The allegations were startling: Plaintiffs accused Coke and its Colombian bottling subsidiaries of conspiring in the torture and murder of trade unionists by Colombian paramilitary forces. But first the district court and now an appellate panel found that they hadn't pled sufficient facts to establish subject matter jurisdiction.

Rambus kept its investors on edge and its lawyers working overtime for seven years as it pressed claims that rival chip makers Micron and Hynix cheated it out of nearly $4 billion. Now, after making its case over three months of trial and enduring a nerve-wracking eight weeks of jury deliberations, Rambus and its lawyers at Munger Tolles & Olson have been left empty-handed.

Conventional wisdom holds that in tough times, companies look to IP litigation as a way to extract more value from their assets. But in this unprecedented economic disaster, does the logic stand up? For IP litigators, there are some discouraging signs: Stanford's new IP litigation database is reporting an 8 percent drop in filings in 2008.

Represented by Ropes & Gray, Motorola accuses Microsoft of infringing patents with a broad range of its products, including the Xbox products and the Windows operating system. The suit follows Microsoft's patent suit against Motorola filed Tuesday.

MGA's lawyers file an appeal with the Ninth Circuit to stay potentially devastating injunction orders prohibiting the company from selling Bratz dolls.

MGA Entertainment has yet to find a winning combination of outside counsel in its long-running copyright battle with Mattel. But it hasn't stopped trying. The National Law Journal reports that Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe is the latest firm to be brought in by the manufacturer of the Bratz doll.

Back in May lawyers for UBS at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom suffered a potentially disastrous defeat in their bid to wipe out sweeping securities claims brought by the conservator of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac against more than a dozen major banks. Now the same judge has given UBS and the other defendants a chance to undo the damage.

Apple's lawyers at Morrison & Foerster have another shot at getting a temporary injunction to stop Samsung from selling its Galaxy tablet.

We used to joke that Sidley occupied a particularly tiny niche in representing Microsoft as an IP plaintiff. In the last six weeks, that niche has been expanding--at Motorola's expense.