Talk about getting mauled by the "beware of dog" sign you personally made - or something along those grounds. Word among Apple's finest is that the Cupertino-based company is in for some major legal flak, after some scientific investigation into Apple's previously released 20-inch versions of the iMac revealed that the iMacs didn't actually live up to the company's claims. And the keywords here are "millions of colors at all resolutions." Clear the confusion after reading the whole story.

Trouble is up and about as Apple faces another lawsuit, yet again. Mirror Worlds has filed a lawsuit against the company for a total of four patent infringements. This particular points for the Time Machine, including iPod and the iPhone. Read more on this issue in the full article.

It seems like lawsuits are flying everywhere nowadays. Apple has once again received a lawsuit over one of iPhone's basic utilities, the virtual keyboard. Apple reportedly infringed on a patent that was issued to SP Technologies LLC.

Part of the patent awarded to SP Technologies in 2004 goes is as follows: "...method and medium for computer readable keyboard display incapable of user termination." If we are not mistaken, this translates to any virtual keyboard that cannot be turned off by the user.

The lawsuit was filed on August 2 in a federal court in Tyler, Texas. SP Technologies LLC wants Apple to pay reasonable royalties for the use of the patent for each iPhone sold, aside from seeking permanent injunction preventing Apple from further use of the reported patent. If found guilty, Apple will be forced to pay damages equal to three times the economic loss SP Technologies have allegedly suffered.

We have to consider though, that virtual keyboards are already being used in other devices for sometime now. We do hope, however, that this lawsuit can be put to an end in a peaceful manner.

Apple lawsuits, like Apple rumors, are a dime a dozen. Included in the long list of Apple's legal battles are the Apple vs. Apple (The Beatle's Apple) case, the lawsuit over MP3-related patent, the Cisco and iPhone brouhaha and clearly if we enumerate every legal battle the Steve Jobs camp has faced and has been facing, we will run out of space. Now, here is another lawsuit to add to Apple's already long list of legal woes.

A San Diego filing by private citizens Dave Gatley and Fred Greaves accused the Cupertino-based company of deceptive advertising, unfair competition, and misrepresentation with regards to the MacBook and MacBook Pro's - specifically their screens/displays. The plaintiffs said that the Apple products' screens aren't nearly as good as they were advertised to be. Part of the lawsuit goes something like this:

Apple withheld its knowledge that its MacBook-series laptops did not actually display "millions of colors" allowing the user to "[e]njoy a nuanced view simply unavailable on other portables."...Plaintiffs suffered injury in fact and have lost money or property as a result of Apple's violations. Specifically, plaintiffs paid more for their computers than the computers were worth and that they otherwise would have paid but for Apple's violations.

Will Apple settle? Will this lawsuit be junked? Well, only time would tell. You could check out the lawsuit in PDF format by clicking on our read link below.

Cease and desist letters were fired off to Apple as well as other technology giants such as Microsoft, Adobe, and RealNetworks on Friday. According to MacNN, the C&D letters demanded that the aforementioned companies integrate Media Rights Technologies' (MRT) proprietary technology to prevent music streams from being "ripped."

MRT claims that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) "forces companies to comply with the act and provide copy-control technologies." Each company has been given 10 days to respond and MRT will reportedly file lawsuits totalling more than US$ 200 billion against the companies.

MRT also claims that companies such as Apple, Real, and Microsoft are deliberately designing their players with loopholes to allow copyright infringement. MacNN also reports that according to MRT, the suits could also extend to companies like YouTube and CNN, which also use the infringing technology.

Tag this under general WTF-ery. During slow news days, and you need to get stuff, you start looking for the weird. This bit of "news" basically ties in with anything relating to copyright, intellectual property rights, and piracy. That means this touches upon anything you download online, from game demos to and homebrew goodies... well sort of.

Get this: Boy Scouts in the Los Angeles area will now be able to earn a patch for learning about the evils of downloading pirated movies, music, and other material on the internet. What does the patch look like? Look at the image on the right.

The scouts will be instructed on the basics of copyright law and learn how to identify five types of copyright works and three ways copyrighted stuff can be stolen. Activities for the scouts include visiting a movie studio (to see how much money employees lose due to piracy) and creating public service announcements urging others to be good copyright observing people.

So will kids carrying PSPs that have questionable media in it or gamers with mod-chips in their consoles start saying "Run! Here comes the boy scouts!" ...or something like that?

We know, we know, there are arguments as to whether or not things like mod-chips, hacks, emulations, homebrews, and even plain YouTube videos infringe on intellectual property rights. It just came to mind that given recent news - the ones about console companies filing lawsuits left and right on grounds of infringed intellectual property rights - perhaps instead of them spending money filing law suits, they could just send creepy Boy Scouts to the offending party to "weird them into submission."

Ergh. We should stop eating bad pizza before. I'm ending this before anyone thinks I'm drunk.

There's a lot of emotional trauma that can come about from a lawsuit, but one mother doesn't seem to think about that. Here's the situation.

Last June, Shannon Derrik lent her iPod to her friend, Stephanie Eick on the last day of school. According to Stephanie, she returned the iPod into Shannon's bag. Shannon said she was in the bathroom when it happened, and it wasn't inside her bag when she got back.

Enter Mom. Shannon's mother sued Stephanie for $525, 475 of which was for the iPod Nano and case that went missing, and $50 worth of iTunes. The ensuing media coverage made it well-known in their area.

Enter the Mysterious Good Samaritan. He dropped off a package at the offices of The Naperville Sun, the local newspaper, on Wednesday. The package contained a new Nano, case, and a $50 iTunes gift certificate, with a note that it was for Shannon Derrik. The gracious donor enclosed a letter, both explaining the nature of the offering as well as the reason behind it.

"Although I know neither Shannon nor Stephanie's families, the media coverage of this unfortunate turn of events over an iPod has compelled me to take action," said the mysterious donor. "I am repaying the debt that I believe the Eicks owe to Shannon ... I am appalled that this issue has blown into such a big deal."

Somehow, the result of the donation wasn't surprising. Shannon's mother appreciated the gesture but is continuing the lawsuit. Note how Shannon doesn't even entirely fit into the picture so much now. No word on whether there's an investigation into what happened to the missing iPod that started the whole mess, but it does show how sue-happy people can get these days.

Ah well. We're not sure if Mrs. Derrik is doing it for the principle of the thing or to see if CNN will cover it, but since no one's taking the iPod Nano, maybe someone could send it to us instead?

Apple and Creative have finally come to a settlement after their long legal battle over Creative patents being present in Apple's iPod that has become the world's icon for MP3 players. Apple will pay Creative $100 million for a paid-up license to use Creative's recently-awarded patent in all Apple products but may be able to recoup some of this settlement money if Creative decides to license this patent to other companies.

Yet Creative still has a lot to say. In light of recent events and with Apple and Creative becoming 'friends' again, Creative is announcing its own iPod accessory products later this year. Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO, said, "This settlement resolves all of our differences with Creative, including the five lawsuits currently pending between the companies, and removes the uncertainty and distraction of prolonged litigation."

I'm sure Creative are glad that this long legal battle is over too, with $100 million worth of reparations and the ability to safely launch 'Made for iPod' products. After all, Creative may be competing with Apple in the MP3 player market, but with such a large fanbase, how can you afford not to make iPod accessories?

Most Silicon Valley executives seem to have forgotten some lessons they have learned way back in business school or while they're taking their MBAs - that important moral lesson happens to be put the customers first, above profits, above income, above anything. This is what CNet Executive Editor, Charles Cooper, believes. His opinions focused on the incompatibility of the iTunes Music Store to non-Apple mp3 players.

He mentions that the decision to make the iTunes incompatible to others was a good business decision that most likely contributed to why Apple's iPod is the best selling mp3 player around, and why Creative is being portrayed as a green-eyed monster jealous with the attention and profits that the rival's product is getting. The iPod + iTunes combo entailed big money and profits, but did they put out their customers first? Well, certain European countries don't think so.

We have mentioned the problem that Apple had with France and Denmark with regards to why the iTunes is incompatible with non-Apple mp3 players. Apple has until the end of July to explain to regulators in Norway, Denmark and Sweden why songs sold on iTunes could not be played on rival devices. Harsh words have been exchanged, lawsuits have been filed...but the pervading question is still, "how are the consumers?"

From my understanding of what Mr. Cooper wrote, he believes that Apple will be pressed to bring down the walls it has erected i.e. the incompatibility of iTunes with other mp3 players, to guarantee that the momentum behind its great invention continues into the next decade. I couldn't agree more with him.

Apple has been known for its good customer care activities, I believe that customer care should not be the means to continue propagating a product, thus it should be the reason why a product exist in the first place. The profits is of course part of the equation, but the problem is that businessmen have been focusing on things they can't control instead of things that are within their reach. Customer service is something they can control, and, for the sake of damage control, make the iTunes compatible with others.

Amidst all the lawsuits, factory controversies, and the product woes that consumers have been reporting, you might think that Steve Jobs' Apple Computers is poised for financial failure? They may be inept socially (with the slight mishandling of consumer problems and the Chinese iPod factory issue), but financially, they are as strong as ever, and this could be backed up by a recent surveys' result.

According to a survey conducted by TechnoMetrica Market Intelligence, Macintosh computers showed a big increase in the past month, and industry leader, Dell, is taking all the blows of this situation. When generally compared to all computers, Dell is not as bullish as before. It still holds the #1 position at 41%, but this is down a bit from the registered 48% in May and 55% in April. Apple and Hewlett-Packard tied at 11%.

In another research conducted by Harris Interactive, market analyst Charles Wolf concludes that AppleÂ?s home market share in the United States is set to triple. He based his analysis on the difference between what buyers tend to say they will do versus what really happens. Also, he mentioned that the increased interest in the Mac is due to its ability to run Windows applications and due to the unquestionable success of the iPod.

Although, we should note that all these findings are based on gathered data from potential buyers since both studies are designed to predict future consumer behavior, therefore, this is not based on what the consumers are actually buying. So, it may not be the last hurrah for Dell.