield v. Apple, Inc. and Sarah Jessica Parker:

The suit claims that Wakefield [...] developed a friendship with Parker and “made a trade secret deal” with her to commercialize the iPod classic, nano, mini, shuffle, video, touch and photo, as well as iTunes and the iPhone. The supposed agreement would have granted Parker 2 percent of gross revenues from the products. Wakefield said he asked the FBI to watch over him to ensure the security of his inventions and deal with Parker.

Apparently sexy Sarah must’ve been talked into cutting freaky Frank out of the deal entirely and told suave Steve all about what would later become Apple’s products.

Frank’s pretty forgiving though, he even wrote Steve a sweet note:

This letter is to serve as a DEMAND for payment. Otherwise I will seek legal recourse for the immediate cease and desist from the manufacture, marketing, and sale of all the iPOD, iTunes, and Iphone lines; along with pursuing damages from the products sold to date, unjust enrichment caused by the theft, enforcement of the agreed 2% gross revenues on all sales, and any other applicable damages or compensation.

Such a nice guy. I’m sure he’ll win.

[Apple Insider]

It’s not the first time we’ve seen this; Swiss developerMogo got busted gathering numbers and then calling people to harass them to buy more apps, which is certainly a more brazen move. Storm8 claims that this was a bug, but they’re getting sued anyways. It doesn’t pay to be shady, devs! [Boing Boing via Kotaku]

Channels: COR, DMDR, LD, and NR Internal
Roles: Reps & Above
Markets: All
Contact: Your Manager

AT&T filed a lawsuit on November 4, 2009 against Verizon’s “There’s a Map for That” advertising campaign. Independent research shows that the maps in the advertisements mislead consumers into believing that we do not offer any wireless service in the vast majority of the country. In fact, AT&T’s 2.5G EDGE network covers 1.75 million square miles of the United States, reaching some 296 million people, roughly the same number reached by Verizon’s network. This network supports popular services like e-mail, surfing the Web, texting, and voice calling, including the activities shown in the Verizon TV advertisements. In addition, our 3G service, the nation’s fastest, is available in more than 9,400 cities and towns.

We filed the lawsuit in Federal District Court in Atlanta and asked that Verizon be prohibited from misleading consumers regarding the scope of our wireless network.

How should I respond to customers who ask about the lawsuit?

While we cannot speculate on the complaint filed, it is a great opportunity to remind customers of AT&T’s many advantages that over 81 million customers enjoy, including:

* Best Network
* The best coverage worldwide (More Bars in More PlacesTM).
* The nation’s fastest 3G network and the only national 3G carrier providing simultaneous voice and data usage.
* The most devices that work in the most places including Japan and South Korea (3G 2100 MHz device required).
* The nation’s largest wireless and wireline broadband provider.
* The nation’s largest company-owned and operated WiFi network with more than 20,000 hotspots, including Starbucks, McDonald’s and Barnes and Noble, as well as access to over 120,000 hotspots around the world.
* The leading provider of local and long distance voice services.

Greatest Value – The fairest value with Rollover® allowing customers to keep their unused minutes month to month.
Best Products – The most innovative exclusive devices such as the iPhoneTM 3GS.
Most Convenient Services
* The most customer friendly free self-service tools with *Services for checking usage, paying bills, and adding features.
* The most convenient and cost-effective way for customers to manage their accounts with Combined Billing for wireless and wireline products.
* Industry leading 30-day satisfaction guarantee.

As always, if you have an inquiry from the media, please refer them to your local media relations team member.

I guess that if you’ve made a mockery of the court system with a ridiculous lawsuit, then you might as well use the attention for a bit of spin. [Mobile Crunch]

From the looks of it, this case will mirror the European Commission’s case almost exactly:

“Rather than compete fairly, Intel used bribery and coercion to maintain a stranglehold on the market,” Mr. Cuomo said in a statement. “Intel’s actions not only unfairly restricted potential competitors, but also hurt average consumers who were robbed of better products and lower prices.”

The AG even echoes some of the same cases used in the EC’s investigation, like the time Intel allegedly paid $US130 million to keep IBM from selling AMD-based servers, which IBM execs considered as much a business deal as a way to avoid incurring the “wrath of Intel”. I too avoid the wrath of Intel by using AMD chips. Bam! Also: No. But still, dick move!

Cuomo is working with the same body of evidence that the European Commission was, and probably quite a bit more — the FTC’s been breathing down their necks for over a year now — so I’d expect this to get pretty uncomfortable for Intel. And by uncomfortable, of course, I mean very, very expensive. [NYT]