A trial that pits eBay against a man who says he owns two patents that are key to the Web auctioneer's operations is due to kick off in Virginia federal court.
A patent lawyer and former CIA technology expert who once helped build the agency's communications network is alleging that eBay (EBAY) infringed two of his patents covering the process by which people make binding offers secured by a credit card to buy items over the Internet.
He is seeking a permanent injunction and unspecified damages from eBay.
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Labels sue Napster's backers: Universal Music and EMI filed a lawsuit against the venture capitalists who backed Napster, claiming they contributed to the copyright violations by millions of the song-swapping service's users.
At its height, Napster boasted 60 million users. The pioneer file-sharing service filed for bankruptcy protection in June after the music industry successfully persuaded the courts to shut it down for copyright infringement.
The suit against the venture capitalists seeks punitive damages, along with $150,000 per violation. It is also intended to discourage others from investing in any of the file-swapping services that have risen in Napster's place.
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Brits attack Kombat ad: A video-game ad that featured a hooded youth wiping his bloodied hand on the shoulder of a middle-aged businessman with the logo "It's in us all" has been judged to be offensive in Britain.
Britain's Advertising Standards Authority has ruled that a poster for Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance was irresponsible because it could be seen by children, even though the game itself is rated 18. Software developer Midway Games said the game was not aimed at children.
The Advertising Standards Authority ruled that Midway games must consult with an industry advice body before advertising in Britain again. More than 1 million Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance games have been sold worldwide since its November 2002 launch, according to U.S.-based Midway.
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Steamrolling music: Peru's state property rights agency crushed 50,000 pirated music CDs with a steamroller on a Lima street as part of a plan to deter a rampant trade in counterfeit goods.
Musicians and singers danced atop the pile of thousands of compact discs to protest pirating that the government says inhibits artistic creativity and starves a cash-strapped state of needed taxes.
About 98 percent of music CDs in Peru are pirated -- one of the highest rates in the world -- and they are often indistinguishable from originals in sound quality and packaging, and cost a fraction of the price of an authorized disc.
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Chip gets major players: Microprocessor maker Advanced Micro Devices recruited technology heavyweights such as IBM and Microsoft in its bid to grab a piece of the lucrative server-computer market from rival Intel.
During a launch for its new, more powerful Opteron chip, AMD (AMD) said that the support of such major players would help it get others on board.
The support from IBM (IBM), Microsoft (MSFT) and Oracle (ORCL) is an important step for AMD, which has long struggled to close the large market-share gap between it and Intel (INTC), the leading maker of server processors, analysts said.
Two large computer makers whose names were not on the list are Dell (DELL) and Hewlett-Packard (HPQ), which co-developed the Itanium chip for servers with Intel.
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Layoffs at PeopleSoft: After reporting a sharp drop in software sales, PeopleSoft is predicting a software revenue drop this year and announced plans to cut 200 jobs.
Executives said business conditions have worsened this year amid shrinking corporate and government budgets. Concerns about the war with Iraq and fears about the SARS virus have also hampered business, they said.
"We continue to see strong demand ... tempered by continuing economic stagnation and geopolitical instability," said a PeopleSoft executive.
PeopleSoft executives also announced a restructuring that will result in the dismissal of about 200 employees and the closing of the company's Santa Clara, California, office.
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Chips start shipping: Intel resumed shipping its latest Pentium 4 processor, which was delayed after engineers spotted a potential problem.
Intel's (INTC) 3-GHz chip, which was supposed to be widely available, was pulled at the last minute after the problem was uncovered during testing. Computer makers who already have the chip in stock have been sent a software fix.
The delayed chip is different from its predecessors in that its system bus runs at 800 MHz, compared with 533 MHz in older chips. The system bus shuttles data between the processor and memory.
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WorldCom exec pleads: Former WorldCom executive Scott Sullivan pleaded innocent to new federal charges as his defense team offered a glimpse of its strategy for his fraud trial.
Sullivan pleaded innocent to a new indictment that accuses him of lying on financial statements to secure $4.25 billion in credit for WorldCom in 2001, a year before it declared bankruptcy.
At a hearing in federal court, Sullivan's lawyer said he would move later to subpoena other telecommunications executives, hoping to show WorldCom was not alone in its accounting irregularities. The company counted short-term "line" expenses as long-term capital expenditures, meaning that for accounting purposes the cost could be spread over years instead of charged in the year the expense occurred.
Investigators have since uncovered a $9 billion accounting fraud, the largest in U.S. history.
Compiled by Kari L. Dean. AP and Reuters contributed to this report.
