CE supplier Diamond USA bought counterfeit HDMI components from China, imported them into the U.S. and shipped them to its Tijuana factory in Mexico, where they were built into TVs sold through big-box retailers in Mexico under the Polaroid brand. So alleged an HDMI Licensing trademark-infringement complaint (in Pacer) filed Monday in U.S. District Court in San Diego, where Diamond USA has its headquarters. Named as defendants in the action besides Diamond USA were its CEO Augusto Arriaga and two subsidiaries that the complaint said he controls -- Diamond Mexico, which runs the Tijuana factory, and Diamond Milenio, which sells the TVs produced in Tijuana to mass-market retailers in Mexico. HDMI Licensing “has not authorized, consented to, or licensed Arriaga, Diamond USA, Diamond Mexico or Diamond Milenio to use HDMI technology in their products,” the complaint said. “In fact, none of the Digital TVs manufactured or sold by these entities have been submitted to HDMI Licensing for testing and approval.” Unlicensed uses of HDMI trademarks “jeopardize the economic interests, goodwill, and reputation of licensed manufacturers and their authentic, licensed, and compliant products,” the complaint said. Unlicensed and counterfeit HDMI products “jeopardize the systems into which they are placed because they may not conform with HDMI Licensing’s design specifications, production standards, or quality control, and thus lack reliability,” it said. “A consumer will not know whose products cause an incompatibility and may understandably, but wrongly, pin blame on licensed, fully-compliant products.” Representatives of Arriaga and the subsidiaries he controls didn’t comment Wednesday, nor did representatives of PLR IP Holdings, the Minnetonka, Minnesota, holding company that licenses the Polaroid brand globally.

DOJ said in a filing it will continue trying to force Apple to help the government open a locked iPhone seized in a New York drug investigation. "The government's application is not moot and the government continues to require Apple's assistance in accessing the data that it is authorized to search by warrant," U.S. Attorney Robert Capers wrote (in Pacer) Friday to Magistrate Judge Margo Brodie in New York's Eastern District. About a month ago, the government resubmitted its application after a decision by Magistrate Judge James Orenstein, who ruled in favor of Apple in February, denying the U.S. government's motion to force the company to help it break into the iPhone in the drug case. Orenstein said the "government's interpretation of the breadth of authority the [All Writs Act] confers on courts of limited jurisdiction thus raises serious doubts about how such a statute could withstand constitutional scrutiny under the separation-of-powers doctrine" (see 1603010013).

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a U.S. District Court ruling tossing out a shareholder complaint spearheaded by the Arkansas Teacher Retirement System and State-Boston Retirement System alleging federal securities law violations by Netflix. In a memorandum (in Pacer) Monday, a 9th Circuit three-judge panel said the plaintiffs didn't adequately allege any Netflix omissions or statements during the class period -- Oct. 20, 2010, to Oct. 24, 2011 -- that falsely talked up the viability or profitability of its streaming service. "Netflix repeatedly referenced the financial risk in getting its online-streaming business off the ground," and made clear to investors that profit margins could take a hit, the memorandum said. The 9th Circuit also upheld the District Court's 2013 decision (see 1308220072) to deny the plaintiffs' motion to file an amended complaint after their earlier complaint was dismissed with prejudice, saying the District Court was right in holding the amended complaint doesn't state an actionable claim and further amendment "would prove futile." Counsel for the plaintiffs didn't comment.

Arguments and motions will abound in a Thursday “status conference” called for by a federal judge after she ruled Feb. 19 that she “largely agrees” with Chrysler, Ford, General Motors and their suppliers that the CD-copying hard drives shipped in their vehicle infotainment systems fall outside the scope of the Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA) (see 1602220055). U.S. District Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson in the District of Columbia called the status conference to give lawyers for the automakers and the Alliance of Artists and Recording Companies (AARC) a chance to “discuss how they intend to proceed in this matter,” she said in a Feb. 22 order. Jackson denied the automakers’ Rule 12 motions under federal court procedures to dismiss the case or render a judgment on the pleadings because the allegations in the AARC complaints were “sufficient to survive” those Rule 12 motions, her Feb. 19 opinion said. In the weeks since her ruling, AARC filed separate motions for Jackson to reconsider and clarify her opinion that the automotive hard drives are excluded from the AHRA because they bear computer programs or data that are "unrelated" to the audio content on those hard drives. Jackson granted the automakers’ motion to stay a decision on the AARC motions until after the Thursday status conference.

A week after the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation heard oral argument on motions to transfer 16 of the 20 class-action complaints against the Inscape viewer-tracking feature on Vizio smart TVs to the U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, California, and "centralize" them there into one case (see 1602260059), the 21st such complaint was filed against Vizio by a Brooklyn man, Isaac Altman, who, like the earlier plaintiffs, alleged his rights were violated under the federal Video Privacy Protection Act. Since buying his Vizio E500 smart TV in September, Altman has connected the set “to personal wireless networks and has used his television to watch shows and movies, including via connected applications,” said his complaint, filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Manhattan, the first of the 21 actions to be filed in New York. At no time did Altman consent to having his TV viewing activity “-- or any additional activity related to the use of WiFi in his home -- tracked by Vizio,” the complaint said. Had Altman known Vizio “employed such tracking functionality, he would not have purchased his Smart TV,” it says. Vizio representatives didn’t comment.

Cox Communications never required anyone to rent a set-top box, and that no one else in Oklahoma City was offering set-tops isn't its fault, Cox said in brief and request for oral argument filed Monday in the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. That is where class-action plaintiffs Richard Healy et al. are appealing (see 1603010016) a U.S. District judge's 2015 overturning of a $6.31 million jury verdict against Cox for its set-top rental policies (see 1511130005). "It is not 'tying' for Ford to offer both trucks and tow hitches for sale, separately -- even though there are some things that a truck can do only if it has a hitch and even if there happen to be no other sellers of hitches in a particular community, through no fault of Ford's," Cox said in its 71-page brief. While Cox has no specific "Premium Cable" product, it said, most of the content Healy et al. have described as premium in their complaint doesn't need a Cox-provided set-top and could be accessed through Cox-provided CableCARDs. Cox said that despite its efforts working with makers of consumer electronics, none opted to sell set-tops in the Oklahoma City market. The cable operator said the District Court ruling should be affirmed or, alternately, that Cox should get a new trial because of faulty jury instructions that didn't properly explain issues of foreclosure and coercion. Cox said that at minimum, it is entitled to binding judgment against class members whose damages came solely from DVR fees, since the original jury verdict indicated it rejected any claims based on DVR fees. Plaintiffs' counsel didn't comment Tuesday.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals should rule that streaming video service FilmOn X is entitled to a compulsory license under the Copyright Act, said amicus briefs from the Consumer Federation of America, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, the National Federation of the Blind and Public Knowledge. Section 111 of the Copyright Act, which governs such licenses, was intended by Congress to be technology neutral, Public Knowledge and the EFF said in a joint filing. Without a compulsory license and the accompanying right to retransmit broadcast content, a streaming service like FilmOn X can't be financially viable, the NFB said. If an FCC proposal to reclassify services like FilmOn X as multichannel video programming distributors comes to fruition, the new over-the-top MVPDs would have to comply with FCC rules requiring video description of their content, which would in turn be a great expansion of the online video that's accessible to the blind, NFB said. The 9th Circuit should find that FilmOn X is entitled to a statutory license because it would expand choice for all consumers, CFA said. Cable is now an incumbent in the video industry, and without the content granted by a compulsory license OTT carriers cannot compete, CFA said.

The FTC and DirecTV are jointly asking a U.S. District Court judge in San Francisco for more time for discovery in the agency's lawsuit alleging the direct broadcast satellite company wasn't properly communicating early cancellation fees that subscribers face if they sign up and then quit the service before two years (see 1503110042). In a stipulated motion Friday, the two said that while the court has indicated reluctance in making major changes to the case schedule, they proposed moving the close of fact discovery from April 22 to July 22, the close of expert discovery from July 26 to Nov. 10, and the bench trial start from Dec. 5 to Jan. 30. While there has been "considerable" discovery so far, the two said, more time is needed to deal with unexpected discovery issues including disruptions due to DirecTV's purchase by AT&T, FTC staffing issues and "unresolved disagreements and technology problems involving attempts to recover historical version of DirecTV's website." More time also would let them better resolve disputes before resorting to letter briefs, they said.

Comcast's X1 interactive program guide is based on Rovi-developed technology that the cable operator once licensed but now refuses to do, the IPG company said in a patent infringement complaint filed Friday in U.S. District Court in Marshall, Texas. It alleged that Comcast's license for access to Rovi's patent portfolio expired Thursday. Rovi's lawsuit asks for an injunction stopping Comcast from selling any IPG product using one of the six patents in question -- which cover various aspects of IPG technology and functionality -- as well as unspecified damages. In a statement, Comcast said it "disagree[s] with Rovi’s accusations and intend[s] to defend the cases vigorously. Beyond that, we can’t comment on pending litigation." Also named as defendants were set-top makers Arris-Pace, Humax and Technicolor, with Rovi Guides alleging they all have limited licenses to Rovi's patents but those licenses don't allow those companies to make set-top boxes that work with Comcast's Xfinity service. The other defendants didn't comment.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals shouldn't defer to the Copyright Office in the matter of whether FilmOn X's streaming service should be treated as a cable system, FilmOn said in a brief filed in the 9th Circuit last week. “No deference is warranted.” The court instead should "independently analyze” Section 111 of the Copyright Act, which governs the definition of cable systems and their right to a statutory license to retransmit broadcast content for a fee, the filing said. It's the latest attempt by FilmOn X to be declared a cable system by the courts. FilmOn X lost using similar arguments in federal courts in Washington last year, and two weeks ago in the U.S. District Court in Chicago (see 1512020060). Though it won in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles (see 1507200067), that case was appealed by broadcasters to the 9th Circuit, where it's still being briefed. The U.S. Supreme Court's comparison of the similar company Aereo to a cable system should inform the 9th Circuit, FilmOn X said, although it conceded that “Aereo did not set a binding precedent regarding statutory license eligibility.” FilmOn X has made similar arguments in its other cases for a statutory license. As FilmOn X loses in more and more lower courts, it makes it less likely that its case will ever be heard by the Supreme Court, Wilkinson Barker broadcast attorney David Oxenford said in a blog post. “Given the fact that more and more courts are lining up against FilmOn, the high court may never even need to resolve the issue if there ends up being unanimity among the lower courts.”