Paul Gluckman

U.S. District Judge William Orrick for Northern California in San Francisco signed an order Thursday (docket 3:22-cv-03580) denying the plaintiffs in a privacy class action their Aug. 25 motion for a preliminary injunction to enjoin Meta from intercepting and disseminating their patient information via the Pixel tracking tool. The plaintiffs represent one of seven consolidated cases.

Many eyes were trained Thursday on U.S. District Court for Delaware for Chief Judge Colm Connolly’s reaction to Nimitz Technologies’ latest refusal to produce bank records, emails and other materials responsive to his Nov. 10 order for documents that would identify third-party funding of four Nimitz patent lawsuits against Bloomberg, BuzzFeed, Cnet and Imagine Learning.

Defendant Amazon removed to U.S. District Court for Central California in Los Angeles a class-action fraud complaint filed Dec. 14 in California Superior Court alleging violations of the Magnuson Moss Warranty Act (MMWA) for failure to provide consumers access to written product warranties prior to sale.

U.S. Magistrate Judge John Love for Eastern Texas in Tyler signed a memorandum opinion and order Tuesday (docket 6:22-CV-00423) denying DirecTV’s Nov. 1 motion for expedited discovery in its complaint to thwart what it alleges is a global imposter fraud scheme (see 2211020017). Love also denied as moot DirecTV’s request to serve subpoenas on foreign entities via courier instead of through diplomatic channels.

Chief U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Wolford for Western New York in Rochester used a joint status conference via Zoom Tuesday to schedule a single consolidated bench trial to begin June 1 and 2 in the related infrastructure complaints brought by Crown Castle (docket 6:20-cv-06866), Extenet (6:20-cv-07129) and Verizon (6:19-cv-06583) against the city of Rochester. When the trial resumes after that will hinge on the availability of expert witnesses for all three plaintiffs in the case.

LoanDepot became the latest defendant facing alleged violations of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act to challenge the statute’s constitutionality, when it filed an answer Monday (docket 3:22-cv-00374) to an Oct. 21 complaint in U.S. District Court for Western Texas in El Paso, denying it inundated consumer Mabel Arredondo with at least 18 unauthorized automated text messages to a personal cellphone between July 26 and Oct. 21 (see 2210250045).

The U.S. District Court for Southern Illinois in East St. Louis should reject AT&T’s Nov. 18 second motion for summary judgment to vacate the Monroe County, Illinois, denial of AT&T’s application to build a 155-foot-tall cell tower because AT&T’s timeliness arguments aren't valid, said the municipality’s opposition Monday (docket 3:20-cv-01327).

U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika for Delaware signed a scheduling order Monday (docket 1:22-cv-01146) directing plaintiff Arm and defendant Qualcomm to submit by Jan. 13 their initial disclosures to begin fact discovery in Arm’s Aug. 31 breach of contract and trademark infringement complaint against Qualcomm and Qualcomm's Oct. 26 countersuit against Arm. The schedule sets fact discovery to be completed by October 2023, but a five-day jury trial is not to begin until Sept. 23, 2024.

Epic Games “denies each and every allegation” in Google’s Dec. 1 counterclaims asserting Epic “willfully breached” its developer distribution agreement (DDA) with Google (see 2212020038), said Epic’s answer Thursday (docket 3:21-md-02981) in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Francisco.

Mark Rabkin, vice president of Meta Reality Labs and the executive who heads Meta’s Oculus Store, doubts Meta has the internal capability to build its own successful virtual reality fitness app if its acquisition of Within Unlimited and its Supernatural VR fitness app falls through, he testified for the defense Friday in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Jose, in an evidentiary hearing via Zoom on the FTC’s motion for a preliminary injunction to block the transaction.