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Thoughts on the Microsoft Ireland case
By:
Gregory P. Bufithis, Esq.
Founder/CEO
20 July 2016 – First, a brief recap:
The Microsoft Ireland case began in December 2013 when a district court judge in New York issued a warrant asking Microsoft to produce all emails and other private information associated with a certain account. I have read all the briefs in the case, including 10 of the amicus (“friends of the court”) briefs. Taken together, a Masterclass in cloud services, data protection, mutual legal assistance treaties, subpoenas, warrants, etc.
Most of the user’s data happened to be stored in an Ireland datacenter — one of many datacenters Microsoft maintains around the world to improve the speed of its network for foreign users. Microsoft produced account information kept on servers in the United States, but refused to produce any data stored on servers in Ireland, arguing the government’s warrant does not apply extraterritorially. Microsoft moved to vacate the warrant, but the district court found in favor of the government and ordered Microsoft to disclose the data held in Ireland. Microsoft appealed that decision to the U.S. … Read more
EU merger review “is morphing into a U.S. system” with “burdensome document requests”, says Freshfields
From GCR Live 8th Annual Brussels Conference: The Bigger Picture
11 July 2016 – Pointing to the European Commission’s clearance of Anheuser-Busch Inbev/SABMiller, John Davies at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer said the enforcer’s approach to merger review is shifting towards a US-like system in which burdensome document requests are required.
The time has come for the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Competition to step back and review some of its procedural steps so that the EU’s merger control system remains effective, Davies said at a GCR conference in Brussels today.
When it comes to complex cases, the EU’s system has morphed into a transatlantic hybrid, he said. Merging companies in the EU need to produce a detailed notification that set out their arguments, but it is now common for DG Comp to also request large amounts of information. This burdensome system is effectively a combination of the traditional EU and US approaches, he said.
Davies pointed to the commission’s recent clearance of AB InBev/SABMiller, in which he acted for the buyer. He said the notification was approximately 550 pages long
Patent troll attacks e-discovery companies. It’s deja vu … all over again.
By:
Gregory P. Bufithis, Esq.
Founder/CEO
The Project Counsel Group
9 June 2016 – Here we go again ….
Here is the gist: Blackbird Technologies has patented some simple ways to perform a concept search, which they now allege others have used in violation of their patent. Their main target is kCura, “a developer and provider of an e-discovery system called “Relativity.”” From the complaint:
COUNT I – INFRINGEMENT OF U.S. PATENT NO. 7,809,717
14. Blackbird Technologies reasserts and incorporates herein by reference the allegations of all preceding paragraphs of this Complaint as if fully set forth herein.
15. Defendant is a developer and provider of an e-discovery system called “Relativity.” The current commercially-available version of Relativity is Version 9.3 (“v9.3”). (Ex. 4 at 2). According to Defendant, Relativity v9.3 includes various features called “products,” including an “Analytics” product. (Ex. 5 at 1). Further according to Defendant, Relativity Analytics includes a “[c]oncept searching” feature. (Ex. 6 at 2).
19. Defendant has directly infringed one or more of the claims of the ‘717 Patent, including at least claims 1, … Read more