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<p>A federal judge dismisses a case in which a small Wisconsin software maker claimed features in Microsoft Office infringed on its patents.</p> <p>A federal judge has dismissed a patent infringement case against Microsoft.</p> <p>Judge Barbara Crabb of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin issued the ruling Wednesday in response to Microsoft's request for summary judgment in a case bought by Hyperphrase Technologies, a small Madison, Wis.-based software maker. Hyperphrase claimed that Smart Tags technology included in recent versions of Microsoft's Office productivity software infringed on patents HyperPhrase was granted relating to data storage and retrieval methods.</p>

IBM went on the offensive Thursday when it added a countersuit against the SCO Group to the multibillion-dollar legal battle between the companies. The countersuit alleges, among other things, that SCO Group has violated the GNU General Public License, under which it accepted Linux contributions and distributed the open-source operating system. The suit also alleges that SCO Group doesn't have the right to revoke IBM's Unix license--an allegation backed by Novell, the former owner of the Unix System V source code that sold IBM its license. IBM is also attempting to turn the tables on SCO Group by alleging that...

The Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PPFA) is going for several notorious anti-abortionists necks and a famous cybersquatter in a case it has brought over nine domains it claims infringe its trademarks. The federation, which provides teenagers with sexual health information and runs abortion clinics across America, has named four people in the court action over nine domains including wwwplannedparenthood.com (note the missing dot) and .org and teenswire.com, teenwires.com and teenwire.info and .biz. It owns the trademarks Planned Parenthood and Teenwire. Thomas Fitch owns and runs the website AbortionIsMurder.org which until recently several of the domains pointed at. John Barry...

<p>LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Rock bands The Red Hot Chili Peppers and Metallica are refusing to make their music available as individual downloads on Apple Computer Inc's iTunes online music store, a representative for the bands, said Wednesday.</p> <p>That move comes in response to Apple's decision to allow users to buy single tracks and is intended to protect the future of the long-playing album, the format that has dominated the music industry for decades, an agent for the bands said.</p>

SCO Group, embroiled in a bitter legal dispute over Linux, indicated Friday it could take legal action against software maker Novell, and said it plans to release this week proprietary code that has been copied in the open source operating system. SCO chief executive Darl McBride told analysts and reporters in a teleconference that the company would release "hundreds of lines of code" that prove its claims. "The month of June is show-and-tell time," he said. "Everybody's been clamoring for the code -- show us two lines of code. We're not going to show two lines of code, we're going...

(Supreme Court-AP) -- Nobody would ever confuse Victor with Victoria. The Supreme Court used that reasoning today as it ruled against the lingerie-seller called Victoria's Secret. The company had sued a small store in Kentucky that sold sex toys and adult videos -- and had called itself ''Victor's Secret.'' When Victoria's Secret complained, Victor's Secret agreed to change its name to Victor's Little Secret. That wasn't good enough -- so Victoria's Secret sued. But the court found no proof that the small Kentucky store had harmed the trademark of Victoria's Secret. The justices agreed unanimously that there needs to...

Last Thursday, House Democrats elected Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) as House Minority Leader. Pelosi won the minority leader position on a 177-29 vote. That is, only 29 House Democrats voted against her. Clearly, 177 agree with her positions. This is a very important point. Because, now we can define, specifically, what the House Democrats are and what they stand for. Money is the life-blood of politics. Like Hillary in the Senate, Pelosi capitalized on that. In so doing, Pelosi bought her position within the Democratic Party. According to Opensecrets.org(1), Pelosi set up her own PAC and quickly became a major...

What Is Property?By Sonia Arrison 10/24/2002Tech Central Station Revolutionary technologies always disrupt society and one of America's biggest "digital age" disruptions is occurring in the area of intellectual property (IP). Indeed, the digital revolution has re-ignited a heated debate over whether intellectual property is even property at all. The issue gained prominence a few years ago when five major record labels sued Napster, a peer-to-peer service that allowed Internet users to trade illegal copies of songs. The trial highlighted a major problem facing intellectual property holders: new technology makes it easy to illegally copy and distribute digital products like songs...

BREAKING NEWS FROM ADWEEK ONLINE*MEDIAWEEK ONLINE*BRANDWEEK ONLINE -- Tauzin Says Congress Will Have to Legislate Digital Piracy FlapPrivate industry has failed to agree on how to protect digital-TV broadcasts from Internet piracy, so Congress will move to impose standards, Rep. Billy Tauzin (R-La.), the chairman of the powerful House Commerce Committee, said Monday.Tauzin, who has been pushing for movement in the much-delayed transition to digital television, spoke upon emerging from a closed-door Capitol Hill meeting of broadcasters, movie studio executives, consumer group representatives and officials of the computer and consumer electronics industries.Tauzin said he had told his committee's staff to...

Disney's Michael Eisner and others say Hollywood will defend its intellectual property at all costs. Silicon Valley eminences like Andy Grove say those are fightin' words -- if it means trampling consumers' rights and squashing innovation. Over the course of four decades in the semiconductor business, Leslie Vadasz has had a hand in creating the 256K chip, the first dynamic RAM, and Intel (INTC), where he's currently in charge of acquisitions and strategic investments. Beyond the ranks of his colleagues and professional peers, however, Vadasz had kept a fairly low profile until Feb. 28, when his duties took him to...

The patent office has been criticized for allowing a ticket of patents to grow in recent years. In today's economy, driven as much by ideas as by actual products, patents are more critical than ever. Just ask iSurfTV, a four-year-old electronic-programming provider that still hasn't signed any cable companies as customers, because those companies fear Gemstar-TV Guide (which holds nearly 200 patents on its television guides) will sue them. The startup expects several of its 80 filed patents to be approved this year, but it has already eaten more than $13 million in venture funding.Startups hoping to capitalize on their...