Paul Gluckman

The FTC said Thursday it’s unfazed by Meta’s motion to dismiss the agency’s amended complaint (docket 5:22-cv-04325) in U.S. District Court in San Jose, in which the FTC seeks an injunction to block Meta’s acquisition of Within Unlimited and its Supernatural virtual-reality fitness app on anticompetitive grounds (see 2210130082).

The village of Muttontown, New York, asked for a two-week deadline extension to Oct. 26 to answer a complaint that the municipality dragged its feet on AT&T's application to remedy a service gap, per a letter motion filed Tuesday (docket 2:22-cv-5524) at the U.S. District Court in Central Islip, New York. AT&T consented to the delay, according to a stipulation attached to the letter motion. U.S. Magistrate Judge Lee Dunst granted the motion Thursday.

Portions of a California complaint alleging Amazon skirted antitrust and unfair competition laws need to be kept sealed to protect “highly confidential and competitive information, the disclosure of which could cause significant harm to Amazon,” said Cristina Fernandez, Amazon corporate counsel-competition, in a declaration in support of the motion to seal posted Tuesday (docket CGC-22-601826) in California Superior Court in San Francisco.

Amazon and Amazon Web Services “expressly deny” they violated the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act by using the company’s Rekognition facial-imaging technology to monitor employees in Amazon fulfillment centers, said the companies in a recent notice of removal (docket 1:22-cv-05159) in U.S. District Court in Chicago. Amazon and AWS “intend to defend this matter vigorously,” they said.

Marriott International filed a motion Friday to compel discovery from Dynasty Marketing Group, one of several defendants in its novel Telephone Consumer Protection Act complaint in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, alleging infringement of Marriott trademarks by robocalling Marriott impersonators. Marriott seeks "full and complete answers," plus the production of documents, "responsive" to its discovery requests, said a memorandum in support of its motion (docket 1:21-cv-00610).

Beijing-based Sailed Technology filed a "renewed" application Thursday (docket 2:22-cv-01396) in U.S. District Court in Seattle for an order granting it permission to serve subpoenas on Amazon for deposition testimony and documents connected with a case brought in an intellectual property court in Nanjing, China, in which Amazon Echo and Fire products are alleged to have infringed one or more Sailed patents. Sailed's subpoena request is "no longer an ex parte application," it said. Chinese courts lack the discovery processes common to courts in the U.S., “and the instant application provides the only means by which Sailed can obtain the information sought,” it said. Sailed seeks “limited discovery” from Amazon about the manufacture and sales of Amazon products at issue in the Chinese court, including the identity of the “Chinese entities that manufacture, distribute, and export the accused Amazon products,” said the application. Amazon is due to file an opposition by Oct. 17, and Sailed’s reply is due Oct. 21, it said. The renewed application was filed on Sailed’s behalf by Carmen Bremer of the Bremer Law Group in Seattle, but in recent days, Sailed has brought on James Canfield, Emma Baratta, James Klaiber and Lynn Russo with Hughes Hubbard in New York to handle the case. Four attorneys with Fenwick & West are representing Amazon.

U.S. District Judge Thomas Durkin in Chicago on Friday denied T-Mobile’s motion to transfer the class action challenging its Sprint buy as anticompetitive to the same Southern District of New York court that cleared the transaction in early 2020. Durkin on Tuesday set a telephone status hearing for Oct. 21 at 9:45 a.m. CDT.

U.S. District Judge Paul Oetken in Manhattan signed an order Sept. 30 (docket 1:21-cv-10432) staying the 2021 class-action complaint against Verizon for a 2020 data breach while compelling two of the three plaintiffs to pursue their claims against the carrier through arbitration.

U.S. District Judge Diane Humetewa in Phoenix denied the motion of Kelli Ward, chair of the Arizona Republican Party, for an injunction quashing the House Jan. 6 Select Committee’s T-Mobile subpoena for Ward’s phone records as part of its investigation into her efforts to thwart certification of the 2020 election. It was Humetewa's second rejection of Ward's injunction request in less than a month, forcing the Arizona GOP chief's appeal to the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in late September.

YouTube “unlawfully retains information” that identifies consumers “as having requested or obtained specific video materials or services from Google,” in violation of the New York Video Consumer Privacy Act, alleged a class action Oct. 4 (docket 5:22-cv-05713) in U.S. District Court in San Jose. Google maintains the digital records in violation of New York law, which requires video rental companies to destroy personally identifiable information (PII) “as soon as practicable” but no later than one year from the date the information is no longer necessary for the purpose for which it was collected, said the complaint.