Some two dozen retailers and online distributors of USB hubs, including big names like Amazon, Belkin, Best Buy, Office Depot, Staples and Walmart, are in violation of U.S. patent 5,675,811, which describes a “method for transmitting information over an intelligent low power serial bus,” alleged the patent owner, Minero Digital, an Allen, Texas, firm, in a federal complaint. The patent was granted in October 1997 and originally assigned to General Magic, the now-defunct developer of personal communications handhelds, said the complaint, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Marshall, Texas. Representatives of the defendants didn’t comment.
Switzerland, the U.K., Sweden, the Netherlands and the U.S. are the world’s five most “innovative nations,” according to the 2015 Global Innovation Index report released Thursday by the World Intellectual Property Organization, Cornell University and the French business school INSEAD. China, Malaysia, Vietnam, India, Jordan, Kenya and Uganda “are among a group of countries outperforming their economic peers,” the report said. The top 25 performers are all “high-income economies,” and the list “remains largely unchanged from past editions, illustrating that the leaders’ performance is hard to challenge for those that follow,” it said. The U.S. and the U.K. are two economies that “stand out” in terms of “innovation quality,” the report said, defining that as a measure of “university performance, the reach of scholarly articles and the international dimension of patent applications.” The U.S. and the U.K. “stay ahead of the pack, largely as a result of their world-class universities, closely followed by Japan, Germany and Switzerland,” it said. “Top-scoring middle-income economies on innovation quality are China, Brazil and India, with China increasingly outpacing the others.”
Google sued Local Lighthouse for making false and misleading claims during telemarketing calls, among other claims, said a court document filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco. The Internet giant had telegraphed the move in an advisory that day to consumers about ways to avoid robocalls (see 1509160048). Google's lawsuit alleged the search engine optimization company's sales agents claim they're calling on behalf of Google, are affiliated with Google or have been contracted by Google to provide search engine optimization services. Local Lighthouse replied to a letter from Google in August 2014, denying Lighthouse used robocalls to market services or that it harassed consumers with unwanted phone calls, the filing said. Even though the letter said the company would take a look at its practices, Google still received complaints about the calls, the filing said. Google also alleges Local Lighthouse is engaging in false advertising and federal trademark infringement by claiming to be a Google subcontractor and using Google's logo in its own marketing. Local Lighthouse didn't comment.
The Copyright Office's online eCO registration system will be offline for portions of Saturday and Sunday, the Library of Congress said Wednesday. The registration system will be offline 6-8:30 p.m. Saturday and between 10 p.m. Saturday and 6 a.m. Sunday, LOC said.
Securus accused Global Tel*Link (GTL) of making “grossly inaccurate” statements after the Patent and Trademark Office's Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) granted GTL's requests to invalidate two of Securus' patents. In a Tuesday news release, Securus said GTL issued its own news release (see 1509140069) containing "some clearly misleading and inaccurate statements" about the PTAB decision and the extent to which it affected Securus' patent portfolio. Securus said it plans to appeal the PTAB decisions, and the rulings didn't invalidate all of the company's call processing patents. Securus also denied GTL's claims that it's a patent predator and not an innovator, and had patented material invented by others. "Any suggestion that Securus patented what others were doing is wrong," Securus said. "GTL effectively admitted Securus' patents were new and novel and the PTAB did not undermine this."
RIAA disagrees with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling Monday in Lenz v. Universal, a spokeswoman said in an email, speaking on behalf of Universal Music Group (UMG). A three-judge 9th Circuit panel ruled that U.S. District Court in San Francisco was justified in ruling against motions from UMG and other parties for a summary judgment in the case. The 9th Circuit’s ruling also said the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) “requires copyright holders to consider fair use before sending a takedown notification (see 1509140070). RIAA, one of the parties supporting UMG in the case, disagrees with the 9th Circuit’s “conclusion about the DMCA and the burden the court places upon copyright holders before sending takedown notices,” a spokeswoman said. “But we are pleased that the Ninth Circuit made it clear that a court may not second guess a copyright owner’s good faith belief that the fair use does not excuse infringing conduct.”
The Patent and Trademark Office's Patent Trial and Appeal Board (PTAB) issued written decisions granting Global Tel*Link's requests to invalidate two patents held by Securus Technologies, GTL said in a news release Monday. The rulings end existing patent infringement claims against GTL made by Securus and prevent any new suits related to the patents, GTL said. In one ruling, PTAB said Securus made incorrect statements to patent officials while seeking approval for one of the invalidated patents, the news release said. Securus didn't comment.
NAB and Sirius XM were among the nine entities or groups of law professors to file proposed amicus briefs with the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals through Thursday on behalf of Pandora in the company's appeal of a February U.S. District Court ruling in Los Angeles. The lower court said Pandora had to pay performance royalties on pre-1972 recordings owned by Flo & Eddie, who own the copyright to The Turtles' “Happy Together” and the rest of that band's music library. Sirius XM and the other six filers on behalf of Pandora argued that District Judge Philip Gutierrez incorrectly interpreted California copyright law. The other pro-Pandora filers included the Association for Recorded Sound Collections, Computer & Communications Industry Association (CCIA), Electronic Frontier Foundation, Public Knowledge and three groups of law school professors. Pandora and six of the nine filers previously filed in the 2nd Circuit on Sirius XM's behalf in that company's appeal of earlier U.S. District Court rulings in New York that relied on state copyright law in finding Flo & Eddie had a right to performance royalties on the Turtles' pre-1972 recordings (see 1508060052). Gutierrez essentially said the statute is "a living servitude on not only intangible products but also previously sold goods, one which would grow over time as new rights evolved,” CCIA said in its proposed brief. Gutierrez's “creation of a performance right in contravention of the Legislature’s plain intent violates the settled principle that where, as here, the declaration of a right would dramatically alter the common law and affect the interests of competing stakeholders, it must be a matter of legislative judgment and discretion,” Sirius XM said in its proposed brief. “Even assuming that California may regulate the use of pre-1972 sound recordings within its own borders, it cannot regulate in such a manner that prohibits the use of such sound recordings elsewhere in the nation,” CCIA said. “In such circumstances, the burden on interstate commerce -- including potential commerce involving members of amicus CCIA -- would be 'clearly excessive in relation to the putative local benefits.'” Gutierrez's ruling “creates an unbounded set of exclusive rights never recognized by California or Congress, and thus risks creating problematic restrictions on valuable speech activities,” Public Knowledge said in its proposed brief.
Broadcast Music Inc. (BMI) generated more than $1 billion revenue during FY 2015, which ended June 30, the music rights management company said Thursday. BMI said its FY 2015 revenue total is the highest in the company's history and the “most public performance revenue generated for songwriters, composers and publishers by any music rights organization in the world.” BMI's revenue from digital performances rose 65 percent from FY 2014 to more than $100 million. U.S. media licensing generated $484 million revenue, while licensing to U.S. bars, hotels and other facilities totaled $137 million, BMI said. An additional $292 million revenue came from international licenses, the company said. BMI distributed $877 million to its affiliated songwriters, composers and music publishers -- up almost 4.5 percent from FY 2014. BMI CEO Mike O’Neill in a news release said the results are "even more impressive when you consider the negative impact to our international revenues brought on by the strengthening dollar.”
The Electronic Frontier Foundation “continues to call” on officials in nations considering the Trans-Pacific Partnership “to renounce misguided plans to extend the length of copyright by 20 years in half of the 12 TPP-negotiating countries,” EFF Senior Global Policy Analyst Jeremy Malcolm said Tuesday in a blog post. The extension appears inevitable because it has been included in all U.S. free trade agreements since the North American Free Trade Agreement and is facing “little to no opposition” among negotiating countries, Malcolm said. “Even so, we can't simply sit back and accept this, because what's wrong is wrong. … Copyright term extension has never been about economics, it has been about placating a big content sector that takes pride in its ability to demand, and to receive, copyright laws that benefit nobody but themselves.” EFF “won't be giving up this fight and neither should those countries. Either we'll convince them to reject the unwarranted extension of the copyright term by 20 years, or we'll have given them fair warning: if they press ahead and include this term in the agreement regardless of the public's wishes, we will together rise up and defeat the TPP as a whole, just as we defeated ACTA [Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement] and SOPA [Stop Online Piracy Act] before it,” Malcolm said.