Ericsson and Samsung reached a multiyear agreement covering global patent licenses, including on all cellular technologies, the companies said Friday. The agreement covers sales of network gear and handsets from Jan. 1. They agreed on “technology cooperation projects to advance the mobile industry in open standardization and create valuable solutions for consumers and enterprises.” This settles complaints filed by both companies before the U.S. International Trade Commission plus “ongoing lawsuits in several countries,” they said.

Samsung Electronics applied April 30 for a U.S. trademark for what appears to be a marketing slogan, “Better Life through Samsung OLED,” Patent and Trademark Office records show. Samsung filed a similar application with U.K. intellectual property authorities two days earlier, say the records. Samsung seeks the trademark for a wide variety of commercial display uses, including for TVs, smartphones, tablets and digital signage, says the application. Samsung didn’t comment Wednesday.

Dolby's virtuous cycle continues to drive broader adoption of Dolby Vision HDR and Atmos surround sound, leading to "more content supporting these formats which, in turn, drives more device adoption," Colliers analyst Steven Frankel wrote investors Monday. The company “notched an Android win” for Dolby Vision with Xiaomi's recently launched Mi 11 Pro smartphone, while Sony added Dolby Atmos to its new Xperia 1 phone and Samsung added Atmos to its Galaxy Book S laptop line, Frankel said. The Dolby ecosystem also expanded at the 2021 SXSW, with Lucid Motors’ Air sedan, which uses Atmos for safety notifications such as seat belt warnings, and for music playback through its 21-speaker sound system, he noted. The analyst cited a SlashGear report saying Apple Music will offer lossless and Dolby Atmos music tracks as part of its base plan, “paving the way for the introduction of additional Atmos powered smart speakers and headphones.” Vision and Atmos “continue to be part of almost every new piece of content in the streaming world,” and while HDR10+ made some progress with playback via Google's Chromecast and Roku's Express 4K+ streaming media players, its content library remains “thin, especially compared to Vision,” he said. Dolby.io, meanwhile, is a “a game-changer” that could expand the company’s addressable market and create recurring revenue, Frankel said, estimating Q2 revenue of $286.1 million when Dolby reports earnings Tuesday.

Third-party Amazon seller eMonkey advertises and sells products bearing the Brilliant trademark but “is not now, nor was it ever,” an authorized reseller, alleged smart home startup Brilliant Home Technology in a complaint (in Pacer, case no. cv-10650) Monday in U.S District Court in Boston. The Brilliant goods that eMonkey is selling are “materially different” from new Brilliant gear offered through authorized channels with full one-year warranties, and “in large part” are “used or liquidated products,” it said. EMonkey also procured inventory of Brilliant products by “knowingly, and wrongfully, inducing” authorized resellers to transship it the goods for sale on Amazon, said the complaint, thus committing “tortious interference” with Brilliant’s legally contracted retail accounts, it said. EMonkey “has undertaken these wrongful acts willfully and with full knowledge of its wrongdoing,” it said. EMonkey couldn't be reached Tuesday for comment. Brilliant didn’t respond to questions about whether it will pursue actions against authorized resellers found to be transshipping goods to eMonkey in violation of their retail agreements.

Comments are due April 27 in docket 337-3544 at the International Trade Commission on the public interest ramifications of the Tariff Act Section 337 import ban that Dish seeks in an April 13 complaint (login required) on exercise equipment with capabilities that allegedly infringe five of its adaptive bit-rate streaming patents, says Monday's Federal Register. Named as proposed respondents in the investigation Dish seeks are Icon, its subsidiaries Free Motion and NordicTrack, plus lululemon and Peloton. None of the companies responded to questions Friday.

Electric vehicle battery supplier SK Innovation will pay LG $1.8 billion in “lump-sum payments and a running royalty” to settle LG allegations in an April 2019 complaint (login required) at the International Trade Commission that it imported lithium-ion EV cells into the U.S. developed through “misappropriated trade secrets” extracted from former LG employees. The ITC in February granted LG’s request for an exclusion order on SK products, which SK vowed to appeal. The companies “agreed to withdraw all pending legal disputes” and to a 10-year period of “non-assertion,” they said Sunday in a joint statement. The settlement “builds confidence" in SK's and LG's "reliability and responsibility as suppliers to the U.S. auto industry," said U.S. Trade Representative Katherine Tai.

LG and Samsung TVs and remote controls from Universal Electronics and cable operators Altice, Charter and WideOpenWest infringe two Roku patents on the programming and management of all-in-one remotes, alleged a complaint (login required) Thursday in docket 337-3542 at the International Trade Commission. It seeks a Tariff Act Section 337 investigation and exclusion and cease-and-desist orders against the accused products. Roku filed similar allegations (in Pacer) against Universal and seven of its foreign subsidiaries Thursday in U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, California. The patents at issue in both proceedings, 7,388,511 and 8,378,875, were granted in June 2008 and February 2013, respectively, and were originally assigned to Philips. The proposed respondents in the ITC probe “continue to harm Roku’s domestic industry and to violate Section 337 through unlawful and unauthorized sale for importation” into the U.S. of the accused products, which are “used ... without Roku’s authorization,” Roku told the commission. “The technologies embodied in the relevant infringed patents will continue to be available” if the ITC orders an import ban on the accused products, said Roku. “Any U.S. consumer with a desire for those technologies will have access to ample substitutes containing those features from Roku or Roku’s licensees or Roku’s authorized manufacturer partners.” The proposed respondents didn't answer our queries Friday.

Nokia and Lenovo concluded a multiyear, multi-technology patent cross-license agreement that resolves all litigation between them, said the companies Wednesday. Terms of the agreement weren’t disclosed, but Lenovo will make a “net balancing payment” to Nokia, they said. The International Trade Commission opened a Tariff Act Section 337 investigation last summer into Nokia allegations that Lenovo laptops, tablets, desktop PCs and components infringe four of its patents on H.264 video compression and a fifth on user interfaces (see 2008050008).

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit affirmed the 2019 decisions of the U.S. District Court in Wilmington, Delaware, that Sharp and Vizio TVs didn't infringe two 2002 WiLAN video patents, said its opinion (in Pacer) Tuesday. WiLAN sued the vendors four months apart in Delaware in 2015, and the court tried the cases in parallel rather than combining them. It granted Sharp and Vizio’s motion for summary judgment of noninfringement on one of the patents, saying WiLAN “lacked sufficient admissible evidence to prove direct infringement” when it failed to produce the critical source code at trial, and the appeals court agreed. WiLAN also challenged the district court’s claim limitation construction as the basis of its ruling by stipulation that Sharp and Vizio didn’t infringe the second patent. The appeals court rejected WiLAN’s argument, concluding “the district court’s construction of this limitation was correct.” Sharp "is very pleased with the Federal Circuit’s decision," emailed Sharp Home Electronics President Jim Sanduski. "This important ruling and precedential opinion confirms what we have always maintained and what the District Court had already decided." WiLAN didn’t respond to questions, nor did Vizio.

BlackBerry is in "an exclusive negotiation" to sell a “major portion” of its patent portfolio to a “North American party,” said CEO John Chen on a Tuesday call for fiscal Q4, ended Feb. 28. BlackBerry would retain rights to use the patents, he said. Those for sale are “relevant” for mobile devices, messaging and wireless networking but “not useful to us today,” he said. The patents associated with BlackBerry’s “strategic software and services business” won't be involved, he said. “The company has not yet reached a definitive binding agreement, and negotiations are ongoing.” Licensing and other revenue was $50 million in Q4, said Chief Financial Officer Steve Rai. “Licensing activities have been limited not only due to the ongoing negotiations, but also because revenue from additional transactions that could have been completed in the quarter would have been treated as contingent revenue and deferred to future periods,” he said. “Had negotiations not been in progress, we believe licensing revenue would have been higher.” Rai's disclosure sent the stock tumbling 9.7% Friday, closing at $8.43.