Apple appeal in progress

A federal judge has ordered Apple to pay a total of $21.7 million in damages to OPTi over a patent dispute. But the company is sticking to its guns and appealing the decision, states Ars Technica.

Last week, a federal judge entered final judgement against Apple in a patent infringement suit brought by OPTi US. Magistrate Judge Charles Everingham granted Apple's motion for judgment as a matter of law that it did not wilfully infringe OPTi's patent for predictive cache snooping, but nonetheless entered a guilty verdict against Apple for infringement, upholding a jury award and tacking on interest for a total of $21.7 million in damages.

Apple has argued throughout the case that OPTi's patent should be invalid, and promptly filed an appeal the following day.

Oracle is to go before the European Commission to argue that it should be permitted to continue with its $5.6-billion acquisition of Sun Microsystems, reports InformationWeek.

The company has support from Eben Moglen, Columbia University law professor and director of the Software Freedom Law Center, and the legal advisor to Richard Stallman's Free Software Foundation. Moglen has asserted that the issues raised by Oracle's prospective ownership of MySQL don't warrant a conclusion that the transaction threatens significant anti-competitive consequences.

Neelie Kroes, of the European Commission, has criticised the proposed deal as being anti-competitive, as MySQL is one of the most widely used open-source database systems.

Facebook is shutting down a program that sparked a lawsuit alleging privacy violations, and is setting up a $9.5-million fund non-profit foundation that will support online privacy, safety and security, reports Network World.

The lawsuit centres around Facebook's Beacon program, which let third-party Web sites distribute information about users of Facebook. Beacon, unveiled in 2007, lasted less than a year before plaintiffs filed a class action lawsuit, alleging that Facebook and its affiliates did not give users adequate notice and choice about Beacon and the collection and use of users' personal information.

Facebook has since terminated the Beacon program. The non-profit hopes to fund projects and initiatives that promote the cause of online privacy, safety, and security.