Canadian group sues government over Google-backed smart neighbourhood in Toronto

Sidewalk Labs—a company owned by Google’s parent company Alphabet—has plans to build a smart neighbourhood in Toronto that would collect data from different sources in the area. And it seems a local association is not happy with this development. The Canadian Civil Liberties Association is suing three levels of government over this proposed plan. The association claims the project is “invalid and needs to be reset.” They are concerned about the increase in surveillance it entails and how the government seems to be outsourcing its responsibilities to a private corporation. The Sidewalk Labs project is run alongside the publicly funded Waterfront Toronto.

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Swatch files lawsuit against Samsung over cloned watchfaces

One of the watchfaces Swatch claims Samsung copied is this Jaque Droz Tropical Bird Repeater, a one-of-a-kind design on a timepiece that costs around US$650,000

After what Swatch considers an "inadequate response" from Samsung, the watchmaker is suing the tech company for $100 million over watch faces on its smartwatches it deemed were "identical or virtually identical" to trademarks that Swatch owned. The Swiss watchmaker accuses Samsung of unfair business practices, and that its copied designs could mislead consumers to believe they had an ongoing partnership (which they apparently don't).

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Apple claims Qualcomm didn’t want to sell its chips for the current iPhones

According to Apple, the iPhone XR, XS, and XS Max couldn't get Qualcomm chips because the chip maker wouldn't sell it to them

Qualcomm is currently on trial against the US Federal Trade Commission in California with the former facing charges that accuse them of engaging in monopolistic practices. At the trial, it’s being brought to light what happened between the chip maker and Apple. Apple’s Chief Operating Officer Jeff Williams said in a testimony to the US Federal Trade Commission that Qualcomm refused to sell them chips after Apple sued them over its licensing practices. At first glance, it seems Apple switched exclusively to Intel modems for competitive reasons—or even out of spite—but according to Williams’ testimony, there were plans to use both Qualcomm and Intel chips, but the former refused to sell to them. And we heard about how much Apple had to pay Qualcomm for its modems. According to Williams, it was US$7.50 per device, which is five times more than the $1.50 it wanted to pay. But Williams said they paid because they needed the chips and they “didn’t have a lot of options.”

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Netflix gets sued by Choose Your Own Adventure publisher over ‘Black Mirror: Bandersnatch’

Choose Your Own Adventure genre is back in the spotlight with the recently released Black Mirror: Bandersnatch movie. And the series’ original publisher isn’t happy with this. Chooseco is suing Netflix for infringement of its “Choose Your Own Adventure” trademark. According to the official complaint, Netflix has been negotiating with Chooseco over a license of the series since 2016, but the streaming service never got permission to use it. Chooseco is asking for US$25 million in damages as the movie is said to benefit from its association with the Choose Your Own Adventure series without the company getting trademark. According to the complaint, Chooseco has previously sent a cease-and-desist request to the streaming company over the same trademark. Now, whether this will result in an actual lawsuit or be settled out of court is something we don’t know yet.

Netflix settled a lawsuit with the Satanic Temple in 2018 after a copy of the church’s proprietary statue appeared in an episode of the service’s Chilling Adventures of Sabrina TV show.

Source: Polygon