Mobile broadcast service provider MobiTV appears to be softening its stance against mobile community resource community HowardForums after hitting the site with a cease-and-desist letter last week. HowardForums earned MobiTV's wrath after posting a web address purportedly enabling end-around access to premium MobiTV content, promising readers free access to all of the firm's streaming mobile TV channels via mobile device or PC. The URL, posted by a HowardForums member, was originally discovered on a Sprint forum and reportedly has been circulating on the web for several months. MobiTV threatened HowardForums with legal action if the site did not remove the URL and related links by 5 p.m. PST Friday, alleging the post constitutes "a violation and infringement of MobiTV's intellectual property rights, including, without limitation, its copyright, trademark, and trade secret rights."

But in a statement issued late Friday, MobiTV said it would attempt to solve the problem via technological means instead of legal recourse, stating it was "actively implementing additional security measures to address this unauthorized access as well as the isolated issue of certain content feeds posted on HowardForums.com and on other websites. It is our responsibility to ensure that our service and the programming entrusted to us by our content providers is protected at all times." MobiTV added it would not attempt to interrupt or shut down HowardForums. While MobiTV maintains the URL was not publicly available, and procured only through hacking or debugging, HowardForums proprietor Howard Chui told OnlineMediaDaily that is untrue: "No hacking was involved," he said. "MobiTV could've added access control and people wouldn't be able to view it anymore. When I want to protect something online I put a password on it or encrypt it."

Pfizer continued to serve up the pain to Teva Pharmaceutical Industries on Friday when the company reaffirmed its patents on the arthritis pain drug Celebrex.

The U.S. Court of Appeals of the Federal District said that two of the three patents were valid, but threw out the third, saying that it was not valid for the treatment of inflammation. Teva will now have to wait until May 2014 to market the copycat. Celebrex provided Pfizer with annual global sales of $1.7 billion in 2007. Bear Stearns analyst project that it will reach global sales of $2.5 billion in 2008, an increase of 9%, and that the drug will pull in $3.1 billion by 2012.

The New York-based pharma company has been battling it out with Teva Pharmaceutical Industries to hang on to Celebrex for almost four years. Pfizer sued the Israel-based drug maker after it applied to U.S. regulators for permission to sell the generic in 2004. In March 2007, Pfizer won a ruling from a U.S. federal court over three of the main patents regarding Celebrex, barring Teva from manufacturing the generic until 2015.

Boston Law firm Nixon Peabody LLP has hired William Tripp as counsel in the firm's private client practice, the firm said on Friday.

Tripp, who has been a trusts and estates lawyer for more than 35 years, joins Boston-based Nixon Peabody from crosstown law firm Choate Hall & Stewart LLP, where he was a partner.

"Bill brings years of experience to our firm regarding the management and financial oversight of hundreds of millions of dollars in trusts assets," said Jack Fitzgerald, leader of the firm's private clients practice, in a statement.