Apple and Proview are in a heated legal battle over the ownership of the iPad name in China and now Apple is threatening to sue the Asian company for defamation. Apple is upset with Proview’s attempt to reclaim the iPad trademark and use it to ban iPad sales in China. According to PC World, Apple supposedly sent a letter to Proview founder Yang Rongshan which says,

“It is inappropriate to release information contrary to the facts to the media, especially when such disclosures have the effect of wrongfully causing damage to Apple’s reputation,”

A[From Apple threatens defamation lawsuit in Chinese iPad trademark case]

By Mike Emmick

In the fervor of the U.S.’s current anti-foreign-corruption efforts, a particularly misguided proposal has occasionally reared its ugly head: Requiring “mandatory debarment” for any company that violates the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (“FCPA”).

On the merits, such a proposal is completely wrong-headed. Debarment is a severe, forward-looking administrative remedy – the corporate “death penalty” – not a vehicle to “boost” the penalties for past criminal FCPA violations.

Nonetheless, in 2010, such a “mandatory debarment” bill was passed by the House, only to die in Congress due to Senate inaction. Optimistic multinational contractors might therefore have concluded, “Whew, we dodged that bullet.”

[From Mandatory Debarment for FCPA Violations? A Bad Idea Whose Time Should Never Come]

A federal audit that found the Defense Department cannot account for nearly $2 billion in Iraqi funds is likely to fuel Baghdad’s interest in pursuing a claim against Washington for failing to handle its money responsibly, the special inspector-general for Iraq reconstruction Stuart Bowen told National Journal.

An audit published on Sunday investigated the roughly $3 billion the Iraqi government gave the Defense Department to pay bills for contracts the Coalition Provisional Authority awarded before it dissolved in 2004. Most of these funds were deposited into an account at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Even though DOD was responsible for maintaining the proper documentation, it could only account for $1 billion of the money.
[From Pentagon can't account for nearly $2 billion in Iraqi funds - Defense - GovExec.com]

Fast forward to Facebook, a place where by using it, you not only opt into providing your personal data, but also allow them to sell it, providing it to third parties “for your convenience.” They are slated to make billions from their IPO. So what do you think?

Facebook, the vast online social network, is poised to file for a public stock offering on Wednesday that will ultimately value the company at $75 billion to $100 billion, cashing in on the fuel that powers the engine of Internet commerce: personal data.
[From Personal Data’s Value? Facebook Is Set to Find Out - NYTimes.com]

The Internet, with global reach, is likely available in Nome. So, if my website sells a widget for $1.50 to a person in Nome, and the widget causes damage to that person, is that enough for me to have to pack a bag and head for Nome to defend the 3 million dollar lawsuit filed against me? Maybe. Like much of the law, it comes down to many tiny little points that may or may not seem important to normal business people, but mean the world to the judge making the decision. No one can tell for certain what is going on in that judge’s mind, or what facets of high extremely complicated body of law and civil procedure she is going to choose to make her decision.

Although trademark law is not the same as Internet law, regardless of how domain names are handled, watching how some of the jurisdictional issues are decided can provide a bit of insight into how a particular federal circuit might rule in similar cases. National trademarks, like the Internet, reach across jurisdictions. So, if I violate a national trademark, and the trademark holder wishes to sue me in the forum most convenient for them, have I consented to that jurisdiction merely by infringing the mark anywhere in the United States? Have I “purposefully availed myself” of that forum? This court says “not so fast…”

Zero Motorcycles, Inc. v. Pirelli Tyre S.p.A., 802 F.Supp.2d
1078 (N.D. Cal. 2011)

Zero filed for declaratory relief against Pirelli seeking to
protect its use of ZERO and ZERO-formative marks.  Zero makes electric motorcycles under the
ZERO MOTORCYCLES mark in many foreign countries, since 2007.  It has US registrations for ZERO on electric
vehicles, namely motorcycles, as well as ZERO MOTORCYLES, ZERO DS, ZERO S, ZERO
SS, ZERO X and ZERO MX. Pirelli makes various products, including tires for
vehicles, and owns a number of trademarks which incorporate the ZERO mark.  (There are a number of Pirelli companies; the
one that conducts business in California is Pirelli Tire LLC.) 

[From Attacking national company's TMs doesn't create personal jurisdiction in California]

Telework Takes Hold
By Brittany Ballenstedtbballenstedt@govexec.comJanuary 30, 2012
Federal employees started off this week with their first snow-related delay of the winter season, and many feds are still concerned about what winter weather will mean for their commute and their ability to perform their jobs. The good news is that many government offices have adopted teleworking policies, according to a new report by Microsoft.
The report, which is based on a survey of 250 employees, 73 percent of which worked in government, found that 67 percent of respondents work remotely at least some of the time. Surprisingly, however, only 33 percent of teleworkers indicated that their job satisfaction and productivity have increased since telework adoption.
[From Telework Takes Hold -- GovExec.com]

Five reasons the Internet’s still protesting SOPA and PIPA
Posted by Brad Plumer at 10:44 AM ET, 01/18/2012
Over the weekend, it seemed like the anti-SOPA forces had won. The House temporarily shelved the Stop Online Piracy Act. The Senate sponsors of the Protect IP Act agreed to review the most controversial provisions. So why’s the Internet still so mad? Here are five
[From Five reasons the Internet’s still protesting SOPA and PIPA - The Washington Post]

In China you can’t get to some Internet sites: no Facebook, no YouTube, no Twitter. Search engines can’t find the “Falun Gong” or “Tiananmen Square massacre”. We would never do that kind of blocking here in the US, you say. Well, not so fast. If either House bill SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) or Senate bill PIPA (Protect IP Act) or something in between passes both houses of Congress and is signed by the President, Internet censorship, unreachable websites, and forbidden searches will be the law of this land.

The Arab Spring has been enabled by the inability of some governments to block Internet communication. SOPA and SIPA both require that Internet blocking tools be developed and deployed here. Maybe we trust our own government not to misuse these (I don’t!); but do we really want to be responsible for the proliferation of censorship and blocked communication?

Why, you ask, would our Congresspeople want to impose censorship anywhere? Why would they want to slow down the most vigorous parts of the US economy?

The answer, at least, is simple. These are bills that Hollywood wants to protect its movies from online piracy, and Hollywood makes mega-campaign contributions and even gives Congresspeople bit parts in its movies. There is nothing partisan about campaign contributions.
[From Fractals of Change: SOPA and PIPA are Bipartisan Bad Policy, Really Bad Policy]

With a week to go before his group rolls out a program that could dramatically increase the number of Internet addresses available to the public, the chairman of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers says he sees no reason to delay despite growing calls to slow down the process.
“What value would a delay (serve)?” ICANN Chairman Stephen Crocker asked National Journal in an interview on Tuesday. He added that critics have yet to identify a “specific loose end where time was needed to work out the details.”
The program will allow for the introduction of almost any new Internet address, also known as a generic top-level domain name, as long as the applicant has the financial and technical means to successfully operate it. This includes ponying up $185,000 for the application fee alone. ICANN will formally begin accepting applications for the new gTLD names on Jan. 12. Almost any word would qualify, offering the potential to extend the familiar dot-com, dot-net field of 22 choices — .xxx is the latest — to include dot-anything.

[From ICANN chairman sees little value in delaying new domain-name program - Nextgov]

Today’s winner is an app and service that should be on everyone’s iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac, and PC — Dropbox. The Dropbox iPhone app (free) pulled in 38.6 percent of the votes form TUAW readers, topping Evernote (free), which came in second with 28.0 percent.

Dropbox provides 2 GB of synced cloud storage to everyone at no cost, 50 GB at $99.99 per year, or 100 GB at $199.99 annually. There are team account options as well.