The Copyright Office’s eCO Registration System will be offline at 6 p.m. Oct. 5 until 6 a.m. the following day to “accommodate Pay.gov maintenance,” said the CO Monday.

MPAA now goes by the Motion Picture Association, including online, the group said Wednesday. That's "the name we will now be known as globally. Our U.S.-specific work will still fall under Motion Picture Association -- America," a spokesperson emailed us. Logo here.

Telecom and tech issues weren’t discussed in Thursday night’s Democratic presidential debate, but a few candidates targeted China for stealing U.S. intellectual property. China steals “our products, including our intellectual property,” said Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif. “They dump substandard products into our economy. They need to be held accountable.” The problem with China isn’t the trade deficit, but that it’s stealing IP and violating World Trade Organization rules, said ex-Vice President Joe Biden. Entrepreneur Andrew Yang said an executive friend visited China recently and “saw pirated U.S. intellectual property on worker workstations to the tune of thousands of dollars per head.” The friend asked how American workers can compete with that, Yang said, citing lost American revenue.

The House Judiciary Committee cleared legislation that would establish a voluntary small claims board within the Copyright Office (see 1909100069), despite warnings from Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif. The measure passed by voice vote Tuesday. The Senate Judiciary Committee in July unanimously advanced the Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement (Case) Act (HR-2426/S-1273) to the floor, despite opposition from Public Knowledge and the Center for Democracy & Technology. Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., successfully offered an amendment with technical revisions, including provisions that freeze caps on fees and monetary damages for three years. Lofgren supports the goal -- to allow creators filing copyright claims an alternative to federal court -- but cited free-speech concerns from the American Civil Liberties Union, Computer and Communications Industry Association, Internet Association and Mozilla. She ultimately supported this legislation, but said if speech issues on notice and takedown aren’t addressed, the plan won’t pass the Senate. It’s sad if one senator holds up bill, which has been out for a long time, said ranking member Doug Collins, R-Ga., who sponsored the bill with Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. Groups like the ACLU should have participated in the public process, he added. Copyright infringement isn’t a victimless crime, and the bill will aid content creators like musicians and photographers who can’t justify costs of taking claims to federal court, said Jeffries. The Copyright Alliance applauded Tuesday's passage, saying it will help hundreds of thousands of content creators. PK said the legislation “falls short.” A small claims court “needs to be accountable, appealable, and limited to reasonable damage levels,” said Policy Counsel Meredith Rose Wednesday. “The system envisioned by CASE is none of those. It lacks meaningful appealability, and offers damage caps that are higher than the median income for over a quarter of all Americans.”

Comments are due Aug. 29 on a ban Velodyne Lidar seeks on imports of 3-D lidar devices that allegedly infringe its patents and are subsequently incorporated into autonomous vehicles, unmanned aerial vehicles, industrial machines and robotics, said Wednesday’s Federal Register. “Velodyne seeks to protect itself and its United States operations from two foreign companies” -- Hesai Photonics Technology and Suteng Innovation Technology (aka RoboSense) -- “that took its revolutionary patented invention, incorporated it into their competing products, and are injecting those infringing products into the United States market,” Velodyne said in a complaint filed Aug. 15 with the International Trade Commission. Velodyne seeks a limited exclusion order and cease and desist orders banning import and sale of infringing devices from Hesai and RoboSense. "RoboSense will actively respond and follow the standard legal process, and will respect the final judgment," emailed a spokesperson, saying the lawsuit targets "a small number of our products in the U.S. market only." Hesai didn't comment Wednesday.

Qualcomm granted LG Electronics a global patent license to develop, manufacture and sell 3G, 4G and 5G “single-mode and multimode complete devices," it said Tuesday. The agreement builds on Qualcomm’s “long-standing technology relationship” with LG, it said. Financial details weren’t disclosed, but the agreement “is consistent with Qualcomm’s established global licensing terms,” it said.

Comments are due Sept. 30 to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative suggesting sites and physical markets for the Notorious Markets List for the Special 301 out-of-cycle review, said Monday's Federal Register. Rebuttal comments are due Oct. 15. The USTR is seeking "examples of online and physical markets based outside the United States that reportedly engage in and facilitate substantial copyright piracy or trademark counterfeiting," said the notice.

The U.S. should warn China that it will ban all Chinese companies from American markets in specific sectors that Chinese hackers target for intellectual property theft, blogged American Enterprise Institute resident scholar Claude Barfield Wednesday. If warnings go ignored, act on the threats, “even if no direct technology theft and transfer is identified,” he said.

New TiVo CEO Dave Shull is “always willing to enter into a productive business dialogue” to license TiVo’s intellectual property to Comcast, “but in the meanwhile we are committed to the litigation and Comcast continues to incur liability for their violations of our IP," he said on a Q2 earnings call Wednesday. “Litigation is a core part of any IP business,” said Shull, hired May 31 as TiVo CEO after careers at the Weather Channel and Dish Network. “While I would always prefer to get to a fair business deal without litigation, if the other party is not reasonable then we have no choice but to litigate.” TiVo declared “legal victory” June 4 after winning a “favorable determination” from an International Trade Commission administrative judge that Comcast’s X1 platform infringes TiVo-owned Rovi patents. “We have a portfolio of more than 5,000 patents and applications, hundreds of which cover technology innovations” for the X1 “user experience,” said Shull. “While Comcast may be able to design around any single patent if we are able to demonstrate that they have violated even a small percentage of these hundreds of patents, the Comcast service will likely continue to lose features that are important to their customers.” Since the ITC process allows TiVo to bring infringement actions on only “a few of these patents at a time, we committed to this lengthy process at the outset,” he said. Comcast didn’t comment Thursday.

Sustaining the rise of e-commerce wouldn't be “possible without user trust in online services,” commented the Computer & Communications Industry Association Monday in the Trump administration’s inquiry into the trafficking of counterfeit goods. President Donald Trump’s April 3 memorandum said the Commerce Department would collaborate with other federal agencies on a report due Oct. 30 with recommendations how to curb the illicit trafficking. Internet companies “across the spectrum devote significant resources to maintaining trust in online purchases,” said CCIA. “Combating counterfeit and pirated goods online is central to these efforts.” The administration’s study “could help ensure that online sales are trusted environments, and that digital e-commerce can continue to grow and benefit sellers of all sizes,” it said. “CCIA encourages the relevant agencies to take into account all of the existing work and vigorous attention to this issue,” while steering clear of “mandated requirements” that would have “significant consequences for smaller competitors,” it said. It also sought “better facilitation of information sharing between enforcement agencies,” including Customs and Border Protection, to fight counterfeits.