WASHINGTON/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – The U.S. government sued Apple Inc (AAPL.O: Quote, Profile, Research) and five publishers, saying they conspired to fix the prices of electronic books, and reached a settlement with three of the publishers that could lead to cheaper e-books for consumers.

The Justice Department accused Apple of colluding with the five publishers as the Silicon Valley giant was launching its iPad in early 2010 and was seeking to break up Amazon.com’s low-cost dominance in the digital book market.

April 11 (Reuters) – The Justice Department accused Apple
Inc and five major publishers of conspiring to push up
the prices of e-books and limit retail price competition.

The conspiracy has caused e-book consumers to pay “tens of
millions of dollars more for e-books than they otherwise would
have paid,” the Justice Department said in a lawsuit filed on
Wednesday.

WASHINGTON/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – The Justice Department could sue Apple Inc (AAPL.O: Quote, Profile, Research) as early as Wednesday over alleged electronic book price-fixing, while settling with several publishers as early as this week, two people familiar with the matter said.

The Justice Department is investigating alleged price-fixing by Apple and five major publishers: CBS Corp’s (CBS.N: Quote, Profile, Research) Simon & Schuster Inc; HarperCollins Publishers Inc; Lagardere SCA’s Hachette Book Group; Pearson (PSON.L: Quote, Profile, Research) and Macmillan, a unit of Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH.

WASHINGTON/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – The Justice Department could sue Apple Inc as early as Wednesday over alleged electronic book price-fixing, while settling with several publishers as early as this week, two people familiar with the matter said.

The Justice Department is investigating alleged price-fixing by Apple and five major publishers: CBS Corp’s Simon & Schuster Inc; HarperCollins Publishers Inc; Lagardere SCA’s Hachette Book Group; Pearson and Macmillan, a unit of Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH.

WASHINGTON/SAN FRANCISCO, April 10 (Reuters) – The Justice
Department could sue Apple Inc as early as Wednesday
over alleged electronic book price-fixing, while settling with
several publishers as early as this week, two people familiar
with the matter said.

The Justice Department is investigating alleged price-fixing
by Apple and five major publishers: CBS Corp’s Simon &
Schuster Inc; HarperCollins Publishers Inc; Lagardere SCA’s
Hachette Book Group; Pearson and Macmillan, a unit of
Verlagsgruppe Georg von Holtzbrinck GmbH.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. House of Representatives will take up a cybersecurity bill at the end of April that lets the government and corporations share information about hacking attacks on U.S. networks, with amendments intended to ease civil liberties concerns, lawmakers said on Tuesday.

Representatives Mike Rogers, a Michigan Republican, and C.A. “Dutch” Ruppersberger, a Maryland Democrat, are pushing legislation that would expand a Pentagon pilot program for sharing classified and sensitive threat information from just defense contractors and their Internet providers to a broader segment of the private sector.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Justice Department could reach a settlement in the next few weeks with Apple Inc (AAPL.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) and some of the major publishers suspected of colluding to push up electronic book prices, according to two people close to the negotiations.

While negotiations are still fluid, the settlement is expected to eliminate Apple’s so-called “most favored nation” status, which had prevented the publishers from selling lower-priced e-books through rival retailers such as Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) or Barnes & Noble Inc (BKS.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), the people said.

March 22 (Reuters) – A U.S. district court in California has
shut down a foreclosure rescue fraud that urged homeowners to
pay thousands of dollars to join lawsuits against their lenders,
the Federal Trade Commission said on Thursday.

The FTC, which filed the legal action to halt the alleged
fraud, said the lawsuits were either neglected or dismissed.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Supreme Court rejected two patents on a method for monitoring a patient’s blood to determine the best dosage for a drug, a decision that may affect the profitability of personalized medicine.

The justices unanimously overturned on Tuesday a ruling by an appeals court that allowed the patents for Nestle SA unit Prometheus, with the high court saying that companies could not patent observations about a natural phenomenon.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court rejected two patents on a method for monitoring a patient’s blood to determine the best dosage for a drug, a decision that may affect the profitability of personalized medicine.

The justices unanimously overturned on Tuesday a ruling by a U.S. appeals court that allowed the patents for Nestle SA unit Prometheus, with the high court saying that companies could not patent observations about a natural phenomenon.