Intuitive Surgical Inc. said Monday the California Institute of Technology filed a patent infringement lawsuit against the company in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas.

The Sunnyvale, Calif.-based medical equipment manufacturer said the lawsuit is without merit and has filed an action in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California seeking declaration that the company isn't infringing Cal Tech patents.

Intuitive Surgical shares fell $2.88, or 3.06 percent, to close at $91.20 on the Nasdaq Stock Market Monday.

This is an update concerning the Halliburton Securities Litigation. Truth in Corporate Justice LLC (“TCJ”) is Special Counsel to the AMS Fund, Inc. on Securities Matters. It speaks only on behalf of itself or for its client, the Lead Plaintiff, when authorized.

Oakland, CA (PRWeb) January 4, 2007 -- Truth in Corporate Justice LLC (“TCJ”) (www.worldwidetree.org) issues this press release to advise shareholders and the concerned public that the Archdiocese of Milwaukee Supporting Fund, Inc. (“AMS Fund”), Lead Plaintiff in the Halliburton Securities Litigation matter, is seeking to substitute lead counsel. This case is entitled: Archdiocese of Milwaukee Supporting Fund, Inc., et al. v. Halliburton Company, et al. (Master Docket No. 3:02-CV-1152-M), a consolidated class action pending in the Northern District of Texas before U.S. District Judge Barbara M.G. Lynn.

On December 27, 2006, AMS Fund filed its Reply Brief on its Motion to Substitute Counsel. The brief cites numerous reasons for AMS Fund’s request to remove the firms of Scott + Scott and Lerach, Coughlin, Stoia, Geller, Rudman & Robbins as lead counsel in this matter. Truth in Corporate Justice LLC’s founder, Neil Rothstein (a former Scott + Scott partner), Special Counsel to the AMS Fund, stated that this is an unfortunate but necessary change that was unexpected at the time Mr. Lerach’s firm first intervened in this case.

Some of the most important reasons for the change in counsel request, as stated in the Reply Brief filed on December 27, 2006, are the failure of lead counsel to keep AMS Fund fully informed about the status of the case in violation of Pre-trial Order Number Two. Next, according to the Reply Brief, there exists a potentially negative impact on the litigation as a result of the proliferation of media attention surrounding William S. Lerach, which could possibly shift the focus from the merits of the case and turn it into a convoluted battle between Lerach and the government. The conflict: an attorney under federal investigation is representing a lead plaintiff who has brought a lawsuit against a sitting vice president’s former company where he was Chief Executive Officer. The Vice President is not a defendant in this action. The Reply Brief also states that the Department of Justice’s ongoing criminal investigation of Lerach and his former firm, Milberg, Weiss, Bershad, Hynes & Lerach, which has led to the indictment of two of Lerach’s former partners and his predecessor firm, has brought to light facts not disclosed to the Court or Lead Plaintiff.

The AMS Fund is requesting the court to substitute the firm of Boies, Schiller & Flexner as lead counsel. The Court has not yet ruled on the motion. Neil Rothstein, founder of TCJ, says that it is unfortunate that another change in counsel is necessary at this time; however, the amount of information that the current lead counsel hid from the Lead Plaintiff clearly does not comport with what is in the best interest of the client or the class. “While the Lead Plaintiff sought to have this transition occur with the dignities of those involved remaining intact, the realities amount to far more than the loss of dignity,” stated Rothstein. “This is not about guilt or innocence; it is about the appearance of impropriety, conflicts of interest, and ethical behavior.”

To read more about this situation, please visit www.halliburtonsecuritieslitigation.com

The US Court of Appeals in Chicago has "elected" to uphold Indiana’s voter ID law, albeit in a split decision.

The law that requires voters to show a photo ID at the polls was challenged as an undue burden on the right to vote.

While the court writes that the law can be improved, the justices ruled that the regulation to show a photo ID was reasonable.

One judge disagreed, writing in dissent, the law was called a thinly veiled attempt to discourage Election Day turnout.

The justice pointed out that voter fraud is already a crime and that no one in Indiana had ever been charged with that crime.

A US college student imprisoned for three weeks for trying to take flour-filled condoms onto an airplane has settled her lawsuit against Philadelphia for $US180,000, a city spokesman said today.

Janet Lee, 21, a student at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania, was arrested at Philadelphia International Airport in 2003 after police and security officials thought the flour was an illegal drug.

She was held in Philadelphia on drug-trafficking charges and released only when tests proved the substance in the three condoms was flour.

The condoms, which are sometimes used to smuggle drugs, were a joke among the students, and Lee was taking them home to Los Angeles.

Her civil rights case against Philadelphia, which had been set to go to trial on Thursday before it was settled, said Ted Qualli, spokesman for Philadelphia Mayor John Street.

The US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit on Thursday upheld an Indiana law requiring voters to show photo identification before casting a ballot. In its ruling, the court upheld a lower court decision that the law does not put an undue burden on the right to vote and therefore does not violate the US Constitution. The Indiana Democratic Party and the American Civil Liberties Union of Indiana had appealed the district court's decision, but during oral arguments Judge Richard Posner, who wrote the appeals court ruling, was skeptical of the plaintiffs' contention that the law would prevent voters from casting ballots.

The US Supreme Court issued a per curiam opinion last October ruling that Arizona could enforce its voter ID law, which requires voters to show government-issued ID cards at the polls. Similar voter ID laws have been upheld in Georgia and Pennsylvania, though the Missouri Supreme Court struck down a law last year requiring voters to show ID cards at the polls. A lawsuit over Ohio's voter ID legislation ended just before last November's mid-term election in a settlement requiring future Ohio absentee voters to show proof of ID when applying for absentee ballots, but allowing absentee ballots already obtained without ID to be counted.