A lawyer is suing the Electronic Frontier Foundation ("EFF") for calling his patent stupid.

After a patent held by attorney Scott Horstemeyer was featured in the EFF's monthly "Stupid Patent of the Month" post, Horstemeyer had his lawyer send a threatening letter to the EFF, claiming the post included "false, defamatory and malicious statements." When the letter didn't get the result Horstemeyer sought -- removal of the post -- he went one step further and sued the EFF in a Georgia county court.

According to news reports, the lawsuit repeats the claims made in the letter and argues further that because Mark Cuban and Markus "notch" Persson donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the EFF, with Cuban's money going to form the "Mark Cuban Chair to Eliminate Stupid Patents" (a position currently held by Daniel Nazer, who wrote the original EFF post), it shows that the "defamation" was done "with malice" and "for their own selfish financial benefit and profit."

The EFF responded by stating that nothing in the article is even remotely defamatory.

The Article is opinion that is absolutely protected by the First Amendment to the United States Constitution and state law, including that of Georgia and California. As your Letter does not identify any specific statement of fact that is provably false, it instead appears that your client takes issue with EFF expressing its belief that: Mr. Horstemeyer sought and was granted a "stupid" patent, - U.S. Patent No. 9,013,334 (the "'334 Patent"); that he appeared to "gam[e] the patent system" in doing so; and he may have acted unethically. While you may disagree with this opinion, it is not actionable.

The EFF further notes that it may seek an action against Horstemeyer if he does not decide to drop the suit, and aptly notes that continuing the lawsuit only draws further media attention.

—Source:  techdirt.com

A South Dakota man is suing his former employer claiming he was forced to wear an offensive name tag at work.

Caleb Larson says when he arrived at work at Pizza Ranch in Watertown, South Dakota, without his name tag, the owner gave him a name tag that read "braindead." Fearing he might lose his job, Larson says he wore the name tag throughout his shift. Restaurant owner Ross Olson admits giving Larson the name tag, but maintains that Larson never wore it.

Larson, who quit his job the next day, filed suit against the restaurant and its owner, saying the incident caused him emotional distress. Larson is seeking compensatory damages.

—Source:  kdlt.com (South Dakota)

A Ukranian woman is suing actress Mila Kunis, charging her with stealing her pet chicken.

Kristina Karo, allegedly Kunis' best friend from childhood in the Ukraine, claims Kunis stole her chicken, Doggie, 25 years ago, causing Karo to become an emotional wreck in need of therapy.

According to news reports, Karo says Kunis suffered from chicken envy and that Kunis would come to her house and play with Doggie. Karo further contends that after the chicken went missing Kunis confessed that she stole it, saying, "Kristina, you can have any other chicken as a pet, you have a whole chicken farm."

Karo is suing Kunis for $5,000.

Kunis and her hubby, Ashton Kutcher, responded via video to set the record straight that Kunis did not steal a chicken.

—Source:  tmz.com

Boxing fans are suing after the highly-touted televised boxing match between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Manny Pacquiao ended in Pacquiao's loss.

More than thirty lawsuits have been filed across the country, seeking more than $5 million each (the federal class action threshold amount), over allegations that Pacquiao and his team knew about the fighter’s shoulder injury before the fight in Las Vegas but failed to report it to the Nevada Athletic Commission, something that is required by law. The multitude of lawsuits contend that the "fight of the century" ended up being the "fraud of the century." All of the suits name Pacquiao and his management company as defendants; some of the suits include Mayweather Jr. and his team, as well as HBO, Showtime and cable companies, among the defendants.

The fight is estimated to have generated over $350 million. Three million customers in America alone paid $100 to watch the fight on pay-per-view.

A federal panel of judges will likely first need to decide if the cases from multiple states and Puerto Rico should be consolidated into one case. From there, a judge would have to decide whether to certify them as class actions or not.

“The allegations in this lawsuit are demonstrably false,” said attorney Daniel Petrocelli, who represents Top Rank, Pacquiao’s management company. “There are documents that explicitly show the medications that Manny was using to treat his shoulder and it was fully disclosed with Usada, which we contracted for this fight.”

The Nevada Athletic Commission, however, has already said it is not happy with how Pacquiao’s team dealt with the injury. “The first I heard of this was at 6:08 pm when he [Pacquiao] arrived in the locker room,” the commission chairman, Francisco Aguilar, said. “I have no proof of the injury. If he told us on Friday, we would have got the MRIs and there are a lot of things we could have done.”

Pacquiao is scheduled to have surgery on his shoulder. According to news reports, Mayweather Jr. has agreed to fight Pacquiao once he recovers from surgery.

—Sources:  theguardian.com and news.yahoo.com