More than six dozen models of wireless headsets from seven suppliers violate two One-E-Way patents on wireless digital audio systems, alleges a One-E-Way complaint filed Dec. 8 at the International Trade Commission. In the complaint, One-E-Way, based in Pasadena, California, describes itself as a company "engaged in the business of designing and marketing wireless digital audio devices." The complaint names as respondents Beats, Blue Ant Wireless, Creative, Jabra, Jawbone, Sennheiser and Sony. It alleges the seven companies are importing headsets that infringe two of its U.S. patents (No. 7,865,258, issued Jan. 4, 2011, and No. 8,131,391, issued March 6, 2012) for methods of decreasing transmission errors between a transmitter and the receiver in the headset, reducing interference and improving the quality of audio. One-E-Way is asking for a limited exclusion order and a cease and desist order banning import and sale of infringing products from each respondent. In a public notice, the ITC is asking for comments by Dec. 22 on public interest issues raised by the complaint.
“The existence of the Internet does not magically make content costless to produce just because it is costless to distribute,” said Michelle Wein, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation trade policy analyst, in a blog post Friday. Wein countered an article by Caitlin Dewey, a Washington Post blogger, on the ubiquity of file-sharing sites like The Pirate Bay. Shut down by Swedish police last week (see 1412100031), the site has made “digital piracy a casual, inarguable part of the mainstream” Internet user experience, said Dewey. Said Wein: “Given the ease with which consumers can stream content, especially for broadcast, cable, and online TV, it’s almost offensive that some people can’t just cough up the cash to watch.”
The Copyright Office should be made independent from the Library of Congress, said Dina LaPolt of LaPolt Law in an op-ed for The Hill Wednesday. LaPolt specializes in IP and entertainment law. She said the Patent and Trademark Office is compromising the Copyright’s Office review of copyright law, an area in which the PTO has “no particular expertise.” The Copyright Office, not the PTO, should advise President Barack Obama on copyright issues, said LaPolt.
The FTC is likely to conclude its ongoing study of patent assertion entities’ (PAEs) business practices by the end of 2015, but Congress shouldn’t wait for the FTC’s report to pass legislation aimed at curbing patent litigation abuses, said FTC Commissioner Julie Brill on Wednesday. Brill said during a joint American Antitrust Institute-Computer and Communications Industry Association event that she's “hopeful that Congress will act in the near future” to curb patent abuses. Brill noted the House’s passage of the Innovation Act (HR-3309) and commitments by incoming House Intellectual Property Subcommittee Chairman Darrell Issa, R-Calif., to return to the patent abuse issue in the 114th Congress. Efforts to curb patent litigation abuse stalled in May when Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., removed his Patent Transparency and Improvements Act (S-1720) from the committee’s agenda (see 1405230056). The FTC also won’t wait to curb patent litigation abuses, Brill said, referencing the FTC’s recent settlement with MPHJ Technology Investments, which prohibits the PAE from sending out deceptive patent demand letters from small businesses and other entities (see 1411060044). The FTC would be open to issuing an interim report on its FTC study, but will only do so if there is “definitive” information available for release, Brill said.
YouTube launched Content ID to help copyright owners identify their works on the Google-owned video site. The new system lets copyright holders “decide what happens when content in a video on YouTube matches a work they own,” said YouTube. “If accepted to use the Content ID tools, applicants will be required to complete an agreement explicitly stating that only content with exclusive rights can be used as references.” Users wishing to upload songs to videos can search the YouTube Audio Library to ensure that selected songs aren’t copyrighted or have other restrictions, said a company blog post. Accessing the library requires a Gmail login.
Cisco filed two lawsuits against Arista Networks Friday, alleging the defendant committed numerous copyright and patent violations (see complaints here and here). Cisco’s suits -- filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California -- allege that because many of Arista’s executives were former Cisco employees, they used several of Cisco’s patents and copied Cisco’s command line interface. “Arista’s EOS [Extensible Operating System] was developed from the ground up as a nextgeneration network operating system for the cloud based upon the pioneering technologies invented by Arista -- far from the ugly messaging pursued by Cisco on Friday,” said Dan Scheinman, Arista board member, in a blog post Sunday. “Cisco’s lawsuit is just like the lawsuits (actual and threatened) brought against it in the 90’s by Lucent, IBM and Nortel -- an attempt by a legacy vendor that is falling behind in the marketplace to use the legal system to try and slow a competitor who is innovating and winning,” he said. “Arista incorporates features knowing that Cisco holds intellectual property rights related to those features, all of which are Cisco proprietary and none of which are industry standards,” said Mark Chandler, Cisco general counsel, in a blog post Friday.
Asus mobile phones and tablets that include Bluetooth or Wi-Fi features and security codes violate a U.S. patent (8,466,795) for a personal tracking and security system owned by Pragmatus Mobile since the patent was granted in June 2013, Pragmatus alleged in a complaint filed Nov. 24 at the U.S. International Trade Commission. The complaint seeks exclusive and cease and desist orders under Section 337 of the Tariff Act. Many CE manufacturers already license the patent that Asus allegedly violates, the complaint said, listing BlackBerry, HTC, Huawei, LG, Pantech, Samsung, Sony and ZTE among the licensees. In addition, several CE makers license the technology from Pragmatus on confidential terms, including one "major" manufacturer, it said. Many of the "accused" Asus devices at issue in the complaint "are smartphones and tablets, which are not necessary for some health or welfare need," Pragmatus said in a public interest statement. If imports of the Asus devices are barred from the U.S. under an ITC exclusion order, "there are many like or directly competitive articles" that could take their place, it said. Asus representatives didn’t comment.
Copyright Royalty judges announced a “cost of living adjustment” of 2 percent for the royalty rates colleges and universities pay for the use of “nondramatic musical compositions” in the SESAC repertory, said a Copyright Royalty Board Federal Registernotice Tuesday. Those royalty rates are for statutory licenses under the Copyright Act for noncommercial broadcasting, it said. The decision applies to those institutions not affiliated with NPR and will become effective Jan. 2.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., asked MasterCard and Visa, in separate letters Tuesday, to potentially reclassify payment processing for cyberlockers as "illegal activity." Leahy cited a September report by the Digital Citizens Alliance and NetNames, which found that the centralized file hosting websites, often used for copyright infringement, earned revenue through payment processing by major credit card companies (see 1409190067). Leahy told Visa CEO Charles Scharf and MasterCard CEO Ajay Banga that the 30 cyberlockers analyzed in the report serve “no legitimate purpose or activity,” and that the companies should “swiftly review the complaints against those cyberlockers.”
Record companies have invested more than $20 billion in artist scouting and marketing in the past five years, said a Monday report by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI). The report used data from record companies and studies on several musicians. Record labels invested 27 percent of their revenue in marketing in 2013, up from 26 percent in 2011, it said. Copyright law allows the music industry to "gain a return on its investment,” said IFPI Chairman Plácido Domingo in the report.