Camera maker Kodak will sue Apple and Research In Motion (RIM), the makers of the iPhone and Blackberry, over technology used in their handsets, the BBC reports.
Kodak filed a complaint with the US International Trade Commission (ITC). They allege the iPhone and Blackberry use technology for previewing pictures that infringe Kodak’s patents.
They also filed two separate suits against Apple that claim infringements of patents relating to digital cameras and certain computer processes.
Kodak asked the ITC …

Labour’s deputy leader Harriet Harman was today fined £350 after pleading guilty to driving without due care and attention, the BBC reports.
A second charge of driving while using a mobile phone was withdrawn.
Harman, who is also Commons leader, did not attend the hearing. She was also told to pay £75 costs and had three points added to her licence, and she was told to pay £15 “victim surcharge”.
The leader of the Commons and MP for …

An African immigrant carried out a knifepoint mugging in the hope he would be sent back to his war-torn African homeland because he hated life in Britain, the Daily Telegraph reports.
Kasiba Misigaro, 21, who was living off benefits, believed he would have a better life back in Burundi, one of the ten poorest countries in the world.
He asked the immigration services to send him home but they did nothing, so he pulled a knife on …

A court fined a Swiss millionaire £180,000 for speeding after the man drove his red Ferrari Testarossa through a village at 85 mph, which was 35mph over the limit.
The fine was calculated based on the man’s wealth – assessed by the court as £14.1m – and because he was a repeat offender, the BBC reports.
It is more than double Switzerland’s previous record speeding fine – handed to a Porsche driver in Zürich in 2008.

An American software company filed a $2.2 billion lawsuit yesterday against the Chinese government, two Chinese software makers and seven major computer manufacturers for their distribution of the censorship software “Green Dam Youth Escort” – which the company claim is pirated from a similar product they make.
Cybersitter, a family-owned software firm based in Santa Barbara, filed the lawsuit in a Los Angeles federal court, saying that the two software makers of Green Dam illegally copied …

Terrorism suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab will get his day in court Friday when he is to be arraigned on a six-count federal indictment that could bring him a life-plus prison sentence, Detroit Free Press reports.
The grand jury indictment, filed Wednesday in Detroit, charged the 23-year-old Nigerian national with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction to destroy a Netherlands-to-Detroit jetliner with a homemade bomb sewn into his underwear as it prepared to land on …

Rapist Roman Polanski’s long-delayed criminal case is due to return to a Los Angeles court for a hearing, the Independent reports.
Superior Court spokesman Allan Parachini said Judge Peter Espinoza would convene a hearing on the film director’s rape case.
It is the first time the 32-year-old case will be back in court since a state appeal court last month rejected Polanski’s bid to have it dismissed.
Polanski was accused of raping a 13-year-old girl after plying her …

Former Renault F1 team principal Flavio Briatore is free to return to Formula One after a French court overturned his lifetime ban from motorsport today, sportinglife.com reports.
The FIA handed the former Renault team principal the stringent suspension in September for his role in the crashgate scandal.
The 59-year-old Italian took his case to the Tribunal de Grande Instance in Paris claiming the FIA did not have legal grounds to issue him with a wholesale ban.
“The court …

Mobile phone maker Nokia have launched a second court case in their legal battle with Apple over patents, the BBC reports.
The second case claims that Apple infringed seven Nokia patents in almost all of their products.
The legal action, launched on 29th December, coincided with a similar complaint to the US International Trade Commission (ITC).
Nokia had already filed court papers accusing Apple of infringing 10 of their patents in the iPhone. In that case Nokia said …

An American United Airlines pilot today admitted turning up to fly out of Heathrow Airport while over the alcohol limit, the Daily Mail reports.
Erwin Washington, 51, of Lakewood, Colorado, had been due to captain a Boeing 767 bound for Chicago with 124 passengers and 11 crew members on board when a colleague smelled alcohol on his breath.
He pleaded guilty at Uxbridge Magistrates’ Court to being above the alcohol limit for flying a plane.
The pilot was …

French constitutional court declared today that President Nicolas Sarkozy’s flagship carbon tax that was to be introduced on Friday, breaches the principle of equality in taxation.
The Constitutional Council said that Sarkozy’s scheme had so many exemptions that it “runs counter to the goal of fighting climate change and breaches the principle of equality in taxation”, The Times reports.
According to Sarkozy, the carbon tax had “one objective – to force you to change your behaviour toward fossil fuels. …

A failed asylum seeker who left a 12-year-old girl to die in a road traffic accident has won the right to remain in this country, outraging her family and stunning officials from the UK Border Agency, The Times reports.
Aso Mohammed Ibrahim, 32, was banned from driving and had run out of appeals against deportation when he fled the scene of the accident as Amy Houston lay dying under the wheels of his black Rover car.
The …

The grandson of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin is suing the radio station Ekho Moskvy in a second attempt to stem media criticism of the murderous leader whom many Russians still revere, Reuters reports.
Yevgeny Dzhugashvili is seeking 10 million roubles’ (£207,411) compensation and an apology from Ekho Moskvy over comments made by presenter Matvey Ganapolsky on a program in October, who said: “Stalin signed an order that children can be shot from the age of 12 …

A federal appeals court in the United States ordered software giant Microsoft to stop selling their Word program in January and pay a Canadian software company $290 million for violating a patent, Fox News reports.
But people looking to buy Word or Microsoft’s Office package in the US won’t have to go without the software. Microsoft said yesterday that they expect new versions of the product, with the computer code in question removed, to be ready …

A 54-year-old Muslim man encouraged his 16-year-old son to marry and rape his 12-year-old cousin, a court sentenced the man to three years in prison.
The man organised a sham Muslim ceremony between his son and the girl at his home in Woolwich, south-east London, in March last year, the BBC reports.
At Wood Green Crown Court the boy got an 18-month supervision order for rape. The fathers of the boy and girl were both jailed for …

A Californian appeals court yesterday rejected rapist Roman Polanski’s bid to have his 1977 rape case dismissed.
His lawyers had pushed for the charge to be dropped on grounds of judicial misconduct.
Despite the dismissal, the California Second District Court of Appeal said they did not disregard the “extremely serious allegations” raised in the case, Sky News reports. The court urged the parties involved to “take steps to investigate and to respond to the claims” of misconduct.
Polanski …