Seven States Join Suit Against AT&T Deal

The Justice Department said Friday that seven states have joined its antitrust lawsuit seeking to block AT&T Inc.’s proposed $39 billion acquisition of rival T-Mobile USA.

The department filed an amended legal complaint in a Washington D.C. federal court to indicate that state attorneys general from New York, Washington, California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Ohio and Pennsylvania have joined the case.

“We are pleased that these states have joined the department in its lawsuit,” the department said in a written statement. “Together, we will seek to protect consumers from the anticompetitive harm that would result from this proposed transaction.”

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How Does Steve Jobs’ iSpaceship Match Up Against Hollywood’s Spaceships?

Internet publishing rules require us to show you new architectural plans and sketches of Apple’s proposed headquarters. So you here you go (full monty available from the city of Cupertino, which is reviewing the plans). You can click on each image to embigify it:

But since Steve Jobs has already declared that his new building will be “like a spaceship,” now might be a good time to see how the proposed, but presumably real, building stacks up to some of Hollywood’s actual, but fictional, spaceships. Enjoy:

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New Patent Lawsuit Against Hulu Could Derail Efforts to Secure a Buyer

Hulu ‘for sale’ valuation of $2 billion may very well have to be readjusted.

Just last week, Hulu learned that its users will have to start paying for what was previously free content, courtesy of a new pricing policy from Fox. The company now has to contend with a patent lawsuit, filed by interactive programming guide vendor, Rovi. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District court of Delaware, alleges breach of patents related online TV program guides, as well as products dealing with online search. Rovi is asking for unspecified damages as well as legal costs.

According to media analysts, Rovi has penchant for suing over patents, and Hulu can probably not expect much to come from the filing. In the past Rovi has sued Toshiba, Amazon and others over patent infringement. But even if the Rovi lawsuit comes to nothing, Hulu will surely have concerns over its operations.

Much of the ‘asking power’ that Hulu has is based on the perception that the company has all the necessary licensing and patent issues all sorted out. If Hulu now has to start announcing pricing adjustments for content, deal with patent lawsuits, it could easily make potential buyers nervous.

The lists of suitors for Hulu include Yahoo, Google, and even Apple. Clearly these are not the sort of buyers that will part with $2 billion without confidence. It’s now up to the people who run Hulu to make sure their mammoth asking price is justified.

Do you think Hulu is worth $2 billion? Leave your thoughts below in the comments.

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Judge Rejects Oracles Damage Claims Against Google

A federal judge ruled that Oracle’s report estimating damages of $6.1 billion in its lawsuit against Google is too much. Judge William Alsup gave Oracle a chance to change its estimate before the case goes to trial this fall. Aside from the amount of damage, he sided with Oracle on different sides regarding the case.

Oracle claims that Google’s Android mobile operating system was created via patent infringements of Java programming tools that Oracle acquired when it purchased Sun Microsystems last year. This is just one of the lawsuits that have been filed by tech companies over their share of profits from the emerging market for tablets, smartphones and other mobile devices.

Judge Alsup said that Oracle’s expert, Boston University professor Iain Cockburn, overstretched when he used a broad estimate of Android’s value. The judge said that the expert should have used a portion of Android that have been tied to the Java patents to get the estimate of what Google has to pay regarding the case.

The judge added that Oracle might have made the report with the goal of seeing how much it could get from Google. He rebuked both sides for missteps during the hour-long hearing. Both companies didn’t want to talk about issue at the moment.

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Amazon Gets Go Signal To Collect Signatures Against Tax Measure

Amazon.com wants the so-called Amazon Tax Law repealed. It doesn’t want to collect sales tax from California residents because it doesn’t have a physical store in the state. The California Retailers Association, which includes Wal-Mart, the Gap and Target, has put together a war chest that the group will use to counter Amazon’s efforts.

The group said that without the tax fairness, more stores could close for good. According to them, consumers would go to retail stores and look at the merchandise and go home to buy them online because they don’t have to pay taxes.

If Amazon manages to get more than 504,000 voter signatures by September 27, then the new sales tax law will be placed on hold until California voters can vote on it next year. The online retailer’s strategy is to show the new tax law as a job killer.

Other online retailers are siding with Amazon and hopes that the voters see how the Amazon tax law will affect the economy. There are around 25,000 Amazon affiliates from California who were removed so that the company could avoid collecting sales tax.

The brick-and-mortar stores want the voters to realize that the Amazon tax law is not a new tax. It is just something to cover the sales tax that was not collected from online purchases.

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