By Tyler Lacey Bank Programmer Pleads Guilty to ATM Hacking On April 13, 2010, Wired reported that Bank of America employee Rodney Reed Cavelry pleaded guilty to one count of unauthorized computer access, after installing software on more than 100 ATMs that allowed him to steal more than $304,000 over a seven-month period last year. Bank of America identified Caverly’s theft internally, and was able to recover at least $167,000 in cooperation with the United States Secret Service. Bank of ... Read More...
D.C. Circuit Denies FCC Jurisdiction to Mandate Net Neutrality By Tyler Lacey – Edited by Jad Mills Comcast Corp. v FCC, No. 08-1291 (D.C. Cir., Apr. 6, 2010) Slip Opinion The United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit vacated an order issued by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which had asserted jurisdiction over Comcast’s network management policies and had ordered Comcast to cease discriminating against peer-to-peer network traffic. The D.C. Circuit held that the FCC does ... Read More...
Federal Circuit Reaffirms Separate Written Description and Enablement Requirements for Patents By Tyler Lacey – Edited by Jad Mills Ariad Pharm., Inc. v. Eli Lilly & Co., Appeal 2008-1248 (Fed. Cir., Mar. 22, 2010) Slip Opinion The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (“Federal Circuit”), in a 9-2 en banc decision, affirmed a panel decision holding Ariad’s patent claims invalid for lack of written description. In so holding, the Federal Circuit reaffirmed that the first paragraph of 35 ... Read More...
By Tyler Lacey RealNetworks Won’t Appeal Decision Declaring Its DVD Copying Software in Violation of DMCA On March 4, Wired reported that RealNetworks plans to cease litigation of a lawsuit filed by the Motion Picture Association of America (“MPAA”) alleging that its DVD copying software, RealDVD, violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”). RealNetworks had initially planned to appeal a California district court’s decision that the software illegally circumvented the DVD encryption technology, Content Scramble System. However, after two years ... Read More...
By Tyler Lacey Australian State Backpedals on Anonymous Online Political Speech Ban On February 2, Ars Technica reported that following a harsh public reaction, South Australia’s Attorney General Michael Atkinson has pledged to repeal a recently enacted law that banned anonymous online political speech. The new law is particularly controversial because it applies specifically to bloggers and online commentators, but not to online newspapers or magazines. Atkinson noted that “the blogging generation believes that the law supported by all [Members ... Read More...
