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MobiTV, HowardForums avoid legal skirmish
State Law Issues |
2008/03/09 09:32
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| pMobile broadcast service providerstrong /strongMobiTV appears to be softening its stance against mobile community resource community HowardForums after hitting the site with a cease-and-desist letter last week. HowardForums earned MobiTV's wrath after posting a web address purportedly enabling end-around access to premium MobiTV content, promising readers free access to all of the firm's streaming mobile TV channels via mobile device or PC. The URL, posted by a HowardForums member, was originally discovered on a Sprint forum and reportedly has been circulating on the web for several months. MobiTV threatened HowardForums with legal action if the site did not remove the URL and related links by 5 p.m. PST Friday, alleging the post constitutes a violation and infringement of MobiTV's intellectual property rights, including, without limitation, its copyright, trademark, and trade secret rights./ppBut in a statement issued late Friday, MobiTV said it would attempt to solve the problem via technological means instead of legal recourse, stating it was actively implementing additional security measures to address this unauthorized access as well as the isolated issue of certain content feeds posted on HowardForums.com and on other websites. It is our responsibility to ensure that our service and the programming entrusted to us by our content providers is protected at all times. MobiTV added it would not attempt to interrupt or shut down HowardForums. While MobiTV maintains the URL was not publicly available, and procured only through hacking or debugging, HowardForums proprietor Howard Chui told emOnlineMediaDaily/em that is untrue: No hacking was involved, he said. MobiTV could've added access control and people wouldn't be able to view it anymore. When I want to protect something online I put a password on it or encrypt it. /p |
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Saddam Kickbacks Earn Oil Exec Prison
Legal Information |
2008/03/08 11:13
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Texas oilman David Chalmers was sentenced to two years in prison on Friday after admitting to paying millions of dollars in kickbacks to Iraq in connection with the U.N. oil-for-food program.
Chalmers, 54, and his two corporations, Bayoil Supply and Trading Ltd. and Bayoil USA Inc., were sentenced in federal court in Manhattan. Chalmers and his companies were ordered to forfeit $9 million dollars.
He pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud in August, weeks before he was due to go on trial with Texas oil tycoon Oscar Wyatt. Wyatt was sentenced to a year in prison in November for his role in the oil-for-food scandal.
I feel horribly remorseful for this, a sniffling Chalmers told U.S. District Judge Denny Chin. Because others were doing it I thought it was OK. But I was wrong.
Chalmers' lawyer told Chin that Chalmers deserved a lighter sentence than Wyatt, who met directly with Saddam Hussein and became the most prominent figure jailed over the scandal.
Chin disagreed, saying Chalmers had agreed to buy many more barrels of oil than Wyatt that represented money that should have gone to the Iraqi people.
Prosecutors said they could prove Wyatt paid at least $200,000 in kickbacks, compared to Chalmers, whom they said played a leading role in corrupting the program by agreeing to pay at least $9 million while other oil companies refused. |
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Pfizer Protects Celebrex Patent From Teva
Legal World News |
2008/03/08 11:12
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| pPfizer continued to serve up the pain to Teva Pharmaceutical Industries on Friday when the company reaffirmed its patents on the arthritis pain drug Celebrex./ppThe U.S. Court of Appeals of the Federal District said that two of the three patents were valid, but threw out the third, saying that it was not valid for the treatment of inflammation. Teva will now have to wait until May 2014 to market the copycat. Celebrex provided Pfizer with annual global sales of $1.7 billion in 2007. Bear Stearns analyst project that it will reach global sales of $2.5 billion in 2008, an increase of 9%, and that the drug will pull in $3.1 billion by 2012./ppThe New York-based pharma company has been battling it out with Teva Pharmaceutical Industries to hang on to Celebrex for almost four years. Pfizer sued the Israel-based drug maker after it applied to U.S. regulators for permission to sell the generic in 2004. In March 2007, Pfizer won a ruling from a U.S. federal court over three of the main patents regarding Celebrex, barring Teva from manufacturing the generic until 2015. /p |
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Judge KOs Challenge to Internet Bet Law
State Law Issues |
2008/03/07 09:00
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| A federal judge has dismissed a challenge to a ban on Internet gambling brought by an online gambling association, but gave the group legal standing to challenge the law in an appellate court.pU.S. District Judge Mary L. Cooper in Trenton determined that the Interactive Media Entertainment amp; Gaming Association had not shown sufficient cause to order her to block enforcement of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Enforcement Act, passed by Congress in 2006./ppThat law was designed to stop online gambling by choking off the electronic processing of money for online wagers or payouts./ppThe industry group had argued that the law was unconstitutional on many fronts, including freedom of speech and invasion of privacy concerns. It wanted the court to declare that people should be allowed to gamble from the privacy of their own homes./p |
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