Facebook settles lawsuit with game company over technology dispute

U.S. tech giant Facebook has reached a settlement with video gaming firm ZeniMax Media over a lawsuit alleging Facebook's theft of ZeniMax-held proprietary virtual reality (VR) technology, ZeniMax CEO Robert Altman said in a statement published on Wednesday.

The terms of the settlement reached earlier in the day was not disd, but Altman said his company was satisfied with the result.

"We are pleased that a settlement has been reached and are fully satisfied by the outcome," Altman said in the statement.

"While we dislike litigation, we will always vigorously defend against any infringement or misappropriation of our intellectual property by third parties," he said.

ZeniMax sued Facebook, which bought VR hardware manufacturer Oculus in 2014, for improperly using data provided by John Carmack, who was chief software designer of ZeniMax-owned Id Software company. ZeniMax alleged that Carmack stole its technological secrets to help Oculus develop the Oculus Rift VR headset products.

A federal jury found Oculus guilty of copyright infringement and awarded ZeniMax 500 million U.S. dollars in damages in 2017, but a district court in Dallas, Texas state reduced the amount to 250 million dollars in June 2018 after Facebook and Oculus appealed.

A Facebook spokesperson told local media it will focus more time on development of its VR products after the case is d.

China court bans sales of older iPhone models in Apple-Qualcomm global battle

 A Chinese court has ordered a sales ban of some older Apple Inc iPhone models in China for violating two patents of chipmaker Qualcomm Inc, though intellectual property lawyers said enforcement of the ban was likely still a distant threat.

The case, brought by Qualcomm, is part of a global patent dispute between the two U.S. companies that includes dozens of lawsuits. It creates uncertainty over Apple's business in one of its biggest markets at a time when concerns over waning demand for new iPhones are battering its shares.

Apple said on Dec 10 that all of its phone models remained on sale in mainland China and that it had filed a request for reconsideration with the court, the first step in a long appeal process that could end up at China's Supreme Court.

Qualcomm said in a statement the Fuzhou Intermediate People's Court in China found Apple infringed two patents held by the chipmaker and ordered an immediate ban on sales of older iPhone models, from the 6S through the X.

Hangzhou Internet court adopts blockchain to protect copyright of online literature

Writers publishing their work online can easily by hurt by piracy and it is hard to safeguard their legal rights due to difficulties collecting evidence. But an Internet court in East China's Hangzhou now has a solution.

Thanks to blockchain technology, the integral process of work circulating in cyberspace can be extracted for writers to use as evidence in court.

Writers used to resort to screenshots and downloaded content as evidence, which was hard to gain legal recognition as the process was not credible enough, according to Wang Jiangqiao, a judge at the Internet court.

On the other hand, notarial procedures and hiring of professional lawyers push up the costs of seeking justice, he said.

But blockchain guarantees that data can not be tampered, due to its decentralized and open distributed ledger technology. Therefore, all digital footprints stored in the judicial blockchain system -- authorship, time of creation, content and evidence of infringement -- have legal effect, Wang said.

Hangzhou is home to many, if not most, online writers in China. A total of 107 famous online writers have signed contracts to create works in a "writers' village" in the city's Binjiang District.

China has set up three Internet courts in Hangzhou, Beijing and Guangzhou to handle Internet-related cases. The country's 800 million Internet users and booming online business have led to rising number of Internet-related disputes.