Law & Disorder

Litigation between IBM and disgraced UNIX vendor SCO is set to be reactivated, Groklaw reports. The lawsuits, which were subject to an automatic stay imposed by the bankruptcy court, will now go forward and finally be brought to a close.

SCO is infamous for launching a misguided legal assault on the Linux operating system. The company claimed that IBM misappropriated code from UNIX and integrated it into the open source Linux kernel. SCO never managed to support this claim with evidence and the company's own internal code audits suggest that the allegation is baseless. The real roadblock that SCO faced, however, was the fact that they don't even own the UNIX copyrights.

The IBM litigation was put on hold pending the outcome of a dispute over the ownership of the System V UNIX copyrights between SCO and Novell, the rightful owner. The courts ruled in Novell's favor, finding that SCO did not obtain the copyrights in an asset purchase agreement that was made in the '90s. This effectively means that SCO doesn't have standing to sue IBM for allegedly infringing UNIX copyrights. SCO slid into bankruptcy and has never recovered.

The reactivation of the litigation between IBM and SCO is largely a procedural matter aimed at resolving the pending claims and counterclaims that the companies have brought against each other. Due to the court's previous conclusion that Novell is the rightful owner of UNIX, the reactivated litigation between SCO and IBM isn't going to be an opportunity for SCO to turn the tide in its favor.

IBM has a number of counterclaims against SCO that will finally be addressed by the courts. IBM is accusing SCO of breach of contract, violating the Lanham Act, engaging in unfair and deceptive trade practices, and violating the GNU General Public License. IBM is also seeking a declaratory judgement which will affirm that IBM's AIX platform doesn't infringe on any of SCO's copyrights.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) said today that it will not approve LightSquared's proposal to build a national 4G-LTE network, after testing showed that the network would interfere with most existing GPS devices.

The decision came swiftly after the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) today warned the FCC that "LightSquared's proposed mobile broadband network will impact GPS services and that there is no practical way to mitigate the potential interference at this time." The FCC responded by indefinitely suspending LightSquared's conditional waiver to operate the network, the Washington Post and others are reporting. The FCC will also issue a public notice on Wednesday seeking comment on the NTIA's conclusions. The conditional waiver had been issued in January 2011.

LightSquared proposed to build an open-access, wholesale wireless broadband network integrating satellite and terrestrial technology, but government testing showed that the network would harm performance of 75 percent of GPS devices. GPS makers and the airline industry (which is building a GPS-based navigation system) were among numerous groups objecting to the plan, raising pressure on the FCC to block it. LightSquared can still fight on, but the NTIA recommendation and subsequent FCC decision dramatically reduce its chances of final success.

LightSquared controls spectrum originally intended for satellite communication, and wants approval to use it for terrestrial broadband service. The spectrum is adjacent to that used by GPS, and GPS makers complain the LightSquared signals will be so powerful they would cause widespread jamming of GPS devices. LightSquared has long insisted that the problem lies with the GPS community, which should have to redesign its receivers.

LightSquared has renewed its bitter complaints that the GPS industry has become "too big to fail" and is being protected by government even though its receivers often don't filter frequencies properly and "listen" on adjacent spectrum, including that now held by LightSquared.

"You can get a cell phone for free with a two-year contract that is more resilient to GPS interference than what’s being installed in today’s commercial airliners," the company said, though it pledged to keep working on a solution.

"This proceeding has revealed challenges to maximizing the opportunities of mobile broadband for our economy," the FCC said in a statement. "In particular, it has revealed challenges to removing regulatory barriers on spectrum that restrict use of that spectrum for mobile broadband. This includes receivers that pick up signals from spectrum uses in neighboring bands. There are very substantial costs to our economy and to consumers of preventing the use of this and other spectrum for mobile broadband. Congress, the FCC, other federal agencies, and private sector stakeholders must work together in a concerted effort to reduce regulatory barriers and free up spectrum for mobile broadband. Part of this effort should address receiver performance to help ensure the most efficient use of all spectrum to drive our economy and best serve American consumers."

The Senate Homeland Security Committee has introduced the broad cybersecurity legislation promised late last year by Senate majority leader Harry Reid (D-NV). But contrary to the fears of many—or perhaps because of them—the bill's scope is tightly restrained, excluding the vast majority of commercial systems and Internet infrastructure itself from coverage.

In many ways, the 205-page Senate bill, called the Cyber Security Act of 2012, incorporates many of the aspects of the House's cybersecurity bill, introduced in December. If enacted, it would grant a new authority to the Department of Homeland Security to oversee government information security measures, and to set "cybersecurity performance requirements" for companies and organizations that own systems DHS designates as "critical infrastructure." It also sets standards for government network security, and creates a clearinghouse for sharing information about security threats. But it steers clear of establishing new regulation over the wider Internet, and specifically excludes regulation of commercial software and network services from coverage—perhaps because legislators want to avoid the backlash encountered over SOPA and PIPA.

Tor usage in Iran has made a full recovery days after the Iranian government started blocking encrypted Internet traffic.

Last Friday, the number of Iranian users connecting to the Internet through Tor's anonymizing network had plummeted from roughly 50,000 per day to nearly zero. By Sunday, however, Tor usage was back to normal and expected usage levels, according to updated metrics provided by the Tor Project.

In response to Iranian censorship, Tor Project leaders rolled out a new obfuscated bridge that allows Iranians to circumvent the blockages and connect to the Internet through Tor once again. It's unclear if the recovery in Internet connections is due primarily to steps taken by Tor and its users, but the government's latest censorship program does not appear to have ended.

Reuters wrote on Tuesday that "millions of Iranians have suffered serious disruption recently in accessing e-mail and Internet social networking sites, raising concerns authorities are stepping up censorship of opposition supporters ahead of parliamentary elections next month." Parliamentary elections are scheduled for March 2. Additionally, Google confirmed to Bloomberg on Monday that its services, including search, Gmail, and YouTube, had been blocked in Iran since Friday. We've asked Google for an update on the situation and will provide more details as we get them.

UPDATE: Google has now received the all-clear from the US Department of Justice's antitrust division, which announced this afternoon that it has closed its investigation. The Justice Department also approved the $4.5 billion sale of Nortel patents to Apple, Microsoft, and RIM, and the sale of Novell patents to Apple.

Original story: European Union officials gave Google regulatory approval for its acquisition of Motorola Mobility today. The deal is expected to gain approval from the US Justice Department later this week.

"We have approved the acquisition... because upon careful examination, this transaction does not itself raise competition issues," EU Competition Commissioner Joaquin Almunia said in a statement, according to Reuters. Google's $12.5 billion purchase of Motorola is driven largely by the device maker's portfolio of 17,000 patents, which Google hopes to use to protect Android from patent lawsuits, and perhaps launch a few lawsuits of its own.

The possibility that Google might abuse this patent portfolio was not worrying enough to lead the EU to block the merger. But Almunia said European authorities reserve the right to monitor Google's handling of the patents, and they reserve the right to reopen their inquiries based on future actions. "This merger decision should not and will not mean that we are not concerned by the possibility that, once Google is the owner of this portfolio, Google can abuse these patents, linking some patents with its Android devices. This is our worry," Reuters quotes him as telling reporters.

When Google announced the acquisition, it expected to close the deal by the end of 2011 or early 2012. It is still on track to meet that goal, if US approval comes this week as expected.