Appeals court rules AdWords doesn't infringe bidding patent Bid for Position has lost an appeal to a ruling that its bidding system patent was not infringed by Google's or AOL's search advertising purchasing system. The decision of the lower court was affirmed by the US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit this week. Bid for Position owns rights to US Patent #7,225,151, titled "Online Auction Bid Management System and Method." The company claimed that search advertising systems from AOL, Google, Microsoft, ...

Cancer question complicates 9/11 deal Linking disease to exposure to toxic dust from WTC site proves elusive NEW YORK - Of all the illnesses people fear might be caused by toxic dust from the World Trade Center, nothing scares people like cancer. Hundreds of people are suing New York City over cancer diagnoses they received after working at ground zero. A judge last week rejected a $575 million legal settlement for thousands of sick 9/11 responders in part because he thought it should ...

An African-American man has pleaded guilty after being accused of impersonating a white supremacist in a fictitious Facebook account to make death threats against an African-American university student. Dyron L. Hart, 20, of Poplarville, Mississippi, pleaded guilty Wednesday before U.S. District Judge Kurt D. Engelhardt to one count of communicating threats in interstate commerce, according to a Department of Justice statement. Hart admitted creating the fictitious account in November, pretending to be a white supremacist outraged by the election of ...

In early 2006, a young man named DeJarion Echols stood in a federal courtroom in Waco, Texas, and pleaded for leniency. After police found about 40 grams of crack cocaine, cash and an assault rifle in his bedroom, the promising athlete and father pleaded guilty to crack distribution and gun charges. "I made a bad choice" by dealing crack to pay for college, Echols, then 23, told U.S. District Judge Walter S. Smith Jr. According to a court transcript, ...

Bernard Madoff has decided not to appeal the 150-year prison sentence he received for operating the biggest investment fraud in history. "We are not going to appeal," Madoff attorney Ira Lee Sorkin told CNN on Thursday. Sorkin said he met with Madoff this week at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Lower Manhattan. "Even if the Court of Appeals sends it back, certainly a guidelines sentence under the circumstances would give him a life sentence," he added. Citing crimes ...

As prosecutors asked to jail Bernard Madoff for 150 years, a U.S. District Court judge Friday entered a preliminary order calling on the convicted Ponzi schemer to forfeit more than $170 billion in assets, prosecutors announced. Madoff's wife, Ruth, will be allowed to keep $2.5 million in funds "in settlement of the claims she would have otherwise brought against the property," acting U.S. Attorney Lev Dassin said. Madoff, who pleaded guilty to 11 counts, including fraud, money laundering and perjury, ...

The U.S. government cannot collectively seal its records in more than 100 cases involving the indefinite detention of suspects held at the Guantanamo Bay facility in Cuba, a federal judge ruled Monday. The ruling in favor of detainees and news media outlets means some judicial records in the cases involving Guantanamo detainees could become public on July 29, a deadline set by Monday's ruling. The government had tried to designate all of its responses in cases seeking indefinite detention ...

If the victims of Bernard Madoff were looking for catharsis in the court of U.S. District Judge Denny Chin, they got nothing close to it. Several of them had gathered in the large, packed courtroom in Lower Manhattan for Madoff's hearing Thursday morning, but Chin issued instructions that victims could speak only if they wanted to object to Madoff's pleading guilty to 11 counts of fraud. The first victim to speak, George Nierenberg, was so angry and agitated that ...

Accused investment swindler Bernard L. Madoff will plead guilty later this week to 11 counts that could bring a sentence of 150 years in prison, one of his attorneys told CNN. Prosecutors stressed that there is no plea deal and that Madoff, 70, will have to forfeit any money he made from his crimes. "The government has not entered into any agreement with Mr. Madoff about his plea or sentencing," said acting U.S. Attorney Lev L. Dassin. "The filing ...