Where will this all end? Both Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) and Google (NSDQ: GOOG) are sitting on billions in cash and seem intent on blowing a good part of it on lawyers.

Copyright clouds are gathering around Pinterest. And that could make the dreamy image site an unlikely successor to other innovators—from Grokster to the Beastie Boys—who walked a fine legal line between sharing and theft.

Apple’s global campaign to stop its Korean rival from selling smartphones and tablets has faltered in recent months, but the iPhone-maker appears undeterred. Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) is using two new patents for touchscreen technology, obtained in December, as the basis for yet another lawsuit.

Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) is adding a power presence in the other Washington and a corporate governance advisor to its board: Jamie Gorelick, who served as deputy attorney general during the Clinton administration. According to an SEC filing, Gorelick was elected to the board Thursday.

The fate of Google’s massive book scanning project has been up in the air since a legal settlement collapsed last year. New court filings this week suggest a possible end game.

Google’s bid for Motorola (NYSE: MMI) is likely to get a thumbs up from the U.S. Department of Justice, but still could face opposition from other regulators both in the U.S. and in Europe. The landmark $12.5 billion deal is essential for Google’s attempts to play defense in the mobile…

News Corp surpassed analyst expectations in quarterly earnings announced today, but the numbers reflected two wildly divergent trends.

All is indeed fair in love and war, but not everything is fair in patent licensing. Google (NSDQ: GOOG) and Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) are working on measures to level the playing field in the mobile patent disputes by clarifying what is “fair” when it comes to patent licensing terms.

Today brings news of yet another round of capital-intensive cost-cutting for the challenged mobile phone maker Nokia: the company today announced that it would be transferring smartphone assembly from factories in Hungary, Finland and Mexico, and putting the operation in Asia.

A Texas shell company, Smart Audio Technologies, has filed a suit claiming Apple’s iPod Nano and other devices violate its patent for random song playlists.

Scientific journals are threatening to sue inventors and law firms over the academic studies that are part of a typical patent application. Now, in an unusual memo, the US Patent Office has suggested that inventors can disregard the warning.

For the most part, Microsoft (NSDQ: MSFT) has found the mobile industry willing to bow to its patent-licensing strategy. Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS) decided to dig in and fight and it could be poised to score a point.

It’s not digital advertising in the sense of display ads and search results, but it looks like we are getting a bit more color on what it is that Facebook will do first in the world of mobile marketing, and it could be coming online “within weeks.”

It’s a little stunning to contemplate how wrong things have gone for Google (NSDQ: GOOG) in just the first month of 2012, as the company hopes to put a disastrous January in the rear-view mirror with perhaps another tear-jerking Super Bowl ad this Sunday. Larry Page and Sergey Brin haven’t…

The French are kicking Google (NSDQ: GOOG) again. This time, in a strange ruling, Paris’ commercial court has found the company is anti-competitive because it offers Google Maps for free to businesses.

In the mid-2000s, a technology called Kaleidescape was all the rage among the Hollywood intelligensia. Fillmakers like Brett Ratner and high-end consumers raved about Kaleidescape, which lets owners upload their entire DVD collections onto one centralized hard drive that can be accessed from any screening room in their swanky homes.…

An influential European privacy body has urged Google (NSDQ: GOOG) to “pause” its new privacy policy due to be implemented in March. The Article 29 Data Protection Working Party wrote a letter to Larry Page…

Apple (NSDQ: AAPL) in the last 24 hours has been dealt not one but two blows in court cases involving Motorola (NYSE: MMI) and patents in Germany, one involving IP licensing on older iPhone models (not the 4S) and one involving iCloud. However, as the day progressed, an injunction on…

In what is becoming a ritual akin to Superbowl Week itself, federal prosecutors today announced the seizure of 16 websites that offered live streaming of sporting events and 291 others that sold counterfeit sports merchandise.