A jury awarded BMG Rights Management and Round Hill Music $25 million in their lawsuit against Cox Communications for the cable company's failure to penalize its Internet customers who repeatedly infringed copyrighted materials. The verdict filed Thursday after a 10-day trial said the jury found BMG had proven three of the four questions put to it: that Cox subscribers violated BMG copyrighted works, that Cox is liable for contributory infringement, and that Cox's conduct was willful. The jury said it didn't agree that Cox had vicarious liability for the infringement. BMG and Round Hill sued Cox in 2014 in U.S. District Court, Alexandria, Virginia, alleging Cox failed to comply with the Copyright Alert System, which lets ISPs terminate Internet services to repeat infringers (see 1411280050). BMG didn't comment Friday. Cox is "unhappy with the decision, will review the ruling in detail and [is] considering options, including appeal," it said in a statement.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative released results Thursday of its 2015 Special 301 out-of-cycle review on intellectual property infringement. It focused on the sale of counterfeit goods online, listing 14 online markets alongside physical markets in Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, Paraguay and Thailand. USTR cited the difficulties customs authorities face attempting to stop shipments of counterfeit goods sold online, and the growing problem of free trade zones enabling counterfeit activities. Major Chinese online shopping website Taobao again escaped inclusion, after last being listed in 2012. USTR said Taobao parent Alibaba took some enforcement measures over the past year, including “a good-faith product takedown procedure, a three and four strikes penalty system, and an English-language version of the TaoProtect portal to register [intellectual property rights] and submit takedown requests.” But USTR said it's “increasingly concerned” by reports that Alibaba’s enforcement program is “too slow, difficult to use, and lacks transparency.” The report applauded China for its efforts over the past year to examine the problem of counterfeit sales online; a study by that country in November found less than 59 percent of articles sold online last year were genuine. USTR cautioned that large free trade zones have “become enablers for counterfeit activities and are being used as a staging ground to disguise the illicit nature of counterfeit goods, to add infringing trademarks, logos and packaging to products, as well as to conceal the origin of counterfeit goods.” The EU has said counterfeiters are to blame, noted USTR. The issue would be partially addressed by the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, it said. Distribution of counterfeit goods bought online is a major enforcement challenge for customs authorities, said USTR. The report “shines an essential light on the rampant nature of content theft, which diminishes the work of creators, harms consumers through the spread of malware,” MPAA CEO Chris Dodd said in a statement. “As the film and television industry relies on robust copyright frameworks to create and distribute content around the globe, the report is a reminder that it’s important to include strong protections for intellectual property in trade agreements such as the TPP.” USTR’s decision to take “action against the identified markets is a win for both consumers and rights holders, allowing the legitimate foreign market distribution of, and thus greater access to, legal content -- of literary works, music, movies and TV programming, video games, software, and other products and services,” said International Intellectual Property Alliance Counsel Steven Metalitz in a statement.
Noninteractive webcasters will be required to pay 0.17 cent per performance on nonsubscription services and 0.22 cent per performance for subscription services beginning Jan. 1, the Copyright Royalty Board said at our deadline Wednesday. The CRB released the initial details of its 2016-2020 webcasting rate-setting ruling Wednesday but hadn’t released a full unredacted version of the ruling to parties in the rate-setting proceeding at our deadline. There had been few clear signs before the ruling about how the CRB would rule (see 1512110064). Noncommercial webcasters will be required to pay $500 annually for each station or channel for all transmissions totaling no more than 159,140 aggregate tuning hours (ATH) per month, the CRB said. All transmissions above 159,140 ATH per month will pay a 0.17 cent per-performance rate. Rates for commercial and noncommercial webcasters will be adjusted annually between 2017 and 2020 based on the Consumer Price Index, the CRB said.
The Patent and Trademark Office Tuesday released its FY 2015 performance and accountability report (PAR), which detailed the agency's financial and performance measurement results and compared them to the previous fiscal year's. The PTO finished FY 15, which ended Sept. 30, 2.7 percentage points, or $76,615, ahead of its FY 2014 amount in total assets, and increased total earned revenue by 1.9 percentage points to $3.07 million, the report said. The agency also increased its federal personnel in FY 15 by 217 employees. In its performance measurements, the PTO didn't meet its target goal of a 16.4-month average first-action patent pendency, finishing with an average of 17.3 months, or its goal of a 83-91 patent quality composite score -- finishing FY15 with a score of 42.9. The PTO also failed to meet its goal of training 6,300 foreign government officials on best practices to protect and enforce intellectual property, it said. The PTO met or exceeded several of its target objectives, including average total patent pendency, average first-action trademark pendency, total average trademark pendency and exceptional office action, the report said. "While the PAR is a record of our achievements, it is also an honest discussion of the challenges we face as an agency moving forward in FY 2016," PTO Chief Financial Officer Tony Scardino said in a blog post Tuesday. Scardino said the PTO will continue efforts in the current fiscal year in managing the transition to a "steady-state operation" as the patent activity comes closer to achieving its pendency and inventory targets and establishing an Office of the Deputy Commissioner.
Qualcomm said it decided not to split its chipmaking and patent licensing businesses into two separate companies. “Our review was comprehensive,” CEO Steve Mollenkopf said during a call with analysts Tuesday, after a board meeting. “We looked at everything.” Mollenkopf said a special committee of the board on which he served had looked at full and partial separation of the business lines, tracking stocks, a subsidiary initial public offering and “various changes to our capital structure.” Jana Partners, which invested more than $2 billion in Qualcomm in April, had pressed for a breakup to boost the share price, analysts said. “The strategic benefits and synergies” of staying one company “are not replicable through alternative structures,” Mollenkopf said in a statement. “We therefore believe the current structure is the best way to execute on our strategy to build on our position in the ecosystem and deliver enhanced performance and returns.” Qualcomm stock closed up 2.5 percent Tuesday to $48.02.
Several industry groups praised introduction of the Copyright Office for the Digital Economy (CODE) Act (HR-4241) in statements Monday and Tuesday. The bill would separate the CO from the Library of Congress but keep it within the legislative branch. HR-4241 also would require the CO director to regularly study whether the office's IT systems were meeting the copyright community's needs (see 1512140029). The MPAA said it believes HR-4241 advances “the conversation on [CO] modernization. The importance of copyright to our culture and our economy demands a more autonomous [CO] that has the flexibility it needs to serve copyright owners and users.” Newspaper Association of America President David Chavern said he hopes HR-4241 will address “troubling aspects” in the copyright registration process, like the CO's current requirement that print newspapers register copyright by submitting content in microfilm format. “This is grossly out of touch with today's technology,” Chavern said in a news release.
The Copyright Office seeks comment by Feb. 16 on what provisions in existing U.S. copyright law “are implicated by the ubiquity of software in everyday products, and the effect of copyright law on technological advancements in such products.” Reply comments are due March 18, the CO said in Tuesday's Federal Register. The CO said it's doing the study in response to a request from Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and ranking member Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. They sought the study in October, days before the CO and Library of Congress released 10 exemptions to Digital Millennium Copyright Act Section 1201 (see 1510230036). Topics the CO wants to study include whether the application of copyright law to software in everyday products “enables or frustrates innovation and creativity in the design, distribution and legitimate uses of new products and innovative services,” the office said. The CO said it's also seeking information on whether legitimate business models for copyright owners “could be improved or undermined by changes to copyright law in this area.” The study isn't “intended to examine or address more general questions about software and copyright protection,” the CO said.
Pandora and Warner/Chappell Music signed a multiyear licensing agreement covering Warner/Chappell's entire catalog. Specific terms of the licensing agreement remain confidential, but the deal means Warner/Chappell can “obtain its goal of delivering improved performance royalties for its songwriters, while Pandora will benefit from greater rate certainty,” Pandora said Tuesday in a news release.
Nearly 2.7 million patent applications were filed globally in 2014, a 4.5 percent rise from 2013, for the fifth straight year of increases, the World Intellectual Property Organization said in a Monday report. China drove much of the 2014 growth, as “application activity in China outstripped the combined total in its next-closest followers,” the U.S. and Japan, WIPO said. Chinese patent offices accepted about 928,200 filings in 2014, followed by the U.S. (578,800), Japan (326,000), South Korea (210,300) and the European Patent Office (152,700), it said. China is on pace to become the first to accept a million applications in a single year, it said. China also led the world last year in rate of growth (12.5 percent), followed by the EPO (3.2 percent), South Korea (2.8 percent) and the U.S. (1.3 percent), it said. Japan had a 0.7 percent decline, it said. U.S. applicants filed the most patent applications abroad (224,400), followed by Japan (200,000) and Germany (105,600), WIPO said. Chinese applicants filed relatively few applications abroad -- only around 36,700, it said.
The Copyright Royalty Board will issue its ruling on the webcasting rate-setting proceeding Wednesday, the Copyright Office said Monday. The ruling, which will decide the statutory royalty rates that Pandora and other noninteractive online radio services will pay between 2016 and 2020, has been difficult for stakeholders to predict given the wide range of proposed rates and few clear signs from stakeholders’ interactions with the CRB (see 1512110064). The CRB will post the royalty rates online Wednesday but will initially send its full written determination only to parties that participated in the proceeding and Register of Copyrights Maria Pallante pending determination of what information the CRB will redact for public release, the CO said. The rates set will take effect Jan. 1.