Computer programmer and internet entrepreneur Mark Zuckerberg, 32, the CEO of social media website Facebook, will be testifying in an intellectual property case. The lawsuit will determine whether Facebook’s $2.3 billion virtual reality acquisition, Oculus, stole technology from Rockville, Maryland-based video game developer ZeniMax Media Inc.

Facebook lawyers tried to argue that Zuckerberg should not have to testify on how the company acquired Oculus, an argument dismissed by the judge. ZeniMax also accused Oculus founder Palmer Luckey and Oculus CTO John Carmack of theft in August 2016. Carmack was the lead programmer of video game classics, such as Quake, Doom, and Wolfenstein 3D. Now, ZeniMax is claiming he stole technology from them before he left them to join Oculus. Carmack was also accused of violating his employee agreement and confidentiality clauses.

Our attorneys at Gagnon, Peacock & Vereeke, P.C. provide legal services for our clients in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex and other areas in Texas. We handle intellectual property cases that involve patents, trademarks, and trade secrets, among others. Get a free initial consultation when you contact us at (214) 824-1414.

Nokia filed a lawsuit in the Eastern District of Texas, the United States International Trade Commission, and 10 countries in Europe and Asia, including Germany, Italy, and Japan, against Apple, claiming the technology giant infringed upon 40 of its patents.

In a statement released on Wednesday, December 21, Nokia head of patent business Ilkka Rahnasto said, “Through our sustained investment in research and development, Nokia has created or contributed to many of the fundamental technologies used in today’s mobile devices, including Apple products.”

The eight patents covered in the Eastern District lawsuit are related to encoding or decoding video with the H.264 advanced video coding standard as set by the International Telecommunication Union. Apple, for its part, filed an antitrust complaint on Tuesday, December 20 in California’s Northern District against Acacia Research Corp. and Conversant Intellectual Property Management, Inc. claiming the companies were colluding with Nokia to extort money from technology companies over cellular patents. Nokia was not named as defendant in this particular lawsuit.

Our intellectual property lawyers at Gagnon, Peacock & Vereeke, P.C., who provide legal services for our clients in Dallas and Fort Worth, handle legal representation of cases that relate to the United States Patent and Trademark Office and the U.S. Copyright Office. Call our offices today at (214) 824-1414.

London-based auction house, Christie’s, and their New York City-based digital art collection management and market research firm, Collectrium, have been accused in a lawsuit by Dallas, Texas-based collectibles auctioneer Heritage Auctions of using a computer program to steal images, price information, and research from them and repacking and reselling said information as part of its own subscription database.

According to the lawsuit, the listings were utilized in Collectrium’s searchable proprietary database of over 11 million items. Christie’s purchased Collectrium last year.

The case was mostly about the increasing use of web scraping, or the automated copying of valuable information from some other website. Santa Clara University School of Law internet law and intellectual property professor Eric Goldman was of the opinion that web scraping for commercial uses is “probably not legal”.

Collectrium’s site makes the claim that it provides “searchable auction results from over 1,500 auction houses worldwide”.

We at Gagnon, Peacock & Vereeke, P.C. help guide our clients in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex of Texas during litigation when it comes to intellectual property cases. Speak with a qualified member of our team by calling our offices today at (214) 824-1414 as soon as possible.

KAIST IP, an intellectual property management firm, filed a patent infringement lawsuit in a Texas Federal District Court against Samsung Electronics America, semiconductor company GlobalFoundries, and telecommunications equipment company Qualcomm. The firm is seeking semiconductor technology patent fees for usage of their intellectual property.

The technology under contention is an ultra-small transistor called FinFet, which is a key material when making smartphones. Many companies utilize the technology today. In 2011, Intel applied FinFet in its products and acknowledged FinFet’s technological capability to sign an official license contract in 2012. In a statement, KAIST IP said, “We proposed a contract when we developed FinFet but Samsung did not accept it. Though it started to make mobile phones using FinFet it resisted paying patent fees.”

If you need help filing a patent or suing another company for its use of your patent, get in touch with our attorneys at Gagnon, Peacock & Vereeke, P.C. by calling our Dallas offices today at (214) 824-1414.

The United Kingdom’s flag carrier, British Airways, has patented a pill that seeks to gauge passengers’ in-flight satisfaction levels.

An airline passenger usually must wait for flight attends to pass them before their needs are catered to. As such, one may currently find themselves too cold or dehydrated, simply because the flight attendant may have trouble noticing gestures intended to catch their attention.

However, British Airways’ services are expected to improve immensely with their filing of a patent in the first week of December that aims to make the cabin crew aware of each passenger’s in-flight requests. In the 24-page patent application, this ingestible sensor will help flight attendants “provide water when the passenger is determined to be dehydrated, offer a blanket when the detected temperature is determined to be below a predefined and/or preferred threshold, and not to disturb or wake up for a scheduled meal based on the determined sleep phase of the passenger”.

If you or your business, which is situated in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex area of Texas, are having trouble patenting your original ideas, you can obtain the legal representation of our attorneys at Gagnon, Peacock & Vereeke, P.C. by calling our offices today at (214) 824-1414. We can even assist with international patents.

Twenty-four-year-old Anthony Clark was found guilty of one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud by a jury in Fort Worth, Texas. His conviction comes after he, along with three co-conspirators, defrauded Electronic Arts, Inc. The company, which is more commonly known as EA Games, lost more than $16 million to the conspirators.

EA published a game called FIFA Football, wherein players can earn FIFA coins, an in-game currency usually earned based on the amount of time a player has been playing the game. Clark and his accomplices set up the game to look as if they played for hours when they had not. They allegedly exchanged their FIFA coins for over $16 million. Senior Counsel Ryan Dickey of the Criminal Division’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section and Assistant United States Attorneys Brian Poe and Candina Heath of the Northern District of Texas were tasked with prosecuting the case.

If you are facing intellectual property litigation in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex or another area in Texas, we highly recommend that you acquire the legal services of our attorneys at Gagnon, Peacock & Vereeke, P.C. Seek our legal representation today by calling our offices at (214) 824-1414.

The University of Houston has won in its federal trademark lawsuit last Monday, November 7, which was against South Texas College of Law, who, earlier this year, had changed its name to Houston College of Law.

The University of Houston System sued South Texas College of Law when the latter changed its name and colors in its ads, logos, and merchandising to a mistakenly similar look at identity. The University of Houston’s claim included that the defendant’s actions will confuse the public and potential students of the UH Law Center.

In a statement, UH Law Center Dean Leonard Baynes welcomed the development, saying, “I want to thank our legal team for their advocacy on our behalf including lead counsel Tony Buzbee of The Buzbee Law Firm and Dona Cornell, UH System vice chancellor for legal affairs and general counsel. I am very grateful that we have been able to resolve the major issues and we look forward to continuing our focus on legal education.”

Our attorneys at Gagnon, Peacock & Vereeke, P.C., who provide legal services for our clients in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex area of Texas, handle intellectual property cases involving copyrights, trade secrets, licensing, domain name disputes, and trademarks, among others. Call our offices today at (214) 824-1414.

South Korean electronics company LG Electronics Inc. was found guilty of infringing on two smart phone patents that were owned by Core Wireless Licensing.

One of the patents in discussion covers the technology that seeks to improve smart phone battery life. The award for past damages was based on the royalty that should have been given to the inventors of said patents. In this case, the inventors were Finnish multinational technology company Nokia Corp. engineers Benoist Sebire and Jyri Suvanen and the royalties are equivalent to 6 cents per unit. The amount covers sales after the release and sales of LG smart phones that have the said technologies. CEO John Lindgren of Conversant Intellectual Property Management, the parent company of Core Wireless, welcomed the development, saying he is thankful the jury saw the need to defend the rights of the Nokia inventors.

If you are facing an intellectual property suit, seek the legal services of Gagnon, Peacock & Vereeke, P.C. by calling our offices today at (214) 824-1414 to get in touch with our attorneys.

The Eastern District of Texas is on the move to crack down on nuisance lawsuits filed by patent troll companies, which are companies that try to enforce patent rights beyond the patent’s actual value or worth.

Retired District Judge Leonard Davis, who served in the Eastern District of Texas between the years 2002 and 2015, said: “The district has been the poster child for the ‘troll problem’. I think the ‘troll problem’ would exist even if we weren’t around.” Washington trade groups have been asking Congress to amend rules on where intellectual property lawsuits can be filed to lessen the number of cases held in Texas.

Also, judges have analyzed cases served by these “troll” companies against multinational firms. For instance, Judge Rodney Gilstrap dismissed infringement claims against Dell Inc. and Apple Inc. in September 2016. Iris Connex LLC, filed the suits against the tech companies and ruled it is not possible that the giant firms used Iris Connex’s camera technology.

At Gagnon, Peacock & Vereeke, P.C., we provide legal services for our clients in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex and assist clients throughout the entire process of intellectual property litigation. Hire our legal representation by calling our offices today at (214) 824-1414.

United States District Judge Keith Ellison issued a memorandum opinion on Friday, October 14, setting out findings of fact and conclusions of law. He effectively granted the University of Houston’s motion for a preliminary injunction in a trademark lawsuit it lodged against South Texas College of Law after the latter decided to change its name to Houston College of Law.

UH claimed that South Texas College of Law intentionally and willfully infringed upon the former’s intellectual property and the latter committed violations of unfair competition laws in the state of Texas. In response, South Texas College of Law argued that the word “Houston” is not the exclusive property of the UH System.

Our attorneys at Gagnon, Peacock & Vereeke, P.C. provide legal services for our clients in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex and will help our clients – whether they are defendants or plaintiffs – defend their property during intellectual property litigation. Call our offices today at (214) 824-1414 to discuss your case.