Author: Joe Mullin

The Eastern District of Texas was once just a place where American companies went to get fast justice when they wanted to sue a foreign competitor over patents. But US intellectual property laws cuts both ways. An expanding set of lawsuits between Huawei and its competitors is the clearest sign yet that Chinese companies are quickly learning to use IP law to gain an edge over their competitors.

Shenzhen-based Huawei sued (PDF) T-Mobile last week, asking for a judicial ruling that it's following the right rules for using "standard essential" patents, which require patents to be licensed on a "fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory" (or "FRAND") basis. The new lawsuit is a kind of follow-on lawsuit for four patent infringement lawsuits that Huawei filed against T-Mobile in January, all based in the Eastern District of Texas. (Here's one complaint (PDF) from the four January cases.)

Huawei and T-Mobile have been in legal conflict since 2014, when T-Mobile alleged that Huawei stole trade secrets related to cellphone-testing robots. That case is set to go to trial in October. Huawei denies any wrongdoing.

A 22-year-old Illinois man named Bryton Mellott decided to celebrate July Fourth by burning the US flag and posting pictures of his actions on Facebook. The actions led to his arrest by local police, national press attention, and threats against his life.

“I am not proud to be an American," wrote Mellott, in a Facebook post that he later deleted. "In this moment, being proud of my country is to ignore the atrocities committed against people of color, people living in poverty, people who identify as women, and against my own queer community on a daily basis."

The photo remains up, with the accompanying hashtag "#betterburnthatflag."

In the final episode of Silicon Valley’s third season, Pied Piper’s master BS artist Erlich Bachman is broke. But Bachman—who failed at running an incubator and then failed utterly to show up his enemies with his Bachmanity project—has a gift for spin. Somehow he turns a modest “uptick” in the number of daily active users into an incredible windfall for the company as well as the season’s most elaborate dick joke.

Problem is, the uptick is fake. Business manager Jared couldn’t face the possibility that Pied Piper—and his idol, founder Richard Hendricks—will soon collapse. In the series’ biggest twist, we discovered where the “uptick” came from—a crowded, smoky click farm in Bangladesh. The masterful sequence at the end of episode nine shows a Bangladeshi worker’s morning commute, biking his way through the crowded streets of one of the world’s poorest countries. There’s no hip music as the episode ends, just the quiet clacking of hundreds of keyboards. Is this how a bunch of coddled California techies define success?

Farming for fun and profit

The thing is, Jared isn’t the only one who knows about the scam. Pied Piper founder Richard (Thomas Middlebrook) knows, too. Actually, it turns out a lot of people know. In a hilarious sequence from the final episode, Dinesh and Gilfoyle congratulate Richard while Dinesh "accidentally” drops a flash drive with a "zombie script" that would "randomize user actions," making “fake users in click farms absolutely indistinguishable from real users." Richard is on the verge of being corrupted, and they love him for it. Finally, they have a boss ready to swim with the sharks. The click farm scam is some "serial killer level shit," Dinesh tells him. "I think I finally respect you as a CEO," Gilfoyle says. 

The second Oracle v. Google trial drew to a close in May, when a jury found that Google's use of certain Java APIs wasn't a copyright infringement. But court filings from last week show that Google isn't done delivering punishment to Oracle, which started the litigation back in 2010.

Google will be filing a motion for sanctions against Oracle and its law firm, Orrick, Sutcliffe & Herrington. The motion relates to statements by Oracle attorney Annette Hurst, who revealed financial arrangements between Google and Apple that were confidential—until she discussed them in open court at a January 14 discovery proceeding.

Speaking in open court, Hurst said that Google's Android operating system had generated revenue of $31 billion and $22 billion in profit. She also disclosed that Google pays Apple $1 billion to keep Google's search bar on iPhones.

Newly unsealed court documents have revealed that one of the corrupt federal agents investigating Silk Road, the online drug marketplace, is suspected of stealing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of bitcoin—after he pleaded guilty last year.

Shaun Bridges is one of two agents who pled guilty to stealing from the Darknet market. Bridges stole about $800,000 worth of bitcoins from Silk Road drug dealers after he and a partner arrested a Silk Road admin and learned how to reset passwords. That led to Ross Ulbricht, who was convicted of running Silk Road in February 2015, attempting to order the murder of the admin, Curtis Green. Ulbricht was sentenced to life in prison last year.

Bridges' scam was later discovered, though. The former Secret Service agent, who served on a Baltimore-based task force investigating Silk Road, was arrested in March 2015 and pled guilty a few months later. In January, Bridges was arrested again just one day before he was scheduled to turn himself in. The documents unsealed Thursday shed light on why the second arrest took place.

Austin Haughwout thought he'd be facing a legal showdown with the Federal Aviation Administration over his armed drone, but now he's got bigger legal problems.

The 19-year-old Connecticut man was arrested yesterday on child pornography charges. He also faces charges of enticing a minor and attempted sexual assault. The arrest warrant is sealed, but local police outlined the allegations against Haughwout to The Hartford Courant.

The arrest is a result of a "lengthy investigation" that has its origins in a violent incident from July 2015. That month, Haughwout went to the police department to turn himself in due to charges "stemming from a confrontation with officers at the town's library," the Courant reported. While he was being arrested, Haughwout engaged in "assaultive behavior with the officers that were taking him into custody."

For years now, a porn studio called Malibu Media has filed more copyright lawsuits than any other company. Each month, Malibu, which produces adult content under the brand name X-Art, sues hundreds of "John Doe" Internet users, accusing particular IP addresses of illegally downloading their movies using BitTorrent networks.

Malibu's owners, Brigham Field and Collette Pelissier Field, have said the flood of lawsuits is necessary to deter piracy. Now, though, they're targeting the very lawyer who headed up their giant copyright enforcement campaign, Florida-based Keith Lipscomb.

Earlier today, Malibu filed suit against Lipscomb and his firm, Lipscomb, Eisenberg & Baker, in federal court. The lawsuit claims Lipscomb didn't provide them the proper paperwork for their cases and related finances, and that he was negligent in his representation. The complaint (PDF) discloses that Lipscomb sued Malibu in Florida state court on June 10 and alleges that confidential information was revealed in the lawsuit.

Mike Huckabee's Republican presidential campaign is long over, but newly revealed records show that the former candidate had to make a $25,000 payment for a copyright mistake he made at a rally last year.

Kim Davis, Clerk of Courts in Rowan County, Kentucky, made headlines when she refused to give same-sex couples gay marriage licenses. She served five days in jail for resisting court orders. Huckabee turned her release into a campaign event, holding a rally on the steps of the Kentucky jail where Davis was held.

As Davis approached the dais, Huckabee's campaign blasted the tune "Eye of the Tiger," the 1982 hit by Survivor. That led Survivor frontman Frankie Sullivan to take to Facebook, where he wrote: "NO! We did not grant Kim Davis any rights to use 'My Tune -The Eye Of The Tiger. I would not grant her the rights to use Charmin! C'mom Mike, you are not The Donald but you can do better than that. See Ya really SoooooooonnnnnnN!!!!!!"

The US Supreme Court has taken up its next patent case, which may well lead to another decision sharply overturning a ruling by the nation's top patent court.

Here's how the case made it to the high court: Life Technologies Corporation, part of Thermo Fisher Scientific, manufactures a genetic testing kit in the United Kingdom. The company sells this product worldwide. Life Tech made one element of the kit, called a Taq polymerase, in the United States and then shipped it to the UK to combine with the larger product.

In 2010, Promega sued Life Technologies for patent infringement and won a jury verdict awarding $52 million. Promega is a California biotech company that says its patent covers Life Technologies’ genetic testing kit. The judge overturned the decision after trial, however, finding merely shipping the polymerase from the US wasn't enough to warrant such a result. Promega took its case to the Federal Circuit, which hears all US patent appeals. A split Federal Circuit panel sided with Promega, reinstating the $52 million verdict. Today, the Supreme Court said they will review the case at the request (PDF) of Life Technologies.

Earlier today, Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales announced that the Wikimedia Foundation's Board of Trustees has appointed Katherine Maher as its new executive director.

Maher formerly served as communications officer for Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that governs the massive online encyclopedia. She became interim director in March following a period of turmoil during which a board member and former Executive Director Lila Tretikov both resigned. Those resignations came after an unprecedented "no-confidence" vote by the site's editors.

"Our mission is vast, diverse, and inclusive, where everyone can find a home and purpose," said Maher in a statement. "We are driven by an insatiable curiosity for the world around us, and a fundamental belief in the power of collaboration and cooperation. I'm honored by this opportunity to serve this remarkable organization and movement, and I look forward to building our future together."