Here's a recent New York ruling worth sniffing. Judge Jed S. Rakoff temporarily barred Clorox from airing its cat litter ads. He agreed with Clorox rival Church & Dwight's assessment that the ads would cause irreparable harm.

Church & Dwight makes Arm & Hammer cat litter. The company sued Clorox for running ads that said carbon-treated cat litter was better at combating odors compared to baking soda.

The long-awaited Google-Oracle trial will take place in mid-March.

In case you've forgotten, the legal dispute is about patents. Oracle brought a patent infringement suit against Google over Java, which is used on Google's Android operating systems.

Tech company Sun Microsystems was the original creator of Java. Oracle acquired Sun in 2010.

Let's face it: you'd rather have your employees report securities violations to you first before they tell the SEC.

Internal reporting has its advantages. You'll be better prepared. You also won't get suddenly drawn into a SEC investigation without prior warning.

But how do you get your employees to report violations to you first? Below are a few tips to help:

Blueseed, a Silicon Valley startup, is raising funds to construct a floating incubator that they hope will become the "Googleplex of the Sea."

Their plan is to purchase and renovate a large boat that they will anchor around 12 miles off the coast of San Francisco. There, tech workers can sleep, work, and dodge immigration visa issues.

Does this sound legally tenuous -- or is it simply a clever approach to a common problem?

Consumers rarely opt-out of class action settlements. Some trash the notices and others forget after they're set aside. And if companies are really lucky, a few won't even submit a claim.

But Heather Peters is not an ordinary class member. She's upset with the Honda hybrid settlement and has launched a small claims court campaign. She's urging consumers to take the car manufacturer to court and ask for the statutory maximum.

The worst part for Honda? There may be no lawyers allowed.

The letter that led to the ouster of former HP CEO Mark Hurd has gone public, exposing details of Hurd's alleged sexual harassment and a possible leak of insider information.

Questions remain, however, as to whether the letter's allegations are true.

Attorney Gloria Allred wrote the eight-page letter to Mark Hurd in 2010, accusing Hurd of sexually harassing HP contractor Jodie Fisher. Hurd had hired Fisher, a reality TV show contestant and porn actress, to host corporate events, The New York Times reports.

But instead of pursuing a business relationship, Mark Hurd made aggressive, unwanted romantic advances toward Fisher, Allred's letter claims. "[I]t is clear you had designs to make her your lover from the onset, using your status and authority as CEO of HP," the letter says, according to the San Jose Mercury News.

Another chapter in the LCD price-fixing scandal has come to an end. Sharp and Samsung, along with Chimei Innolux, Hitachi, HannStar, Chunghwa and Epson, have agreed to settle claims brought by 8 states.

The companies were accused of operating an international cartel between 1999 and 2006, when Japan, Korea, the European Union and the United States announced a joint investigation into the matter.

Arkansas, California, Florida, Michigan, Missouri, New York, West Virginia and Wisconsin soon joined in, filing lawsuits that were later consolidated in the Northern District of California.

You can add UK telecom group BT to the list of corporations suing Google. The company, which owns about 5,600 patents, has filed a federal lawsuit against the search behemoth for allegedly infringing on six of its patents.

The BT lawsuit accuses Google of stealing the technology at the center of its Android system, search engine, Google+ social network, eBooks, Docs, Maps and Gmail.

The suit implicates almost every Google product out there.

Some up-and-coming technology and communications companies have announced new general counsel and in-house appointments. Here are five notable career moves, as reported by InsideCounsel.

1. Spherexx.com, an Internet marketing software company specializing in the real-estate industry, has hired Lauren Allison as in-house counsel and executive assistant to the company's CEO. Allison has worked in real estate, civil, and business litigation, and was president of the Creek County Bar Association. Spherexx.com is based in Tulsa, with offices in Dallas and Houston.

AT&T has officially ended its $39 billion bid to purchase T-Mobile USA. Last month, the telecom behemoth withdrew its FCC merger application with plans to re-file. But executives quickly realized that, even with changes, there was no way the deal would receive approval.

The company now owes Deutsche Telekom, T-Mobile's parent company, a breakup fee of $4 billion. It'll also need to find new ways to address the mobile spectrum crunch, which would have been eased with the merger.

The failure of the AT&T merger will undoubtedly impact the wireless industry. But what does it mean for corporations nationwide?