0

By Nate Raymond NEW YORK (Reuters) – A group of luxury goods makers sued Alibaba Group Holding Ltd on Friday, contending the Chinese online shopping giant had knowingly made it possible for counterfeiters to sell their products throughout the world. The lawsuit was filed in Manhattan federal court by Gucci, Yves Saint Laurent and other brands owned by Paris-based Kering SA seeking damages and an injunction for alleged violations of trademark and racketeering laws. The lawsuit alleged that Alibaba had conspired to manufacture, offer for sale and traffic in counterfeit products bearing their trademarks without their permission. Unfortunately, Kering Group has chosen the path of wasteful litigation instead of the path of constructive cooperation.

0

By Dan Levine and Lawrence Hurley SAN FRANCISCO/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Obama administration has been locked in internal wrangling over what position to take in high profile litigation between two American technology giants, Google and Oracle, according to multiple sources familiar with the discussions. It faces an end-of-May deadline to decide whether to take sides in a case before the U.S. Supreme Court that will have wide implications for the technology industry.     The case involves how much copyright protection should extend to the Java programing language. Oracle won a federal appeals court ruling last year that allows it to copyright parts of Java, while Google argues it should be free to use Java without paying a licensing fee. Google, which used Java to design its Android smartphone operating system, appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

0

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Apple Inc and electric battery maker A123 Systems are close to settling a legal dispute over claims that the smartphone and computer maker, which is also looking into building an electric vehicle, poached A123 employees to build a large-scale battery unit. A123, which makes batteries that are used in electric cars, sued Apple in February in Massachusetts federal court, claiming that around June 2014 Apple began aggressively poaching A123 engineers tasked with leading some of the company's most critical projects. Apple denied the claims. The Waltham, Mass. …

0

(Reuters) – Internet search company Google Inc's self-driving cars have been involved in 11 accidents, but have not been the cause of any, over the last six years since the project began, the program's director said on Monday. “…Not once was the self-driving car the cause of the accident,” Chris Urmson said in a post on technology news website Backchannel's blog Medium.

0

By Sumeet Chatterjee MUMBAI (Reuters) – Global investment banks are scrambling to get a piece of the action from India's booming technology start-ups, having missed out on the initial flurry of deal-making to their better-connected but much smaller domestic rivals. Banks including Goldman Sachs Group Inc, Citigroup and Morgan Stanley are looking to hire more bankers in India and are now regularly attending “bake-offs” to pitch for advisory roles on deals, according to several banking industry sources. Foreign money has been pouring into India's fast-growing e-commerce sector, with investors ranging from Japan's Softbank Corp to Singapore's Temasek Holdings [TEM.UL] and GIC Private Ltd [GIC.UL] piling in. Many large global investment banks have stayed away from work in the emerging sector though due to the relatively small deal sizes.

0

By Julia Fioretti BRUSSELS (Reuters) – The European Union and the United States are close to completing negotiations on a deal protecting personal data shared for law enforcement purposes such as terrorism investigations, three people familiar with the matter said. The two sides have been negotiating since 2011 over the so-called “umbrella agreement” that would protect personal data exchanged between police and judicial authorities in the course of investigations, as well as between companies and law enforcement authorities. The protection of personal data in the United States has been a sore point in the EU since former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden revealed mass U.S. surveillance programs involving EU citizens.

0

By Jonathan Stempel NEW YORK (Reuters) – A U.S. spying program that systematically collects millions of Americans' phone records is illegal, a federal appeals court ruled on Thursday, putting pressure on Congress to quickly decide whether to replace or end the controversial anti-terrorism surveillance. Ruling on a program revealed by former government security contractor Edward Snowden, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan said the Patriot Act did not authorize the National Security Agency to collect Americans' calling records in bulk. Circuit Judge Gerard Lynch wrote for a three-judge panel that Section 215, which addresses the FBI's ability to gather business records, could not be interpreted to have permitted the NSA to collect a “staggering” amount of phone records, contrary to claims by the Bush and Obama administrations.

0

Many of the tech world's top executives filled a 1,700-seat auditorium at Stanford University to commemorate David Goldberg, chief executive of SurveyMonkey. “We had 11 truly joyful years of the deepest love, happiest marriage, and truest partnership that I could imagine,” Sandberg posted on Facebook. On their way out, guests were offered Minnesota Vikings baseball caps as a reminder of the Minneapolis-born Goldberg's lighthearted nature and love of sports, according to a person who attended the service and who declined to be identified.

0

SurveyMonkey Chief Executive Dave Goldberg died Friday from a head injury while exercising at a hotel gym in Mexico, the local prosecutor's office said Monday. Goldberg, the husband of Facebook Inc Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, fell off a treadmill at the Four Seasons Resort in Punta Mita and hit his head, the prosecutor's spokesman said. Goldberg's brother found him on the floor of the gym showing signs of life, the spokesman said. The Four Seasons hotel at Punta Mita denied the reports.

0

SurveyMonkey CEO and husband of Facebook Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg, Dave Goldberg, died unexpectedly on Friday night, his brother wrote in a Facebook post on Saturday. “It’s with incredible shock and sadness that I’m letting our friends and family know that my amazing brother, Dave Goldberg, beloved husband of Sheryl Sandberg, father of two wonderful children, and son of Paula Goldberg, passed away suddenly last night,” Robert Goldberg wrote.