Author: Joe Mullin

An Indiana archery company that sued a prominent live action role-play (LARP) website will drop its claims that the website's owner infringed two patents on foam arrows.

John Jackson, founder of Global Archery, told Ars that he decided to drop his patent case against Larping.org owner Jordan Gwyther after analyzing a patent on the German-made iDV arrows that Gwyther sells.

The lawsuit isn't over, however—Jackson also sued Gwyther for allegedly infringing his trademark, for buying Google ads keyed to it, and for false advertising.

A church pastor caught up in a patent battle over foam arrows is about to get assistance from the nation's best-known slayer of patent trolls, Newegg top lawyer Lee Cheng.

Newegg will donate more than $10,000 it has made from selling anti-patent-troll T-shirts to Jordan Gwyther, who owns Larping.org, a hub for the live action role-play (LARP) community. Gwyther was sued last year by Global Archery. Global Archery founder John Jackson said he's ticked off that Gwyther has tried to sell foam arrows to the camps, churches, and resorts that make up the bulk of Jackson's customers.

The Global Archery lawsuit is an attempt "to drive a passionate entrepreneur out of business," Cheng said in an e-mail to Ars. "We were absolutely appalled by Global’s attempt to impose a gag order on Mr. Gwyther."

Things have gone from bad to worse for Gawker Media, as a Florida jury trial over its publication of a sex tape concludes.

The same jury that ordered Gawker Media to pay $115 million on Friday for violating the privacy of Terry Bollea, better known as professional wrestler Hulk Hogan, has heaped on an extra $25 million in punitive damages. The six-person jury said Gawker should pay an additional $15 million, while company founder and CEO Nick Denton was hit with an extra $10 million, according to a Reuters report from the courtroom.

The jury said an editor involved with the post, AJ Daulerio, should pay $100,000 in punitive damages. Daulerio and Denton were both held personally liable in the earlier trial.

If Apple was finally feeling like it had a solid win after getting paid $548 million in patent damages by Samsung—well, now it shouldn't be so sure.

The Supreme Court said today that it will consider what kind of damages should be warranted when a design patent is found to be infringed as the court takes up the blockbuster Apple v. Samsung case.

After a 13-day trial in 2012, a jury held that Samsung's phones infringed Apple utility and design patents. Apple was originally granted $1.05 billion, but that number was slashed down on appeal. Samsung paid $548 million late last year, but the company didn't give up its right to one last appeal. A Supreme Court win could result in Samsung getting much of that money back.

A Florida jury today ordered Gawker Media to pay $115 million for publishing a sex tape showing Terry Bollea, also known as Hulk Hogan, having sex with his friend's wife.

The stunning sum, which may have punitive damages added to it, is a life-threatening event for the New York-based network of news and gossip sites. Gawker media was one of the first successful, large digital-only news companies. The final sum is even more than the $100 million Bollea was seeking. Bollea also sued Gawker founder Nick Denton and former editor Albert Daulerio, and the jury found those two men personally liable as well.

The sex tape was made about a decade ago, during a period in which the professional wrestler Hogan testified that he was going through a difficult phase with his then-wife. Todd Clem, a Florida radio personality who later legally changed his name to Bubba the Love Sponge, encouraged Hogan to sleep with his wife Heather.

In September, the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit issued its ruling in the "Dancing Baby" copyright takedown case, initiated by the Electronic Frontier Foundation more than eight years ago. It was a victory for the EFF, but a very mixed one. Today, the court issued an amended opinion that makes the EFF's win stronger.

The initial ruling made it clear that copyright owners need to at least consider fair use before they issue a DMCA takedown notice. At the same time, the bar wasn't too high for what a rightsholder has to do to form a "good faith" belief that there's no fair use. The fair use consideration didn't have to be "searching or intensive," US Circuit Judge Richard Tallman wrote in his opinion.

Tallman also wrote a section of the opinion that appeared to endorse automated computer filters as a valid fair use consideration. "The implementation of computer algorithms appears to be a valid and good faith middle ground for processing a plethora of content while still meeting the DMCA's requirements to somehow consider fair use," he wrote.

In the summer of 2013, secure e-mail service Lavabit was ordered by a federal judge to provide real-time e-mail monitoring of one of its users. Rather than comply with the order, Levison shut down his entire company. He said what the government was seeking would have endangered the privacy of all of his 410,000 users.

Later, he did provide the private key as a lengthy printout in tiny type.

In court papers related to the Lavabit controversy, the target of the investigation was redacted, but it was widely assumed to be Edward Snowden. He was known to have used the service, and the charges against the target were espionage and theft of government property, the same charges Snowden faced.

Two leading US non-profits dedicated to reforming drug laws have said that Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht's sentence of life without parole should be thrown out and that he should be remanded to another judge for re-sentencing.

Ulbricht was convicted last year of conspiracy drug-trafficking charges, as well as distributing false IDs, computer hacking, and money laundering. He admitted to founding the Silk Road darknet marketplace, but his lawyer said it was later handed off to others. Ulbricht is appealing his conviction and his sentence.

"Life sentences are exceedingly rare in the federal criminal justice system, particularly for individuals, like Mr. Ulbricht, with no prior criminal record," write lawyers for the Drug Policy Alliance in an amicus brief (PDF) filed yesterday. "This is particularly true for people convicted of drug offenses, including drug trafficking. In 2013, life sentences were imposed in less than one-third of one percent of all drug trafficking cases... Life sentences are typically reserved for people who committed violent crimes."

A patent complaint that Segway filed with the US International Trade Commission in 2014 has resulted in a wide-ranging order banning "personal transporters" that infringe some of its patents.

On Wednesday, the ITC issued a general exclusion order banning several types of the self-balancing devices often called "hoverboards." The case could affect the whole market, since a general exclusion order is the commission's most powerful remedy and can affect even parties not involved in the investigation.

There's also a limited exclusion order issued directly against the products of several Chinese companies sued by Segway. Only one of those companies responded and fought the case at all, while the others were in default.

The nation's second-largest rapid transit system is shut down today, and ride-hailing service Uber has assured users it will cap its "surge" pricing at 3.9x.

The Uber app automatically imposes surge pricing based on the ratio of riders to drivers, but that algorithm gets very controversial during times of extreme stress. When residents of downtown Sydney were fleeing a hostage situation in 2014, a 4x surge turned into a storm of criticism. (Uber quickly refunded those high-priced rides and began offering free rides in the city.)

In early 2015, Uber adopted a policy of limiting surges during natural disasters and other emergencies. However, a Metro outage in DC in May caused spikes in prices again, since Uber didn't consider that event an emergency. This time, it will impose the surge cap.