Pollen Mobile, a subsidiary of Pronto.ai, violated federal and California securities laws by selling unregistered securities and expiring gift cards, alleged a class action Wednesday (docket 3:23-cv-04023) in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Francisco.
A copyright infringement case by Gizmodo Editor-in-Chief Tom Ackerman alleges the Tetris movie “demonstrated the confiscation” of his original work and creation of his book, The Tetris Effect. Chapters and pages of Ackerman's book were “simply adopted from the book to the film,” said the complaint (docket 1:23-cv-06952), filed Monday in U.S. District Court for Southern New York in Manhattan,
U.S. District Judge Michael Brown for Northern Georgia in Atlanta ordered OpenAI to show cause by Aug. 21 why the defamation suit brought against the defendant by nationally syndicated talk show host Mark Walters shouldn’t be remanded to state court for defects in its notice of removal, said Brown’s text-only order Monday (docket 1:23-cv-03122). Walters should file a response brief by Sept. 5 to OpenAI’s answer to the show-cause order, said Brown’s order. Walters alleges in a complaint that OpenAI removed July 14 from Gwinnett County Superior Court that OpenAI’s ChatGPT service defamed him to a reporter (see 2307240031). OpenAI’s notice of removal doesn’t show the Northern District of Georgia “has diversity jurisdiction over this case,” said Brown’s order. It also establishes “neither the requisite amount in controversy nor diversity of citizenship,” it said. If OpenAI doesn’t establish subject-matter jurisdiction or “otherwise comply” with the show-cause order, Brown will remand the case to state court where it originated, said the order. Walters' response to OpenAI's motion to dismiss his complaint is due Sept. 8.
The FCC doesn’t plan to conclude the 2022 quadrennial review before finishing the 2018 iteration, the agency said Monday in an opposition filing in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. The FCC “has no intention of combining the Quadrennial Reviews for 2018 and 2022; nor does it plan to allow the 2022 review to ‘cut in front of’ the 2018 review,” the filing said. The FCC “plans to complete the 2018 review of its ownership rules before it concludes its independent 2022 review of the rules,” said the agency. “If NAB’s sole purpose in seeking mandamus is to prevent the FCC from combining the 2018 and 2022 reviews, mandamus is not necessary to achieve that outcome.” The agency was responding to NAB’s mandamus request that the court force the agency to issue a 2018 QR, which NAB filed after the FCC sought comment on the 2022 QR without concluding the previous iteration (see 2307070057). The FCC’s failure to conclude the 2018 QR is “by no measure egregious,” considering the multiyear litigation against the original 2018 QR order that went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, said the agency. The SCOTUS decision upholding the FCC was issued in 2021, and the FCC had to refresh the record after the ruling, the agency said. That record refresh drew “almost 1000 pages of new comments and attachments,” and ended less than two years ago, the FCC said. QR proceedings are often contentious and complicated, and the agency has only four commissioners, the filing said. “For the past twenty years, each of the Commission’s orders completing Section 202(h) review has been approved by a 3-2 vote, with two Commissioners issuing lengthy dissenting statements,” the FCC said. NAB is “mistaken” in asserting that QRs are meant to be both started and completed every four years, the FCC said. “Congress did not identify a specific deadline for commission action,” the filing said. “NAB’s claims that the Commission has unduly delayed completion of past Quadrennial Reviews is irrelevant to its claim in this case that there has been undue delay in the 2018 Quadrennial Review,” the filing said. Granting NAB’s mandamus request “would intrude on the FCC’s discretion to order its priorities,” the FCC said. “The FCC is saying, somewhat ironically, if the NAB quits suing us we could finish media ownership, but we shouldn't be made to have to do it,” said University of Minnesota professor Christopher Terry. He said however the agency resolves the two QRs, the matter is likely to lead to further litigation.
Plaintiff Julie Jones seeks to remand her June 1 California Invasion of Privacy Act class action against Tonal Systems to California Superior Court where it originated before Tonal removed it July 7 to U.S. District Court for Southern California in San Diego, said her memorandum of points and authorities Friday (docket 3:23-cv-01267) in support of her remand motion. Jones alleges Tonal, a maker of smart home fitness equipment, uses third parties' software to “secretly wiretap and eavesdrop on the private conversations of users of the chat features on Tonal’s website in real time” (see 2307110047). Her claims “almost certainly fall” within the “home state controversy exception” of the Class Action Fairness Act (CAFA) and should be remanded to state court for that reason, said her memorandum. In the alternative, to help the court and the parties determine whether the Southern District of California may exercise jurisdiction over Jones’ claims, the court should permit her “to engage in expedited jurisdictional discovery for this purpose,” it said. The CAFA’s exception says a district court should decline to exercise jurisdiction where two-thirds or more of the members of all proposed plaintiff classes, plus the primary defendants, are citizens of the state in which the action was originally filed, it said. Tonal is “unquestionably” a citizen of California, where it’s headquartered, said the memorandum. In all likelihood, the vast majority of class members used the Tonal website’s chat feature “from their homes in California, where the vast majority likely intend to remain indefinitely and are therefore domiciled,” it said. The complaint therefore supports a finding that, “at a minimum,” two-thirds of the proposed class members are citizens of California and the exception to CAFA jurisdiction applies, it said. If the court seeks a more satisfactory showing of how many class members there were and where they were located by the date of the filing of the complaint, “limited discovery on this jurisdictional topic is appropriate,” it said.
Communications Litigation Today is tracking the following lawsuits involving appeals of FCC actions:
ChatGPT owner OpenAI sued Open Artificial Intelligence and its president, Guy Ravine, to stop the company from “confusing the missions of users of OpenAI’s products into mistakenly believing” the defendants have any connection to, association with or sponsorship by OpenAI, “when, in fact, there is none,” said a complaint Friday (docket 3:23-cv-03918) in U.S. District Court for Northern California in San Francisco. Ravine, a resident of San Francisco, “holds himself out as the president of Defendant Open Artificial Intelligence, Inc.,” said the complaint. Open Artificial Intelligence couldn’t be reached for comment.
GVTC Communications, fiber telecom provider, elects board member Clint Swindall chairman to succeed Chuck Knibbe, resigning after 27 years in that role, but remaining on the board ... Cisco promotes Oliver Tuszik to president-Europe, the Middle East and Africa ... Firefly Aerospace names Blue Origin's Brett Alexander, also ex-White House Office of Science and Technology Policy under former President George W. Bush, chief revenue officer ... Game developer FunPlus hires former Reflector Entertainment Chief Creative Officer Alexandre Amancio as senior vice president and head-world building and IP strategy ... VMD, cybersecurity services provider to the federal government, promotes Senior Vice President-Business Development Mike Brokaw to chief delivery officer, newly created role ... Cybercheck, cyber intelligence AI company, names former Salesforce.com Chief Customer Officer Chris Ramsey CEO, effective Sept. 18; current CEO and founder Adam Mosher moves to chief technology officer.
Former Amazon third-party seller Zongheng Domain Network wants U.S. District Judge Jennifer Rochon for Southern New York in Manhattan to vacate an arbitration award in Amazon’s favor because the arbitrator’s ruling is “completely irrational, manifestly disregards the law" and “violates a strong public policy,” said the seller’s memorandum of law Tuesday (docket 1:23-cv-03334) in support of its amended vacatur petition. The arbitrator wrongly found Section 2 of Amazon’s contract with the seller is “a valid liquidated damage clause and enforceable,” said the memorandum. Rochon’s July 20 order denied the seller’s motion to remand the vacatur petition to New York County Supreme Court where it originated before Amazon removed it (see 2307210035). The seller seeks recovery of $508,000 in sales proceeds that Amazon seized, and the arbitrator let Amazon keep, when it deactivated the seller’s online store for allegedly manipulating customer product reviews (see 2305080023).
The opposition from plaintiffs Justin Davis and Gary Davis to HP’s motion to dismiss their fraud class action (see 2307030008) fails to address “controlling” 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals precedent, or the guidance provided by the district court’s prior decisions, said HP’s reply brief Tuesday (docket 4:23-cv-02114) in U.S. District Court for Northern California in Oakland in support of dismissal. The plaintiffs allege the defective trackpads in their HP Omen laptops rendered their computers unusable without an external mouse.