News & Commentary • Page 6 of 11 • Software Patents, Smartphones, and Litigation

March 13, 2018 • by Quandary Peak Research

Appeals Court Rules on Twitter’s Role in “Material Support” of Terrorism

An appeals court ruled in agreement with a lower court in January 2018 that Twitter was not liable for the deaths of two American military contractors, killed by a terrorist in Jordan in 2015. The ruling is the latest repudiation of the notion that social media services are willingly providing support to…

Comcast Accused of Demanding Punitive Compensation from Rival

Wave Broadband, a rival of telecom giant Comcast, has filed a complaint with the FCC, accusing the company of demanding “a punitive ransom totaling nearly $3.5 million” in order to continue airing Comcast-owned sports programming. It is the latest in a series of grievances taken to the FCC by Comcast’s competitors, who…

Trade Secrets and Cover-Ups: The Case of Waymo vs. Uber

In February 2017, Waymo filed a lawsuit in San Francisco federal court against Uber, alleging theft of trade-secrets related to Waymo’s self-driving car technology. The lawsuit, full of twists and turns, was settled earlier this month, with Uber agreeing to pay $245 million in shares to Alphabet (Google), Waymo’s parent company. Below…

Lawsuit alleges Apple Pay Patent Violation

Kenneth Weiss, the former CTO and Chairman of the Board at RSA Security, sued Apple Inc. and Visa in May 2017. Mr. Weiss is the founder of Universal Secure Registry (USR) and the inventor of RSA’s SecurID technology, and he is alleging that Apple Pay violates various patents he owns related to…

Net Neutrality, Repealed – What to Expect Ahead

The FCC’s recent repeal of net neutrality regulations has provoked strong reactions from free speech advocates, corporations, politicians, and everyday internet users alike, making it difficult to separate the facts from the bluster. We’ve outlined the case for net neutrality before, so in this piece we’ll examine the legal elements of the…

Supreme Court to Hear Landmark Cellphone Surveillance Case

In what could arguably be labeled as one of the most consequential Supreme Court terms in decades, one particular case stands out within the realm of technology and privacy: Carpenter v. United States, No. 16-402. This case looms large as the Supreme Court seeks to determine the extent to which cell phone…

How Viable are VPNs for your Online Privacy Needs?

In a recent piece on internet privacy legislation, Quandary Peak’s editorial team addressed the Congressional vote in March to overturn Obama-era internet privacy laws. In short, the new law gives telecommunications companies greater flexibility in how they can track, collect, and sell customer data. From a consumer standpoint, the implications of this…

A Briefing on Internet Privacy Legislation (2017)

On March 28, 2017, Congress voted to overturn Obama-era internet privacy laws that were scheduled to go into effect later this year. As one of their first orders of business under President Trump, Congress targeted the FCC rule that required Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to “protect the privacy of their customers…[ensuring] broadband…

February 27, 2017 • by Jason Frankovitz

Code is Tricky, Part 2: Source Code Never Runs

Every software expert at Quandary Peak regularly reads and analyzes large volumes of source code, and while understanding the specific programming language can help, it’s not the only skill we bring to a project. Knowing the unique qualities and nuances that apply to programming code can be the difference between winning and losing a trial. In…

February 10, 2017 • by Jason Frankovitz

Code is Tricky, Part 1: Dead Code

Every software expert at Quandary Peak regularly reads and analyzes large volumes of source code, and while understanding the specific programming language can help, it’s not the only skill we bring to a project. Knowing the unique qualities and nuances that apply to programming code can be the difference between winning and losing a case. In…