Chinese companies appear likely to take the FCC to court with the commissioners approving, as expected, a draft order to further clamp down on gear from Chinese companies, preventing the sale of yet-to-be authorized equipment in the U.S. The order, circulated by FCC Chair Jessica Rosenworcel Oct. 5, bans FCC authorization of gear from companies including Huawei, ZTE, Hytera Communications, Hikvision and Dahua Technology.
The Supreme Court should side with Meta in its lawsuit seeking to block an Israeli spyware company from allegedly accessing the encrypted messages of WhatsApp users, DOJ said in a filing last week, asking the high court to deny review in 21-1338.
Consumers’ Research's challenges to several of the FCC’s Universal Service Fund contribution factors may be an attempt to force a decision by the Supreme Court on the nondelegation doctrine, said academics and attorneys in interviews. Some said the group brought the exact same argument in multiple courts of appeals to forum shop and engineer a circuit split.
Masimo and its Cercacor Labs subsidiary moved Monday for a final judgment against former Chief Technology Officer Marcelo Lamego and a permanent injunction barring him from further misappropriating Masimo’s pulse oximetry trade secrets, said their proposed order (docket 8:18-cv-02001) in U.S. District Court for Central California in Santa Ana. U.S. District Judge James Selna’s “finding of facts” ruling Nov. 7 also said Lamego breached his fiduciary duty of loyalty to Cercacor and he violated his employment agreements by keeping confidential information and documents (see 2211170034).
A lawsuit from Republican state attorneys general claiming Biden administration officials colluded with Big Tech to censor social media information should be dismissed because the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana doesn’t have jurisdiction and the AGs failed to make a “plausible” First Amendment claim, DOJ argued Tuesday in 3:22-CV-01213 (see 2211220054).
Recent Texas laws preempting local governments in the right of way (ROW) are permissible under the state constitution, the state argued this week at the Texas 3rd Court of Appeals. Cities disagreed earlier this month that a lower court could uphold the rental rate caps in the state’s 2017 small-cells law without at least considering material facts. The Texas constitutional principle at issue here shouldn’t be foreign to other states, said local government attorney David Brown in an interview. “The expectation is that governments don’t give away property.”
An AT&T petition Monday in U.S. District Court for Middle Florida in Tampa seeks to compel the production of documents from Voxon under a Sept. 19 subpoena issued by the U.S. District Court for Eastern Pennsylvania in Philadelphia in a case (docket 2:21-cv-02771) in which AT&T is a defendant. Core Communications sued AT&T there in June 2021, seeking the recovery of $11.4 million in unpaid access services charges, and AT&T said in the petition (docket 8:22-mc-00043) that the Voxon documents are “directly relevant” to its defense in the case.
Nexstar must turn over documents related to its local marketing agreement with Mission Broadcasting to operate WPIX New York, said an order Saturday in the broadcaster’s breach of contract case against Comcast in docket 1:21-cv-06860 in the U.S. District Court for Eastern New York. Nexstar had disputed Magistrate Judge Stewart Aaron’s order that its relationship to Mission and WPIX was relevant to the case (see 2211010063). “Given Magistrate Judges’ broad discretion” in handling discovery disputes “plainly there was no abuse of discretion,” wrote District Judge John Koeltl.
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Amazon’s Oct. 3 complaint alleging Washington state’s requirement to abate hazards in the workplace violates its 14th Amendment rights to due process is a lawsuit that “fails at the starting gate,” said the Washington Department of Labor & Industries in a motion to dismiss Friday (docket 2:22-cv-01404) in U.S. District Court for Western Washington in Seattle.