The International Trade Commission voted to initiate a Tariff Act Section 337 investigation into Broadband iTV allegations that cable set-top boxes from Comcast, Charter and Altice infringe four patents on VOD and electronic program guides (see 2204280027), says a notice for Tuesday’s Federal Register. The complaint seeks cease and desist and limited exclusion orders.

Xperi announced Paul Davis as CEO of Adeia, its intellectual property business that's due to be spun off as a stand-alone company this fall. In the interim, Davis will serve as Adeia president and continue in his role as Xperi chief legal officer, said the company Wednesday. Adeia will have 10,000 patent assets when it branches off on its own this fall, said Xperi CEO Jon Kirchner on an earnings call this month (see 2205100026). Xperi's product business, meanwhile, will focus on advanced infotainment and in-cabin safety products in cars along with its IPTV business. On Wednesday Kirchner praised Davis’ “deep knowledge of the IP licensing business,” including his role as general counsel of Tessera Technologies, the predecessor to Xperi before the company bought DTS in 2016.

The Patent and Trademark Office is seeking nominations by July 1 for up to three members each on its two public committees to advise the agency on patent and trademark policy issues, says a notice for Wednesday’s Federal Register. Members picked for the committees will begin their three-year terms Dec. 1 and will be able to serve their terms remotely, it says. Members by law must have “a substantial background” in finance, management, labor relations, science, technology or office automation, says the notice. At least one member of the nine-member patent advisory committee must be an “independent inventor,” it says.

Comments are due May 26 in docket 337-3621 at the International Trade Commission on the public interest ramifications of the cease and desist and limited exclusion orders that Sonrai Memory seeks in a May 11 complaint on laptops, desktops, mobile phones and tablets from Amazon, Dell, Lenovo, LG, Motorola and Samsung for allegedly infringing a January 2007 patent (7,159,766) on the power-saving characteristics of memory devices, says a notice for Wednesday’s Federal Register. Consumers will have available to them in the U.S. marketplace “a wide variety of laptops, desktops, mobile phones, and tablets, as well as other competitive non-infringing products, if the accused products are excluded from the United States,” said Sonrai, a Dublin-based company, whose main licensee is Microchip Technology in Chandler, Arizona. None of the proposed respondents commented Tuesday.

Google will pay hundreds of European news publishers for their content as part of licensing agreements under the European Copyright Directive, the company said Wednesday. Google reached agreements with “more than 300 national, local and specialist news publications in Germany, Hungary, France, Austria, the Netherlands and Ireland,” the company said. Google will launch a new tool to allow for potential agreements with “thousands more news publishers, starting in Germany and Hungary, and rolling out to other EU countries over the coming months,” said News and Publishing Partnerships Director Sulina Connal.

Comments are due May 20 in docket 337-3620 at the International Trade Commission on the public interest ramifications of the import ban that Advanced Micro Devices seeks on TCL smart TVs and Realtek graphics processing unit chips for allegedly infringing five of its patents on GPU circuitry architecture, says a notice for Thursday’s Federal Register. AMD’s May 5 complaint names Realtek and 13 TCL subsidiaries in China, Hong Kong, Mexico and Vietnam as proposed respondents. AMD asked for a Tariff Act Section 337 investigation into the patent allegations, plus limited exclusion and cease and desist orders against the allegedly infringing products. Realtek and TCL didn’t comment Wednesday.

Complainant Broadband iTV opposes the cable companies’ request for the International Trade Commission to launch a Tariff Act Section 337 patent investigation through the commission’s 100-day early disposition program because that would “prejudice” BBiTV's case, said its response posted Tuesday in docket 337-3616. Altice, Comcast and Charter told the ITC they seek rapid adjudication to determine if BBiTV satisfies the domestic industry requirement of its patent infringement complaint, noting BBiTV bases its entire domestic-industry claims on investments that licensee Dish Network made over a three-week period in December (see 2205100031). That a domestic industry exists “cannot be seriously contested,” responded BBiTV. Dish’s “domestic expenditures” to provide its pay TV service “are made almost entirely to support the products that form the basis of a domestic industry in this investigation,” it said. “Both the facts and the law weigh against the use of the early disposition program for this investigation,” it said. BBiTV alleges set-tops from Altice, Comcast and Charter infringe four patents on VOD and electronic program guide technologies, and it seeks cease and desist and limited exclusion orders against the infringing devices.

If the International Trade Commission opens a Tariff Act Section 337 investigation into Broadband iTV (BBiTV) allegations against Altice, Comcast and Charter, the cable companies want the ITC to use its 100-day early disposition program to determine if BBiTV satisfies the domestic industry requirement of its patent infringement complaint, they said in a filing posted Monday in docket 337-3616. BBiTV alleges set-tops from the three companies infringe four patents on VOD and electronic program guide technologies, and seeks cease and desist and limited exclusion orders against the infringing devices (see 2204280027). An ITC Section 337 complainant must show that a domestic industry exists for its asserted patents or is in the process of being established. “BBiTV does not contribute to any domestic industry in the asserted patents,” but instead relies entirely on investments made by third-party licensee Dish Network, and only between Dec. 10 and Dec. 31, “to support its allegations of a domestic industry,” said the cable companies. ITC case law shows “abbreviated” license periods call into doubt the “sufficiency” of domestic law allegations, they said. BBiTV is “a non-practicing entity that does not make any products on its own,” but rather sues other companies “to extract settlement licenses,” they said. Dish “only recently executed its license to the asserted patents to resolve litigation brought against it by BBiTV,” they said. BBiTV didn’t comment Tuesday, nor did Dish, which isn't a party to BBiTV’s complaint.

Samsung denies it engaged in unfair competition or committed Tariff Act Section 337 violations by importing products that infringe any “valid and enforceable” Arigna Technologies patent rights, said the company in a response posted Friday in docket 337-TA-1308 at the International Trade Commission. Samsung also denies any patent claims that Arigna asserted against Samsung are valid or enforceable. The ITC opened a Section 337 investigation in March into Arigna allegations that devices from Apple, Google, Lenovo, Microsoft, Motorola, OnePlus, Samsung and TCL infringe a 2007 patent on power semiconductors with short-circuit protection (see 2203310038). Most of the other respondents made similar filings Friday; TCL’s response was filed confidentially.

Xperi’s intellectural property licensing brand, Adeia, announced an agreement transferring its DBI Ultra die-to-wafer hybrid bonding IP to Rohm semiconductor company Lapis. The agreement also includes a license to Adeia’s foundational hybrid bonding patent portfolio, the companies said Wednesday. Lapis will use the technology in a new generation of application specific standard products and custom large scale integration and application specific integrated circuits, they said.