The Florida State College of Law Research Center Blog

Apple iPhone Patent a Huge Blow to Rival Smartphone Makers

From PCMag, Apple has been awarded a patent on the capacitive multitouch interface used with the iPhone.  This may create problems for other companies producing smartphones.  Here's an excerpt: 

Apple's patent essentially gives it ownership of the capacitive multitouch interface the company pioneered with its iPhone, said one source who has been involved in intellectual property litigation on similar matters. That's likely to produce a new round of lawsuits over the now-ubiquitous multitouch interfaces used in smartphones made by the likes of HTC, Samsung, Motorola, Research in Motion, Nokia, and others that run operating systems similar in nature to Apple's iOS, like Google's Android, said the source, who asked not to be named.

Read more here. 

Posted by Jon Lutz 

5 Clever Ways to Get a Job Using Social Media

From Mashable, 5 clever ways to get a job using social media.  Here's an excerpt: 

More and more companies are recruiting using social media, and 40% of young professionals are using social media to get jobs, reports Elance. You can have a successful job search by following these five new ways to get a job using social media.

Read more here. 

Posted by Jon Lutz 

Connecticut Concerned About Facebook Face Recognition

The Connecticut Attorney General has expressed concern about Facebook's photo tagging feature, reports PCWorld.  Here's an excerpt:

In Facebook's desire to promote photo sharing and tagging among its users, it appears to have overlooked a critical component of consumer privacy protection, which is an opt-in requiring users to affirmatively consent before Facebook can use those images, Jepsen wrote in a letter this week to Facebook's director of public policy and its product and regulatory counsel.

Jepsen joins European Union (EU) regulators and consumer advocacy groups that are questioning the feature on Facebook.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center and three other advocacy groups filed a complaint asking the U.S. Federal Trade Commission to require Facebook to get an affirmative opt-in consent from users before collecting and using their biometric data.

Read the article here. 

Posted by Jon Lutz

FSU College of Law ranks in top 50 in US

FSU College of Law ranks in the top 50 in the US.  

Read more here. 

Posted by Jon Lutz 

How iCloud And Its Competitors Could Lead To Copyright-Trolling Lawsuits

Apple's new iCloud service could bring legal complexities.  From paidContent here's an excerpt: 

But let’s imagine how a more direct legal battle could erupt over cloud-music. We might not see a big record label go after a tough target, like Google  or Amazon itself (although the labels certainly do seem to be keeping their options open in that regard.) Instead, consider this possibility, outlined to me by New York Law School’s Prof. James Grimmelmann: a much smaller copyright owner—like the ones now engaging in mass-copyright litigation—decide to file a broad lawsuit over music sharing, and try to use courts to get large amounts of metadata that would demonstrate which files were pirated.

“Somebody from a smaller label will be approached by a lawyer, who says, ‘I want to try this fishing expedition lawsuit,’” explains Grimmelmann. “I will try to force Apple to tell me which users have unauthorized versions of this, and then I’ll just file a shotgun lawsuit against all of them.”

Read the article here. 

Posted by Jon Lutz 

 

Apple sued over iCloud name

Apple is being sued over its iCloud name for it new 'cloud' service.   

Read more here.

Facebook Faces Probe Over Photo Tagging

Facebook is being probed by the European Union data-protection regulators over their use of face-recognition software according to Bloomberg.  Here's an excerpt: 

A group of privacy watchdogs drawn from the EU’s 27 nations will study the measure for possible rule violations, said Gerard Lommel, a Luxembourg member of the so-called Article 29 Data Protection Working Party. Authorities in the U.K. and Ireland said they are also looking into the photo-tagging function on the world’s most popular social-networking service.

“Tags of people on pictures should only happen based on people’s prior consent and it can’t be activated by default,” said Lommel. Such automatic tagging suggestions “can bear a lot of risks for users” and the European data-protection officials will “clarify to Facebook that this can’t happen like this.”

Read the article here. 

Posted by Jon Lutz 

 

Landing a Dream Job in a Down Market

Checkout the ABAJournal Law News Now podcast on Landing a Dream Job in a Down Market. 

Listen here. 

Posted by Jon Lutz