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The 2007 action put some limits on local (but not state) franchising practices. It did NOT eliminate them. In fact, most of the US population still lives in areas with restricted franchises. The FCC said that local franchising authorities could not be "unreasonable" in their demands. More info:

https://www.wilmerhale.com/pag...

Patent Law and the Supreme Court

The CAFC opinion is worth reading.

I thought ToS agreements had already been to the courts in the late 1980s to early 1990s and found to be fully enforceable. This page says the major case was ProCD v. Zeidenberg in 1996.

You can't claim any damages that occurred between your becoming aware of infringement and filing suit.

Sure you can. You can claim damages for damages that occurred between your becoming aware of infringement and filing suit. However, the other side can raise laches as a defense. If you delayed unreasonably in taking action, then the judge might bar your claim to earlier damages.

What is reasonable and what is not? You can't look at the patent statute to find out, laches are a judicial remedy for inequitable conduct. Thus, you have to go through Federal Circuit cases to find cases that are most similar (and probably distinguishable given a particular set of facts).

It would probably get very complicated in case where a third-party has allegedly infringed for some time, but the patent owner sued (or countersued) a new alleged infringer based on recent conduct. If the patent owner did not plan on suing the third-party, then why is unfair to wait until the recent conduct before suing the new alleged infringer?

Number two is David Ogden, according to the article. I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

Make no mistake, I am not trying to support Obama's decision. Especially considering that his second pick was Ogden who, according to TFA, "...was responsible for organizing the defense of the Child Online Protection Act..." and "...successfully defended the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act before the U.S. Supreme Court."

I did a bit of research using Google and Wikipedia. Wikipedia has some light information on Tom Perrelli. It seems he is most well-known for his copyright litigation, but did do work for the United States Department of Justice, including tobacco industry litigation. Also he was "... defending the constitutionality of federal statutes, defending federal agency action and regulations, representing the diplomatic and national security interests of the United States in courts of law, and conducting significant Title VII, personnel and social security litigation." That's a pretty sanitized summary, and its hard to find out if he was doing good work or bad, but the bit about defending federal agency actions, regulations, and statues against constitutional question leaves me with a bad feeling in my gut. There's a lot of unjust and unconstitutional laws out there, so I'd place my bets on him defending bad laws rather than good ones.

I couldn't find much on David Ogden, other than his firm's bio page, and fluff pieces. Apparently he was already involved with Obama's transition team and worked for Clinton's administration. He also has experience at the federal level. There's a lot of juicy stuff in the firm's bio page, but he seems to be pretty cozy with media and big corporations. Without a lot of detail, a casual reading suggests that he tends to represent the big corps over the little guys. The only two bright spots seem to be "Obtaining summary judgment and affirmance ... rejecting the claims of a major tobacco company seeking to shut down the .. nationwide counter-marketing campaign to discourage young people from smoking", and "Representing a US media company with respect to the detention and threatened prosecution by US Forces and the Iraq government of the company's Iraqi employee."

Overall, not much to be happy about. It looks like he picked two big-business, media-friendly lawyers. They have a lot of federal-level experience, but not the kind I would have wanted.

Please provide a cite for consumer software (not custom stuff that gets negotiated beforehand).

The ProCD case I linked already is exactly that. ProCD sold a piece of software -- I think it was a CD filled with names and phone numbers for marketing -- at retail. The license agreement said the data on the CD could be used for limited purposes only. The court held that the license agreement bound the buyer. End of story.

If you don't trust me, trust a major law firm: "Within the U.S. legal community, these agreements have come to be generally considered valid and enforceable contracts. The analysis of click-wrap agreements follows that of so-called "shrink-wrap" agreements in which users of software products are deemed to accept license terms by opening or using packaged software. Shrink-wrap agreements have been found to be enforceable in a series of major U.S. court cases following the Pro CD v. Zeidenberg 1 case." From http://www.wilmerhale.com/publications/whPubsDetail.aspx?publication=2031

Or look at the cases of Groff v. America Online ("the Rhode Island Superior Court affirmed the validity of AOL's click-wrap agreement which was entered into by a customer") or Tony Brower v. Gateway 2000, Inc. ("the court followed the ProCD decision in holding that when contract terms shipped to a consumer along with computer products clearly state that they will be binding on the consumer if she retains the products for 30 days, and the consumer so retains the products, the supplier and consumer formed a valid and enforceable contract"). Both from http://www.wilmerhale.com/publications/whPubsDetail.aspx?publication=2031

They sell software like they sell CDs, so I would expect the doctrine of first sale to apply.

That's a reasonable expectation. It just happens to be wrong.

Please provide a cite for consumer software (not custom stuff that gets negotiated beforehand).

The ProCD case I linked already is exactly that. ProCD sold a piece of software -- I think it was a CD filled with names and phone numbers for marketing -- at retail. The license agreement said the data on the CD could be used for limited purposes only. The court held that the license agreement bound the buyer. End of story.

If you don't trust me, trust a major law firm: "Within the U.S. legal community, these agreements have come to be generally considered valid and enforceable contracts. The analysis of click-wrap agreements follows that of so-called "shrink-wrap" agreements in which users of software products are deemed to accept license terms by opening or using packaged software. Shrink-wrap agreements have been found to be enforceable in a series of major U.S. court cases following the Pro CD v. Zeidenberg 1 case." From http://www.wilmerhale.com/publications/whPubsDetail.aspx?publication=2031

Or look at the cases of Groff v. America Online ("the Rhode Island Superior Court affirmed the validity of AOL's click-wrap agreement which was entered into by a customer") or Tony Brower v. Gateway 2000, Inc. ("the court followed the ProCD decision in holding that when contract terms shipped to a consumer along with computer products clearly state that they will be binding on the consumer if she retains the products for 30 days, and the consumer so retains the products, the supplier and consumer formed a valid and enforceable contract"). Both from http://www.wilmerhale.com/publications/whPubsDetail.aspx?publication=2031

They sell software like they sell CDs, so I would expect the doctrine of first sale to apply.

That's a reasonable expectation. It just happens to be wrong.