Chinese court dismisses trademark suit against Google
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Court finds that Google China began using name "Gu Ge" before other company registered it.
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Judge dismisses one of several patent claims by Alcatel-Lucent against Microsoft, but others remain.
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(InfoWorld) - The subcontractor accused of mistreating workers at an iPod factory in China dropped its libel suit against two reporters and the news organization they work for in Shanghai. Hong Fujin Precision Industry Co., the largest exporter of IT products in China, withdrew the libel suit on Sunday, according to a statement. TheÂ lawsuit sought damagesÂ of 1 renminbi ($0.13) from the two reporters and the China Business News, over a June 15 story that allegedÂ employees were worked so hardÂ at the iPod factory that three women passed out on the production line. The dismissal of the suit comes just days after press freedom group, Reporters Without Borders, asked the head of Apple ComputerÂ to step in and mediate the disagreement. It also follows a Saturday report by the Xinhua News Agency that the Chinese government ordered Hong Fujin to allow its workers set up a trade union that would be affiliated with the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU). "The two sides have apologized for any difficulties created by this matter and agreed to work hand in hand to build a harmonious society and promote the hard work and rights of workers," Hong Fujin and China Business News said in a joint statement posted on the Taiwan Stock Exchange. The statement was posted by Hong Fujin's Taiwanese parent company, Hon Hai Precision Industry Co. The companies operate under the trade name, Foxconn Technology Group. Hong Fujin declined to comment further on the matter. Reporters Without Borders said Apple worked behind the scenes to resolve issue. The computer maker could not immediately be reached for comment. Hong Fujin had sought redress through the defamation lawsuit after a whirlwind of bad publicity over allegations that it treated workers poorly. The China Business News story was one of many to follow in the wake of an article by the British newspaper Mail on Sunday alleging long hours, low pay and poor working conditions at the Longhua, China, site., which produces iPods as well as other IT products. Apple Computer investigated the claims, and found Hong Fujin in compliance with the majority of its requirements despite several violations of the company's supplier code of conduct, including unsatisfactory living and transportation conditions for workers. Hong Fujin is building new dormitories for workers and seeking ways to improve the way it busses employees from factories to dormitories.
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(InfoWorld) - Beijing ISM Internet Technology Development Co., the Chinese company behind theÂ Gmail.cn e-mail service, declined to comment on a report that Google has renewed its attempts to acquire the Gmail.cn domain name. An executive who answered the phone at ISM's Beijing headquarters Wednesday said the company was aware of the report, but was unclear about its origins and whether Google had made an offer to buy the Gmail.cn domain name. "When we understand the situation more clearly, we will make an announcement," said the executive, who did not give his name. "We do not comment on rumors and speculation," said Marsha Wang, a Google spokeswoman in Beijing in an e-mail response for comment on a Reuters report, which said ISM had rebuffed a recent Google offer to buy the gmail.cn domain. Google has long coveted the rights to the Gmail.cn domain, first approaching ISM about the domain name and its use of the Gmail name in August 2004. Those talks broke off, and the two companies fell out of contact, an ISM spokeswoman said in 2005. At that time, Google said it was still "investigating" the matter. Google has recently stepped up efforts to acquire sole rights to the Gmail name in Web domains since opening up the free e-mail service to any user who wants an account. The company reportedly turned to lawsuits in several European countries to enforce its rights to Gmail domain names, arguing that the owners areÂ infringing on its trademark. Those lawsuits have not generally proved successful. Since ISM's Gmail predates Google's Gmail, the search company is left with the option of making an offer to buy the domain name from ISM. ISM registered the Gmail.cn domain name -- which it says stands for Global Mail -- on Aug. 1, 2003, according to the China Internet Network Information Center (CNNIC), which oversees the .cn top-level domain. That registration predates Google's April 1, 2004, announcement of its Gmail service by eight months. (Steven Schwankert, in Beijing, contributed to this report.) Â
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A federal appeals court handed Google a setback in a patent fight on Wednesday, tossing out part of a summary judgment in Google's favor in a lawsuit filed by Hyperphase Technologies, LLC.
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A U.S. federal judge dismissed  Alcatel-Lucent's  patent claim against Microsoft  Corp.  over technology that converts speech into text,  the two companies said on Friday.
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Google Lawsuit Thrown Out of German Court  A Hamburg court rejected Metaspinner Media 's lawsuit against Google over allegations the Internet search engine allows rival companies to buy ads using trademarked terms, an attorney said Tuesday.  The AP Wires report that Metaspinner Media took Google Deutschland to court in May, accusing it ...
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Google responded to a lawsuit filed against it by Northeastern University, denying claims that its core search service infringes on patented technology.
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The search giant calls Northeastern University's patent on search technology invalid.
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Yahoo yesterday asked a court to dismiss a lawsuit accusing the Internet giant of abetting torture and abuse of pro-democracy writers in China.
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(InfoWorld) - Yahoo wants a California court to dismissÂ a lawsuit brought against the company by jailed Chinese dissidents. In a filing Monday, Yahoo told the court that the lawsuit, which seeks to hold Yahoo accountable for the imprisonment and torture of the plaintiffs, should be tossed out various reasons, among which being that the U.S. justice system is the wrong venue for the case. "This is a lawsuit by citizens of China imprisoned for using the internet in China to express political views in violation of China law. It is a political case challenging the laws and actions of the Chinese government. It has no place in the American courts," the 51-page filing reads. After stating that Yahoo "deeply sympathizes with the plaintiffs and their families and does not condone the suppression of their rights and liberty by their government," the company states that it and its Chinese subsidiaries must comply with the laws of China. "Yahoo has no control over the sovereign government of the People's Republic of China, the laws it passes, and the manner in which it enforces its laws," reads the filing. The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court for the California Northern District in April, alleges that Yahoo and Yahoo Hong Kong violated a series of U.S. and international laws by providing information to the Chinese government that led to the plaintiffs' arrest and torture. Yahoo's arguments for dismissal are flawed, said attorney Morton Sklar, executive director of the Washington, D.C.-based World Organization for Human Rights USA, which represents the plaintiffs, including imprisoned journalists Shi Tao and Wang Xiaoning. Yahoo is trying to blame China's government and arguing that Yahoo can't be held responsible for what has happened, Sklar said. "It was Yahoo that put the torture device in the hands of the government of China by giving the Internet identification information to the Chinese officials," Sklar said. "If they hadn't done that, there couldn't have been any torture abuses." While it's true that any U.S. corporation doing business in a foreign country has to comply with that country's laws, the corporation also has to comply with U.S. laws and international legal standards, Sklar said. "That's what Yahoo overlooked," he said. This case is but one of a series of human rights and free speech controversies in which U.S. Internet companies like Yahoo, Google, and MicrosoftÂ find themselves in regarding their operations in China. In addition to human rights groups and press watchdog organizations, these Internet companies have been criticized by U.S. lawmakers, by some of their own investors and by individuals. While Yahoo, Microsoft, Google and others in their position argue they need to comply with local laws, they also say that real progress on Internet issues of privacy, censorship, and human rights require government-to-government agreements supported by collaboration with industry players and human-rights organizations and leading to global standards of operation. Asked for comment about its dismissal request, a Yahoo spokeswoman said that while Yahoo believes "deeply" in human rights and "strongly" supports freedom of expression and privacy worldwide, it believes the case has no legal merits. "This is a political and diplomatic issue, not a legal one," she wrote. "The real issue here is the plaintiffs' outrage at the behavior and laws of the Chinese government. The U.S. court system is not the forum for addressing these political concerns." In its filing Monday, Yahoo outlines several reasons for the dismissal of the case. It argues that litigating the case "risks violating international law principles of sovereignty, interfering with U.S. foreign policy, and jeopardizing the U.S. law enforcement interests." Yahoo also argues that the plaintiffs have failed to state a claim under the Alien Tort Statute, the Torture Victim Protection Act, the Electronic Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), and the California laws on which they rely. Moreover, the plaintiffs' claims contravene federal, California, and international law, which protect defendants from civil liability for communicating with law enforcement officials regarding investigations, according to Yahoo. In their amended complaint, filed July 30, the plaintiffs allege Yahoo and Yahoo Hong Kong violated a series of U.S. and international laws, including torture, arbitrary arrest, prolonged detention, and forced labor as a violation of the international Alien Tort Statute and the Torture Victim Protection Act. They also allege violation of the California Business and Professional Code for unfair business practices and violation of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act for unlawful access to stored communications. The plaintiffs seek, among other things, awards of a variety of damages; declaration that defendants violated international law; a requirement that defendants actively help to secure the release of detained plaintiffs; and an injunction barring the defendants from "any further disclosures of user information" to prevent future abuses. The complaint states that Wang Xiaoning was arrested and unlawfully and arbitrarily detained and prosecuted for publishing and circulating through the Internet electronic journals and articles that supported democratic reform in China and for communicating with other democracy advocates. "He is serving a ten-year sentence at Beijing Municipal No. 2 Prison, a forced labor prison for political prisoners, under severe conditions of prolonged confinement that are highly abusive in nature. He has served almost four years of his ten-year sentence, and has been imprisoned for almost five years," the complaint reads. Meanwhile, Shi Tao was arrested and unlawfully and arbitrarily detained and prosecuted for e-mailing messages, notes, and journalistic dispatches describing government restrictions on journalists imposed in connection with the 15th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square crackdown on democracy advocates, according to the complaint. "He currently is serving the third year of a 10-year sentence for 'divulging state secrets abroad' at Chishan Prison of Hunan Province, a high-security prison with a documented system of forced labor and torture, and has been in detention for almost four years," the complaint reads. Their arrests and detainment of these two Chinese citizens were "inflicted upon" them as a result of Yahoo and Yahoo Hong Kong's actions to aid and abet Chinese government officials "in committing these major human rights abuses," the complaint reads. The judge will hold a hearing on Yahoo's dismissal request on November 1st at 2 p.m. Pacific Time.
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A Chinese company is suing Google&#39;s China subsidiary for copying its name, saying the U.S. search engine&#39;s registered Chinese name is too similar to its own and has harmed its operations.
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Google Faces Another Keyword Lawsuit  Another lawsuit has been filed against Google because of the trademarked keyterms that companies bid for in the AdWords keyword advertising program.  Next week Google will head over to a German courtroom where it will continue to defend its technology against Metaspinner Media GmbH.  Neowin reports ...
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SHANGHAI, China -- A Chinese supplier of Apple Computer's iPod has withdrawn a defamation lawsuit it filed against two Chinese journalists over claims of labor mistreatment.
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Google's trademark beef canned German courts have banned Google from further attempts to wrestle the rights to the "Gmail" trademark away from a businessman who registered the name several years before it launched a webmail service.â¦
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Google Inc. won a major legal victory yesterday when a federal judge ruled that the Internet search engine's advertising policy does not violate federal trademark laws.
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A Belgian court dealt a blow to Google by ruling against the US Internet giant in a copyright case lodged by French-language Belgian newspapers and closely watched by other media.