Class Actions, Civil Litigation & High Technology Law

  Marin County and Silicon Valley, California

Welcome to the Rothken Law Firm Web Site
Our firm emphasizes intellectual property litigation (including trademarks, trade secrets, copyrights, and patents), internet law, complex business litigation, class actions, videogame law, business law, employment litigation, consumer protection litigation, and personal injury/tort litigation. We are actively involved in cutting edge electronic discovery ("e-discovery") matters and Ira P. Rothken is an active member of the Sedona Conference and maintains a blog at Moredata.com on electronic discovery and evidence issues for legal professionals. Here is a CNET News Story Profiling Ira P. Rothken's Career Protecting Internet Technology Companies.

We Have Assisted in the Startup of Some of the Most Successful E-Commerce and Electronic Entertainment Companies in the World
In addition to our robust litigation practice as evidenced in our "News" section below we assist electronic entertainment, high technology, and e-commerce companies in their business and legal transactions. For example, since the inception of the "commercialized" internet in the mid 1990s, we have represented some of the largest and most successful web sites in the world on a huge range of matters from startup issues to risk reduction strategies to e-commerce policies and agreements. In many instances we were called upon to handle issues where there was no clear precedent and thus we had to innovate a solution. We have also helped start numerous successful electronic entertainment and videogame companies including Nihilistic Software, Pandemic Games, Telltale, and Arenanet. Ira P. Rothken, a member of IGDA, has spoken multiple times on how to start a videogame development company at the Computer Game Developers Conference (CGDC).

News Related to our Cases, Issues, and Firm
Notice of Class Action Settlement in the Palm Treo 600 and 650 Case
Palm entered into a nationwide class action settlement subject to the approval of the Court involving the Treo 600 and 650 smartphones. The settlement provides for certain cash rebates and rights of repair the details of which can be found on the settlement notice web site. Ira P. Rothken served as co-lead class action counsel in this nationwide case.
January 26, 2008

CNET News Story Profiling Ira Rothken's Career Protecting Internet Technology Companies
July 31, 2007

Internet Search Engine Appeals Discovery Order to Log Web Site Visitors - Stay Granted
The United States District Court in the Central District of California granted Torrentspy.com's request for a stay of a discovery order that in essence found that since HTTP header information is in transient RAM that such data was sufficiently tangible to be considered "documents" that needed to be "stored" in log files, preserved, and handed over in civil litigation discovery. Since Torrentspy.com did not have server log files "turned on" prior to litigation the Court in essence ordered that such logging commence as part of its discovery order. Update on June 12, 2007 Torrentspy Appeal Brief.
June 8, 2007

Major Hollywood Studios Press Pause on Consumer Friendly Digital Video Recorders in Cablevision Case
Hollywood won a Court battle against a new broadband video recording service by Cablevision when a judge ruled that Cablevision must obtain a license from the studios for the operation. Ira P. Rothken who has handled complex digital video recorder cases, including the ReplayTV DVR case where he was co-lead counsel for Craig "Craigslist" Newmark, was interviewed as a legal analyst for the story in Newsday and found the Cablevision ruling to be a setback for innovation and consumers.
March 24, 2007

Telltale Nominated for Two Awards at Game Developers' Conference
Telltale, a Rothken Law Firm startup client, was widely featured during this week's Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.  The company was nominated for two awards for Sound (Bone - The Great Cow Race) and Writing (Sam and Max - Episode 1 Culture Shock), and featured on the front page of Game Developer Magazine.
March 7, 2007

MPAA lobbies against a California bill that protects consumer privacy
The California bill would have prohibited deceptive "pre-texting" to steal private consumer information. The bill passed the State Senate 30-0 until the MPAA lobbying effort led to the bill's demise in the State Assembly.
December 1, 2006

President Signs Bill Aimed at Limiting Online Gambling  
The newly approved Safe Accountability for Every Port Act of 2006, which President Bush signed Friday, included a provision aimed at deterring many of the over 2,500 online gambling casino web sites from taking wagers in the United States. The measure, attached to the "SAFE Port Act", seeks to prohibit Internet gambling by outlawing financial transfers, credit card transactions, and hyperlinks to unlawful Internet casinos. Ira P. Rothken was interviewed by Online NewsHour with Jim Lehrer regarding the new law.
October 13, 2006

California Supreme Court rules in favor of consumers by permitting plaintiffs adversely impacted by California's Proposition 64 to amend their complaints to save pending consumer protection cases
In a case in which we participated on behalf of Amicus Curiae the California Supreme Court in Branick v. Downey Savings & Loan Association embraced our client's view and allowed consumers who may have lost the right to participate in litigation due to the passage of California's Proposition 64 the ability to amend their complaint to add additional plaintiffs who meet the new requirements. The Supreme Court ruling assists consumers and plaintiffs suing on behalf of the general public under California's Unfair Business Practices Act.
July 24, 2006

Torrentspy reveals additional details of the MPAA's involvement in allegedy hiring a hacker to obtain private information and documents
Torrentspy filed a motion in Federal Court in Los Angeles to obtain discovery from the MPAA regarding what documents the alleged hacker provided to the MPAA and what persons or entities viewed such documents.
June 22, 2006

isoHunt.com, a torrent file search engine, defends itself against a federal copyright lawsuit filed in New York by the major motion picture studios and the MPAA
The isoHunt.com search engine defends itself against allegations from the MPAA and major motion picture studios regarding the issue of whether or not mere passive hyperlinking to "dot torrent" text like files arising out of internet search engine results can constitute secondary copyright infringement. On May 30th, 2006, Gary Fung, who was named as the defendant in the isoHunt.com lawsuit, filed a motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction and in the alternative to have the case transferred to Federal Court in California closer to his residence in Vancouver, Canada.

June 1, 2006

Valence Media, Ltd, owners of the Torrentspy.com search site, files suit against the Motion Picture Association of America over allegedly paying a hacker to break into Torrentspy.com's servers to gather and hand over sensitive information

The lawsuit filed in Federal Court in Los Angeles alleges that the MPAA paid $15,000 dollars for non-public information obtained by the hacker including financial data, private e-mails, and sensitive marketing documents. Plaintiff alleged numerous Federal and State causes of action including violation of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. Plaintiff is seeking monetary damages and an injunction.

May 24, 2006

Palm Treo Smartphones investigated by CBS News
The Palm Treo Smartphones were recently investigated by CBS News reporter Bennett Cunningham as being defective. Click here to view the video of the CBS news report which includes a discussion of our pending federal class action case against Palm. We represent owners of Palm Treo 600 and 650 Smartphones in a nationwide federal court class action lawsuit claiming the devices are inherently defective. Click here to get involved in the case, to get e-mail updates, and to tell us about your Treo issues.
April 27, 2006

Torrentspy, a torrent file search engine, defends itself against a federal copyright lawsuit filed in California by the major motion picture studios and the MPAA
The Torrentspy search engine defends itself against allegations from the MPAA and major motion picture studios regarding the issue of whether or not mere passive hyperlinking to "dot torrent" text like files arising out of internet search engine results can constitute secondary copyright infringement. According to defendants' attorney Ira P. Rothken "Torrentspy filed a Motion to Dismiss the federal lawsuit on Monday, March 27, 2006 arguing, amongst other things, that it does not link to Hollywood's copyrighted works, it has cooperated with Hollywood in removing objectionable links to dot torrent files, it does not actively promote copyright infringment, and it cannot be held "tertiary" liable for visitors' conduct that occurs away from its web search engine. This is the first case that we are aware of where major Hollywood studios are suing a search engine for secondary copyright infringment when it does not even link to any files copyrighted by Hollywood. The MPAA is in essence trying to outlaw the dot torrent file format." Update - here is an EFF "Deep Link" analysis of the case and its potential impact.
March 27, 2006

TellTale Games and ArenaNet are nominated for best new game development studio
TellTale™ Games developers of the videogames Bone: Out from Boneville™ and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation 3 Dimensions of Murder™ and ArenaNet™ developers of the videogame Guild Wars™ were both nominated for best new game development studio at the 2006 Game Developers Choice Awards. Both TellTale Games and ArenaNet were started from the Rothken Law Firm's conference room. The founders of both companies are very talented game developers with past involvement in a string of hit games from LucasArts and Blizzard Entertainment respectively. "We are very pleased that we assisted two of the five companies nominated for best new game development studio in their startup and seed venture capital phases. We are honored to have been involved with such talented individuals and look forward to their future success and keeping millons of people across the world entertained for years to come" says Ira P. Rothken.
March 22, 2006

Federal Magistrate Judge issues opinion embracing broad legal immunity to Internet Dating Sites from defamatory postings
A large dating site that allows third party postings of photos and other profile content was sued by plaintiff for an alleged defamatory posting to its site by a third party (such third party allegedly posted photos of his former girlfriend without her consent). We defended by filing a motion to dismiss based on the CDA (Communications Decency Act) immunity provided an internet services provider. The Federal Magistrate Judge embraced defendant's CDA defense and recommended in his order that the suit be dismissed with prejudice.
December 29, 2005

Lawsuit filed against the state of Utah to enjoin e-mail registry statute which requires companies to pay a "per e-mail address fee" or risk criminal charges 
The Free Speech Coalition (FSC) has filed a lawsuit in federal district court in Salt Lake City, Utah, challenging the constitutionality and legality of that state’s “e-mail registry” law, which went into effect July 15, 2005.The lawsuit alleges that the Utah statute criminalizes the sending of adult oriented email like advertisements for beer and wine to any email address that is listed in the registry for more than 30 days. It also provides criminal, administrative and civil enforcement mechanisms, and requires email marketers to “scrub” their lists against the registry for a per-scrub fee of $0.005 per e-mail address on the company's list regardless of whether a single e-mail address matches the Utah registry. Plaintiff is claiming that regardless of the label the Utah statute is nothing more than an opt-out list and preempted by the Federal Can-Spam Act. Plaintiff is seeking to enjoin the Utah statute. Click here to tell us how you have been impacted by the Utah statute and if you are interested in participating in the case as a plaintiff or witness.
November 17, 2005

Consumer class action lawsuit filed against Palm for allegedly selling defective Treo Smartphones
Three owners of Palm's Treo 600 and 650 hybrid phone/personal digital assistants (PDAs) have filed a class action lawsuit claiming the devices are inherently defective and are seeking an injunction barring the sale of the popular devices and money damages. Click here to tell us about your Treo issues and to get e-mail updates about the case. 
September 21, 2005

Major e-commerce companies defend lawsuits claiming patent infringement for dynamic web page generation

The two patents in the lawsuits filed in Federal Court in Texas, referred to as the 554 and 335 patents, were awarded in 1999 and 2002. They describe a method for "creating and managing custom Web sites" as well as "managing dynamic Web site generation requests," according to documents filed with the U.S. patent and trademark office.
August 31, 2005

Class action filed against Cardsystems over hacking of consumer credit card data
A class action lawsuit was filed today by California credit card holders and merchants against Cardsystems Solutions, Inc. and others for allegedly failing to maintain adequate data security which led to a security breach exposing over 40 million credit card holders to potential fraud.
June 27, 2005

California's Proposition 64 found not retroactive
December 29, 2004

Microsoft, Symantec, Adobe, CompUSA, Best Buy, and Staples settle a California lawsuit and agree to change their software shrinkwrap license policies to benefit consumers 

Consumers filed suit after they bought software products from retailers and read the license agreements for the first time on installation of the software, found the terms not to their liking, did not click " I agree" to the terms, and were thus unable to install the software or to return it to get all their money back (since the software shrinkwrap was opened and defendants allegedly had a policy of not providing full refunds for "opened" software). The Settlement Agreement provides to the General Public of California, amongst other things, the right of consumers to return applicable Symantec, Adobe and Microsoft software for full monetary refunds even if the shrink-wrap has been opened. In addition, Symantec, Adobe, and Microsoft agreed to provide End User License Agreements ("EULAs") for the applicable software products on their web site and notices on their respective software packaging of the web addresses to such EULAs so consumers can review such EULAs prior to purchase of the software. CompUSA, Best Buy and Staples agreed to provide such EULAs to consumers upon request prior to sale of the above software at their retail stores in California and to provide notices to consumers in such stores to effectuate the above.
December 21, 2004

Major Internet sites, including Yahoo and Google, sued in class action case for paid internet gambling ads
August 3, 2004

RIAA's "Amnesty" program does not provide amnesty 
According to a lawsuit filed in Superior Court in California. The lawsuit seeks to enjoin the RIAA's Clean Slate "Amnesty" program as it does not provide a a full release of copyright claims against consumers who are required, as a condition of entering the program, to make admissions of copyright infringment.
September 10, 2003

Microsoft and others sued over shrinkwrap licenses
February 10, 2003

Consumers fight back in ReplayTV case
Consumers file suit in Federal Court against the Major Movie Studios and ask the Court to declare that they are not infringing on Copyrights by skipping commercials with their Digital Video Recorders in Newmark v. Turner et al (ReplayTV case).
June 7, 2002

DoubleClick settles consumer privacy class action
May 24, 2002

Sunncomm cloques music CDs

Sunncomm and Music City records are sued in California for allegedly using cloquing 'DRM" technology on Music CDs, without proper notice, to impair functionality and prevent consumers from copying songs to their MP3 players.
September 12, 2001

MP3 search engine defends itself against the RIAA
MP3Board search engine defends itself against allegations from the RIAA and Major Recording Studios regarding the issue of whether or not mere passive hyperlinking arising out of Internet search engine results can constitute secondary copyright infringement in Arista Records et al. v. MP3Board, Inc./ MP3Board, Inc. v. RIAA.
March 19, 2001

RecordTV.com defends itself against the MPAA
Argues that its Internet centric VCR, created out of software code, is just as lawful as a physical VCR and they should not have to pay any Copyright damages in MGM et al v. RecordTV.com, Inc.
July 10, 2000

California's bulk e-mail statute questioned in class action case 
June 9, 2000

First Consumer privacy lawsuit filed against DoubleClick
For allegedly using invisible web bugs to track what Internet users read and click on in Judnick v. DoubleClick (Co-lead class action counsel).
January 28, 2000

Visa settles net gambling case
Visa affliates have agreed to pay the debt of a woman who gambled away more than $70,000 at internet casinos and to warn consumers of the legal risks of using credit cards for internet gambling in the case of Providian v. Haines.
October 14, 1999

Mastercard settles net gambling case
July 12, 1999

Amex and Discover sued over Internet gambling loans
June 18, 1999

Ira P. Rothken, founder of the Rothken Law Firm, has written for the Home Office Computing/Small Business Computing Magazine "Legal Matters" Column. Mr. Rothken has written numerous articles on protecting small businesses and the laws of "e-commerce." Mr. Rothken has appeared as a guest legal expert on television and radio including CNNfn (fax/e-mail marketing issues), CNN (internet privacy),  KQED radio (computer keyboard injuries), FOX (internet gambling), NBC (internet copyright), CBS (internet privacy), CNET radio (internet copyright), KTVU Silicon Valley Business Report (software license agreements), TechTV (internet law), and Court TV (internet gambling issues and copyright litigation), and has been quoted in numerous publications including legal newsletters, newspapers (Wall Street Journal, NY Times, San Jose Mercury News, San Francisco Chronicle, Newsday), magazines, and law review articles. In addition, Mr. Rothken has spoken at numerous conferences and seminars on internet & e-commerce law including the IAEM Convention, the Computer Game Developers Conference (CGDC), the Annual Meeting of the Free Speech Coalition, the Recorder Legal Newspaper Roundtable, the Practicing Law Institute in San Francisco, California, the Sedona Conference, and the Privacy and American Business Conference in Washington, DC.    

Palm Treo 600 and 650 Notice of Class Action Settlement (Palza Case)

If you purchased a Palm Treo 600 or Treo 650 in the United States and found it to be defective click here to tell us what happened, enter yor information into our database, ask questions regarding the notice of settlement, and possibly participate in a current class action case.

Click here to suggest a new Case

Get Involved in Our Current Cases

Fill out our investigation forms below and we may contact you

Internet Gambling losses
If the following facts are true please click here to possibly participate in a current case: You lost money at internet gambling after clicking on sponsored net gambling ads on one or more major search sites and you were a California resident at the time.

Legal Briefs & Documents of Interest

Free Speech Coalition v. Utah Complaint (alleging federal preempted e-mail registry statute)
 

Palza v. Palm, Inc.
Class Action Complaint (alleging inherently defective Treo PDA devices and breach of warranties)

Parke v. Cardsystems Solutions, Inc. Class Action Complaint (alleging negligent data security of consumer credit card transactions)

Cisneros v. Yahoo et al Class Action Complaint (Net Gambling Ads)

Baker v. Microsoft et al
Complaint on behalf of the General Public (Consumer Software Shrinkwrap Agreements and Return Policies)

Judnick v. DoubleClick Nationwide Class Action Settlement (Alleged Privacy Intrusions Related to Web Bugs and Tracking Consumer Internet Activities)

In re RIAA
Complaint and Settlement on behalf of the General Public (Amnesty Program Alleged a Deceptive Business Practice)

Newmark v. Turner Broadcasting et al.
Complaint, Oral Argument Transcript, and Court Order in Favor of Consumers
(ReplayTV Case Involving Commercial Skipping, Time Shifting, and Space Shifting on DVR Devices)

Retailers National Bank et al. (Visa and Mastercard) v. Harding
Cross Complaint (Alleging Internet Gambling Credit Card Debts are Unenforceable)

RIAA et al v. MP3Board  Opposition to Motion for Summary Judgment
(Involving Whether Hyperlinks Arising Out of Search Engines Results Constitute Secondary Copyright Infringment)

DeLise v. Sunncomm et al Settlement Agreement on Behalf of the General Public (Alleged Deceptive Business Practices in the Use of Digital Rights Management or "DRM" Technology on Consumer Music CDs)