These days, some of tech’s most important decisions are being made inside courtrooms. Google and Facebook are fending off antitrust accusations, while patent suits determine how much control of their own products they can have. The slow fight over Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act threatens platforms like Twitter and YouTube with untold liability suits for the content they host. Gig economy companies like Uber and Airbnb are fighting for their very existence as their workers push for the protections of full-time employees. In each case, judges and juries are setting the rules about exactly how far tech companies can push the envelope and exactly how much protection everyday people have. This is where we keep track of those legal fights and the broader principles behind them. When you move fast and break things, it shouldn’t be too much of a surprise when you end up in court.
There’s some kind of news coming from the White House this week about AI regulations, after a post from the president to Truth Social saying, “You can’t expect a company to get 50 Approvals every time they want to do something. THAT WILL NEVER WORK!”
The court is hearing arguments in a case where it could overturn decades of precedent over the president’s firing of a Federal Trade Commissioner. While conservative justices worry about letting Congress’ authority run wild, liberal justices like Elena Kagan warn of creating “a president with control over everything.”
Frog costumes, Luigi hats, and the press frenzy at the viral murder trial.
Earlier this week, the judge overseeing the New York state case against Mangione said he would seal all exhibits, including police body camera footage of the arrest. Mangione’s defense argues releasing the exhibits could be prejudicial — but Judge Gregory Carro just told us that some exhibits will be released soon. Journalists made a push for releasing the exhibits earlier this week, with one reporter even getting removed from court.
In court Thursday during evidence suppression hearings, prosecutors showed a hand-written note that police say they found among Mangione’s possessions. It was only briefly shown and hard to make out, but one day’s tasks included buying USBs and a digital camera from Best Buy. Journalist Lorena O’Neil reports one section of the note may have referenced archiving social media pages, which were scrutinized by the public after Mangione’s arrest.
Cool update to last week’s story on why language doesn’t equal intelligence: a Michigan judge cited it to justify imposing sanctions over a ChatGPT-assisted filing that mentioned real cases but misstated their facts. Congrats to author Benjamin Riley, and thanks to folks who pointed it out on X and Bluesky!
![LLMs are toolsthat “emulate the communicative function of language, not the separateand distinct cognitive process of thinking and reasoning.” BenjaminRiley, Large language mistake, The Verge https://techyes.pages.dev/aiartificial-intelligence/827820/large-language-models-ai-intelligenceneuroscience-problems [https://perma.cc/7EHD-PLLZ]. When an LLMoverstates a holding of a case, it is not because it made a mistake whenlogically working through how that case might represent a“nonfrivolous argument for extending, modifying, or reversing existinglaw or for establishing new law;” it is just piecing together a plausiblelooking sentence – one whose content may or may not be true](https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/2025/12/Screenshot-2025-12-04-at-8.35.16%E2%80%AFAM.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0,0,100,100)
According to FlatpanelsHD and TheWalkmanblog, Sony has trademarked “True RGB” in Japan and Canada. It’s almost certainly for the RGB TV technology announced earlier this year to compete with similar RGB tech from Hisense, TCL, and Samsung shown in 2025.
We’re listening to testimony from one of the responding officers who arrested Luigi Mangione in a Pennsylvania McDonalds. The officer testified that Mangione’s medical face mask made him stand out as the person who was reported as being suspicious.
“We don’t wear masks” in the city, officer Joseph Detwiler told the court. “We have antibodies.” This elicited an audible reaction from the audience.
We’re back in New York court this morning for pre-trial hearings on whether key evidence in the UnitedHealthcare CEO shooting case will be barred from being shown to jurors — that includes items like a firearm and notebook recovered when Mangione was arrested. As I left the courthouse last night, some Mangione supporters were already “in line” to try to get inside on Tuesday. They camped out across the street in tents overnight.
A Department of Corrections officer at the Pennsylvania prison where Mangione was held after his arrest told the court that he and Mangione discussed how traditional media and social media was reacting to the shooting of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. The corrections officer told Mangione that from his perspective, mainstream media focused on the crime, whereas social media users discussed the wrongdoings of the healthcare industry.
Hearings this week will focus on whether key evidence is admissible in the New York State case against Mangione, who’s accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. At each hearing, trucks have circled the courthouse with information about the case and stories of patients who have struggled to get healthcare claims approved.
Fresh off a settlement with the DOJ over its software allegedly enabling landlord collusion to raise rents, RealPage is now suing the state of New York over a new law that bans algorithmic rent pricing, claiming it violates the company’s First Amendment rights.
RealPage is seeking a judgment and injunction against a recently adopted statute that seeks to prohibit the use of math and publicly available information to provide advice or recommendations to RealPage’s customers who own and manage rental housing properties. Among other things, the statute seeks to ban software that uses public data about rental or lease terms to advise or recommend market-appropriate rent prices for rental housing properties.
Cameo, the service that gives purpose to has-beens, has secured a temporary restraining order that prohibits Altman and Co from using “Cameo” to name a Sora feature that lets people insert themselves and characters into AI-generated videos. The TRO expires shortly after a trademark hearing scheduled for December 19th.
It’s the latest legal ruling that training on copyrighted materials without permission violates said copyright, ignoring OpenAI’s argument that users should be the ones held liable.
German music rights society GEMA filed the case on behalf of the lyricists behind nine of the country’s biggest hits, though OpenAI says it’s considering an appeal.
NFL analyst Mina Kimes, one of several ESPN personalities who promoted Papaya Gaming’s Solitaire Cash app on social media, says she’s “deeply embarrassed” for the endorsement. Papaya is currently tied up in a federal lawsuit over whether it used bots to control what were advertised as skill-based games.
Following similar lawsuits in Louisiana and Kentucky, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced on X that he’s suing the gaming company for “putting pixel pedophiles and profits” over child safety.
“We cannot allow platforms like Roblox to continue operating as digital playgrounds for predators where the well-being of our kids is sacrificed on the altar of corporate greed.”
The man accused of throwing a sandwich at a Border Patrol agent was found not guilty Thursday. The officer who was hit with the sandwich gave a testimony loaded with details, including that the sub “exploded all over” him and that he could smell mustard and onions. The jury apparently didn’t have a taste for it — perhaps it was a subpar case.
As the Oregon National Guard lawsuit proceeds, it’s become clear that right-wing content creators have a direct line to the federal government and are shaping national policy itself.
Patent and Trademark Office director John A. Squires has ordered the 12,403,397 patent — often oversimplified to “summoning characters and making them fight” — to be reexamined, citing two older Konami and Nintendo applications that raise “a substantial new question of patentability.” This isn’t one of the patents in Nintendo’s ongoing legal battle with Palworld-creator Pocketpair.
Sean Fitzpatrick promises his AI won’t get you in trouble with a judge.
Sam O’Hara protested the deployment of the National Guard into DC by following soldiers around playing the Star Wars Imperial March on a bluetooth speaker, posting the videos he recorded of himself to TikTok. One guardsman was not amused and called the cops on O’Hara, who was handcuffed and (briefly) detained; the ACLU of DC is now suing.
The lawsuit opens with this sentence:
In the Star Wars franchise, The Imperial March is the music that plays when Darth Vader or other dark forces enter a scene or succeed in their dastardly plans.
You can read the rest below.
[ACLU-DC]
Apparently, there’s more going on than just Jontay Porter. ESPN, ABC News, and NBC News report that Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier and Portland Trail Blazers coach Chauncey Billups have been arrested by the FBI in separate cases, with a press conference planned for 10AM ET.
[Rozier and Jones are] among six people charged Thursday with turning professional basketball into a criminal gambling operation by using inside information to place unlawful wagers, law enforcement sources told ABC News.
Since a dupe is an unaffiliated similar product (or even unauthorized copy), this registration — first reported by The Fashion Law — is a real doozy. Is this a legal innovation in shutting down dupes of Lululemon’s products, or is it a recursive marketing stunt?
It’s a great time to reread Mia Sato on the wild world of dupes and the increasingly tangled intellectual property regime around them.
No reason was given for Strava’s voluntary dismissal, three weeks after it attempted to block sales of Garmin devices due to alleged patent infringement.
[DC Rainmaker]
Or would you? Smucker’s is accusing Trader Joe’s of ripping off its Uncrustables and creating “copycats” that infringe on the shape of the sandwiches and packaging. Trader Joe’s whole thing is that they make in-house versions of popular products — not just food but also things like skincare. But as I’ve written, the legal status of dupes is more complicated than it might seem.
