A rift has arisen among larger technology companies and smaller venture capital firms over whether dramatic changes to U.S. patent law are necessary. The differences in opinion played out during a Thursday hearing here in the U.S. House of Representatives Small Business Committee, which doesn't have the power to write patent laws but aimed to explore the small-business implications of Congress' ongoing push for sweeping changes in the area. CNET News

The latest draft of revisions to the dominant open-source license offers an accommodating approach to some significant objections, but it could throw a wrench into the works of a major open-source company, Novell. When the Free Software Foundation released the previous draft of the General Public License version 3 eight months ago, it caused indigestion among some open-source software fans. CNET News

The third draft of General Public License version 3 includes provisions to toughen the license's stance on patent deals between software providers. The Free Software Foundation posted draft 3 of GPL 3 on its Web site. Modifications were made since the second draft, which came out in July 2006, to address a patent deal between Microsoft and Linux seller Novell, under which Microsoft agreed not to sue Suse Linux customers for patent infringement. CNET News

Cablevision Systems said it lost a legal battle against several Hollywood studios and television networks to introduce a network-based digital video recorder service to its subscribers. Cablevision was sued last May by several Hollywood studios and television networks, including those owned by Time Warner, News Corp., CBS and Walt Disney, which charged that the planned service would violate U.S. copyright laws. CNET News

A federal judge has ordered Vonage to halt its use of three voice over Internet Protocol patents owned by Verizon Communications, but he postponed enforcing the ruling for now. U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton in Alexandria, Va., on Friday granted Verizon's request for a permanent injunction that bars Vonage from using three disputed Verizon patents. He sided with Verizon's argument that it would suffer irreparable harm if use of the patents was not terminated and rejected Vonage's argument that the injunction would harm the public interest. CNET News

Viacom is misusing U.S. copyright law by forcing YouTube to remove a parody video of The Colbert Report, according to a lawsuit filed against the media conglomerate Thursday. However, Viacom denies the accusation and said it does not object to the video being on YouTube. The suit, filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation in federal court in San Francisco, accuses Viacom of filing a baseless copyright complaint and takedown notice on YouTube, and infringing on the free-speech rights of the makers of the video--activist group MoveOn.org Civic Action and Brave New Films. CNET News

After nearly two years of legal wrangling, the Copyright Royalty Board (CRB), an oversight body created by Congress to settle royalty disputes in the music business, issued a new, higher fee structure for Web music broadcasts, on March 5 that Web radio executives see as crippling. This week, Web radio will begin fighting back against the new royalty fees. On Friday, National Public Radio officials will file a petition for reconsideration with the CRB. If that fails, NPR has vowed to bring whatever legal challenges necessary to overturn the decision. CNNMoney.com

Google Inc. is confident its popular video-sharing site YouTube and other Web services Google offers have strong legal protections under current copyright law, company attorneys said on Tuesday. Google and YouTube lawyers said their actions are squarely within the protections offered by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) of 1998 and they were prepared to defend the company aggressively. Reuters

Media conglomerate Viacom Inc. sued Google Inc. and its Internet video-sharing site YouTube for more than $1 billion on Tuesday in the biggest challenge yet to the Web search leader's strategy to dominate the online video market. The lawsuit accuses Google and its popular online video unit of "massive intentional copyright infringement" for allowing users to upload popular shows, threatening ambitions to make YouTube a major entertainment and advertising outlet. Reuters

A U.S. court has ruled that Dell Inc. personal-organizer products did not infringe a patent held by Alcatel-Lucent, according to a court document filed online on Thursday. The court also ruled in the summary judgment that Microsoft Corp. would not be liable for indirect infringement of the patent, according to a filing at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of California. Reuters

A U.S. judge ruled that Google Inc.'s 3D modeling software, which gives Web users an astronaut's view of the earth and allows them to zoom down to street level, does not infringe the patent of a rival. Judge Douglas Woodlock of the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts in Boston denied a complaint by Skyline Software Systems Inc. that the Google Earth mapping software of Google's Keyhole Inc. infringed Skyline patents. Reuters

Internet phone provider Vonage has been ordered to pay $58 million to Verizon Communications for infringing on three of the company's patents. Vonage, which provides a service that turns broadband connections into phone lines, was found by a Virginia jury to have infringed patents that cover the technology used to connect these voice-over-Internet-Protocol (VoIP) calls to the regular phone network, as well as some features for implementing call-waiting and voice-mail services. CNET News

Google's narrow view of the protections that copyright law offers creators has famously made enemies of book publishers, news organizations and professional photographers over the last few years. Now Microsoft, which is increasingly competing with Google in business software and other areas, is piling on its rival as well. CNET News

On Friday, which is generally accepted in public relations circles as the best day of the week to release controversial news, the United States Copyright Royalty Board announced new royalty rates for webcasts, effective from 2006 to 2010. The board ignored the arguments of the International Webcasting Association and those put forth by other webcasters, and apparently simply endorsed the proposal of the RIAA-associated SoundExchange royalty organization, which represents the major and some indie labels. Wired Blogs

A U.S. federal judge dismissed Alcatel-Lucent's patent claim against Microsoft Corp. over technology that converts speech into text, the two companies said on Friday. U.S. District Judge Rudi Brewster in San Diego dismissed all of Alcatel-Lucent's claims in a summary judgment, meaning that the jury trial set to begin on March 19 will not take place. Alcatel-Lucent said it plans to appeal the ruling. Reuters

An Ohio woman is demanding $20 million from Yahoo for allegedly using a photo of her without her permission for a welcome e-mail sent to new users. According to a court complaint filed Tuesday with the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio, Shannon Stovall, a resident of Ohio's Cuyahoga County, discovered upon signing up for Yahoo's Web-based e-mail service last October that a picture taken of her appeared in a note sent to new users. CNET News