Corporate and legal

A unit of Japanese electronics giant Panasonic is under investigation by U.S. authorities for allegedly paying overseas bribes to secure business contracts, according to a Wall Street Journal report.

Panasonic Avionics, a subsidiary that makes in-flight entertainment and communications systems for airlines, has received a subpoena for communications between company executives, consultants, and others, according to company documents reviewed by the Journal. A January 20 notice instructed recipients to preserve documents "concerning any benefits or gifts provided, or the payment of anything of value, by Panasonic or PAC to any airline employee or government officials."

The company … Read more

The upstart live-TV streaming service Aereo is said to be in partnership talks with AT&T and Dish Network, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Aereo's antenna/DVR technology allows consumers to watch live, local over-the-air broadcast television on certain Internet-connected devices for a fee. If it partners with television and Internet providers it could greatly increase its reach.

This news is likely to be much to the chagrin for several major broadcasters, which are suing the company for copyright violation. ABC, CBS (the parent of CNET), Fox, NBC Universal, and Telemundo, all alleged in a lawsuit filed … Read more

It was assumed just a couple of months ago that Dell would go private with a $24.4 billion buyout under founder and CEO Michael Dell and private equity firm Silver Lake.

But several wrenches have been thrown into that plan.

Dell confirmed earlier this week that it had two possibly "superior" buyout bids, one coming from activist investor Carl Icahn and the other from private equity firm Blackstone. This means that if one of these two other potential bidders gets the prize, there could be a monumental power shift in the company.

Michael Dell is allegedly now … Read more

Police going undercover on social media to catch gangsters and murderers is one thing, but posing as punk rockers to catch bands playing illegal house parties?

That's just what Boston police are allegedly doing, according to Slate.

After a nuisance control ordinance (PDF) passed last year, the city has been working to squelch local punk and indie rock parties featuring loud bands. And to find out where these raucous festivities are taking place -- in order to break them up before they get started -- the police are supposedly sleuthing out party addresses via e-mail and social media.

Acting … Read more

A Chinese animation film studio has sued Apple for allegedly selling its movies in its iTunes store without permission.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, citing a report from the South China Morning Post, Shanghai Animation Film Studio, which is backed by the Chinese government, has sued Apple for more than $500,000. The company argues that Apple sold over 110 of its movies, including "Calabash Brothers" and "Black Cat Detective," in the iTunes store without permission.

Apple has faced its fair share of troubles in China. The company last year was forced to pay $60 million to settle a lawsuit with Proview … Read more

In response to national security concerns, Sprint Nextel and Softbank pledged not to incorporate gear from Huawei Technologies into Sprint's network core, the chairman of the House intelligence committee said today.

Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), chairman of the committee, said he had met with representatives from both companies and was assured that equipment from the Chinese telecommunications gear maker would not be used in the U.S. cellular infrastructure. As a condition for approving Softbank's $20 billion acquisition of Sprint, the U.S. government was reportedly seeking oversight of network equipment purchases to exclude equipment from Huawei and … Read more

Don't hang up the banners and throw the ticker-tape parade for BlackBerry yet.

BlackBerry's fiscal fourth-quarter report brought a bevy of good news. The company surprisingly returned to profitability; it shipped 1 million Z10 smartphones, the majority of which were snapped up by consumers; and it appears as if it it's taking share from competing platforms.

It's a strong start for BlackBerry. But by no means can the company declare "Mission Accomplished" on its comeback. Indeed, there are a lot of unanswered questions that won't get answered until another several months of results … Read more

No stranger to intellectual property litigation, Microsoft today launched a Web tool that lets anyone search its entire portfolio of 40,785 patents.

The idea, according to the software giant's general counsel, Brad Smith, is to create greater transparency, giving those who might otherwise illegally use Microsoft's patents without permission a way to find what intellectual property Microsoft owns.

"One of the fundamental objectives of the patent system is to provide notice regarding inventions -- not only the nature of what has been invented but who owns the patent," Smith wrote in a blog post.

What'… Read more

Google today is "taking a stand on open source and patents," vowing not to sue anyone on specified patents unless first attacked.

The company, which today announced its Open Patent Non-Assertion Pledge, said to start with, it has identified 10 patents related to MapReduce, a model for processing large data sets. It has pledged not to sue any user, distributor, or developer of open-source software based on patents related to MapReduce.

Duane Valz, Google senior patent counsel, said in a blog post that Google wants to ensure open source software remains open: