Election Law Web Site Created by American Bar Association

The American Bar Association has created a special Web site devoted to election laws and resources. The site posts state-by-state election law statutes accessible from an interactive election law map. It also contains an election law manual for trial judges, a support link for the many trial judges who may soon be hearing election law disputes, and a link to a section with video lectures on election law issues, which were  assembled by The National Center for State Courts in conjunction with the law school of The College of William & Mary. The manual contains material related to tallying ballots, recounts, and post-election challenges.

 

The ABA site’s frequently asked facts section contains articles such as how do I register to vote; when absentee ballots can be used; what to do if a mistake is made on the ballot; what to do if your vote is challenged; and how to vote if you live outside the United States.

 

The site also contains free elementary, middle, and high school lesson plans, in-depth materials on “issues and debates that continue to shape election law today,” a quiz to test your knowledge of past elections, and links to political party, candidate, and additional voter websites.

 

Amidst stories of thousands of lawyers lining up on each side of the presidential election this year, the ABA is preparing for an onslaught of election litigation. Since much of this litigation is filed in state courts, the ABA felt it important to amass material which might be helpful to state court judges, who will be pressured to make quick but extremely important decisions on these issues.

Facebook and Others Accused of Violating the Privacy of Users

Suit has been filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California against Facebook and other defendants, including Blockbuster, Hotwire, Overstock.com, Zappos and Gamefly. The litigation, Lane et al, vs. Facebook et al, alleges the group of defendants violated a variety of laws, including the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the Video Privacy Protection Act, California’s Consumer Legal Remedies Act, and the California Computer Crime Law.

 

Facebook, a social networking site, was launched in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg, while at Harvard University. Zuckerberg has been the target of several earlier suits from former classmates who say he stole their intellectual property, including computer source code. He has also been the subject of a suit by ConnectU, which hired him during his sophomore year at Harvard, to complete programming for their site. The ConnectU suit, which was dismissed without prejudice on technical grounds, claimed Zuckerberg intentionally sabotaged development there, while using the stolen code to help develop Facebook.

 

Facebook launched the Beacon system in 2007, which allowed third-party websites to include a Facebook script by on their sites, to send information about the actions of Facebook users on those sites, such as purchases made, commenting, and games played, back to Facebook. This opt-out scripting prompted serious privacy concerns and eventually led to a change in policy by Facebook

 

The Lane litigation focuses on the joint marketing venture between Facebook and the other defendants, which the plaintiffs allege violated users’ privacy by sharing personal information about other Web sites. Information about those activities was then published on the user’s home and profile pages on Facebook and broadcast to designated “friends” on Facebook.com.

 

The plaintiffs are asking the court to certify the class and award injunctive relief and monetary damages. A copy of the Complaint is available online.

SPAMMER Avoids the CAN

The Commonwealth of Virginia has long been the model for many laws passed by my native Commonwealth of Kentucky. Now they’re on the cutting edge of SPAM, no pun necessarily intended.

Virginia was the first state, or commonwealth, to pass a law against spamming. Now they’re the first state to have their law struck down.

In 2004, Jeremy Jaynes, an alleged spammer, was conviced of a felony under Virginia’s anti-spam law for sending millions of alleged spam e-mail messages. Jaynes said the law violated his First Amendment right of freedom of speech, as well as his protection to “express” his political and religious views via e-mail.

Jaynes’ trial occurred in Loudoun County, Virginia, because that is the situs of the AOL servers he used to send the spam. Last Friday, the Virginia Supreme Court overturned his conviction, saying that Virginia’s law is unconstitutionally broad.

On December 16, 2003, President George W. Bush signed into law the CAN-SPAM Act (15 U.S.C. 7701, et seq). That law sought to establish the first U.S. standards for sending commercial e-mail. It requires the Federal Trade Commission to enforce its provisions. The acronym, CAN-SPAM, comes from the full name of the law, which is “Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography And Marketing Act of 2003.”

Some spammers fondly refer to that Act as the “YOU-CAN-SPAM” Act because the legislation doesn’t require e-mailers to get permission before they send their e-mail. The law, under pre-emption thoery, arguably prevents states from enacting stronger anti-spam legislation, and prohibits individuals who receive spam from suing spammers. Some statistics, such as those showing less than one percent of spam complied with the Act in 2004, indicate the legislation has been essentially unenforced.

Barbie Girls™ Beat Bratz™ in Copyright Litigation

A U.S. District Court jury, after a three month long trial, has awarded Mattel a combined verdict of $100 million against MGA. Mattel makes the Barbie doll, while MGA makes the “saucier” Bratz dolls. Since the Bratz dolls entered the club, Barbie declining sales have started to make her look like a wall flower.

 

As the first round of this battle nears completion, the size of the verdict may look to the uninitiated as if Barbie has smacked the smile off the pouty lips of rival Bratz. Mattel, however, had asked for $1.8 billion and the war is likely to continue for some time.

 

Both sides in the copyright litigation claimed some measure of victory. Although large by most standards, the award was relatively small under the circumstances, and the defendants have already said they would appeal. The verdict did not include punitive damages.

 

The core issue relates to Mattel’s employment exclusivity contract with designer Carter Bryant, who allegedly developed the Bratz concept while still working for Mattel. MGA made nearly $779 million on the Bratz line since it was introduced in 2001, according to arguments made by Mattel during the trial.

 

The jury verdict dealt with three separate causes of action – intentional interference with contractual relations, aiding and abetting breach of fiduciary duty, and aiding and abetting breach of the duty of loyalty damages. Still to be decided are issues such as:

• whether some of the various individual awards, which are aggregated in the $100 million figure, are duplicative;
• will the court enjoin MGA from making more of the Bratz dolls, or perhaps just the early ones more clearly tied to work done while Bryant worked for Mattel;
• whether the court might allow MGA to keep manufacturing, but pay Mattel royalties for what they make;
• how Mattel’s separate trade secret litigation against MGA will conclude; and
• how MGA’s unfair competition litigation against Mattel will conclude, which deals with Mattel’s My Scene dolls.

 

Wii™ Will Rock You? Patent Infringement Game Over or Just Starting?

Start-up company, Hillcrest Labs, has filed a patent infringement action in the U.S. District Court in Maryland and a patent infringement complaint with the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), against Nintendo. Hillcrest claims “two separate but related technologies and products are at issue.” The first relates to “graphics-based, interactive interfaces for multimedia content.” The second relates to “three-dimensional pointing devices used to interface with multimedia content…” which “differ from conventional two-dimensional pointing device, such as a typical ‘mouse’ moved along a desktop to interface with a personal computer. The three-dimensional pointing device allows users to interface with content by translating or rotating the pointing device in space, rather than detecting movement relative to a flat surface.”

 

The actions allege the relevant Hillcrest patents are U.S. Patent Nos. 7,158,118, 7,262,760, and 7,414,611, (related to a hand-held 3-D pointing device), and U.S. Patent No. 7,139,983, (related to a navigation interface display system which graphically organizes content for display on a TV).

 

Hillcrest Labs states that it holds 29 patents in this area worldwide, has filled for more than 100 related patents since 2001, and has pioneered technology that allows consumers to interact with digital media on television using motion-control and pointing techniques. The actions are primarily related to the Nintendo® Wii™ video game system, which Hillcrest claims Nintendo of Japan is infringing on their patents and are being manufactured by a third party outside of the United States and imported through Nintendo of America.

 

You can read a copy of some of the filings online.