Intellectual property advisory firm I/P Engine will petition the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit for a review of its patent infringement case before the court’s entire bench, said the I/P Engine’s parent company Vringo in a news release Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1vxzFpT). In a 2-1 decision, the court panel ruled in favor AOL, Google and other defendants in the patent case brought by I/P Engine, reversing an earlier ruling by the U.S. District Court for Eastern Virginia (http://1.usa.gov/1rdqu1j). I/P Engine accused the defendants of infringing U.S. Patent Nos. 6,314,420 and 6,775,664, which describe filters for Internet search results. “The fundamental flaw in I/P Engine’s argument is that using an individual user’s search query for filtering was a technique widely applied in the prior art,” said the court ruling. I/P Engine filed an unopposed motion seeking a 30-day extension to file its review, said the release. If granted, the company will have until Oct. 15 to file for the review, its said.
Consumers in the U.S. and Western Europe are expected to spend about $3 billion on music streaming services in 2014, said a Futuresource Consulting news release Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1rYtRVJ) about its report on the music streaming industry (http://bit.ly/1w8Ubmh). The estimate, which didn’t include personal radio services, is a 59 percent increase from 2013, said David Sidebottom, Futuresource senior market analyst. “Despite the strong growth in streaming services, in many markets it will not be enough in the short term to compensate for both the decline in packaged music and pay-per-download (PPD) market,” said the release. Streaming subscriptions have helped stabilize overall consumer spending in several countries, but has “stifled growth in PPD albums and singles from services such as iTunes,” it said. Juniper Research recently projected “slow growth” for the digital music industry over the next five years, with an estimated value of $13.9 billion in 2019 compared with $12.3 billion in 2014 (http://bit.ly/VD8sqB) (CD Aug 20 p11).
A consortium of TV stations and daily newspapers is working with Yahoo on advertisements. Representing 50-plus media companies, the Local Media Consortium said ad agencies and others will get access to Yahoo’s display and native ad offerings and ad platforms including the Yahoo Ad Exchange. The effort will “help more local advertisers build integrated, cross-channel campaigns,” said Eric Aledort, Yahoo’s head of media, global partnerships, in a news release Tuesday (http://bit.ly/1pI6aT2). Consortium members include Cox Media Group, Digital First Media, Morris Communications, Scripps and Schurz Communications. Consortium members can sell Yahoo’s ads, but that company can’t sell members’ inventory, Executive Director Rusty Coats emailed us. “The purpose is to extend audience reach for local businesses online beyond” a paper’s or TV station’s website, he said. For consortium inventory other than locally sold ads, it’s forming a private exchange for members “to leverage our scale and brand-safe audience” for ad buyers, building that in Google’s AdX, said Coats.
Digital keepsake company Evergram said it launched BullyGram.com to publicize what it calls the “bullying” legal actions Facebook and its subsidiary Instagram have taken against Evergram. Facebook bought Instagram in 2012 and began taking legal action against companies with “Insta” and “Gram” in their names soon after, Evergram said in a Tuesday news release (http://bit.ly/1Bz7hcJ). Instagram is challenging Evergram’s name in the Patent and Trademark Office’s Trademark Trial and Appeal Board, claiming consumers are likely to confuse Evergram with Instagram (http://1.usa.gov/1lfEvsZ). Evergram co-founder Duncan Seay said in the release that Evergram is substantially different from Instagram, saying Evergram “was designed to deliver peoples’ [sic] special memories at special times, now or in the future” while Instagram is a photo-sharing website. Seay said BullyGram.com will be a public forum for consumers to voice their opinions. Instagram didn’t immediately comment.
"Slow growth” is expected from the digital music industry over the next five years, with a projected value of $13.9 billion in 2019 compared with $12.3 billion in 2014, said a Juniper Research news release Tuesday (http://bit.ly/VD8sqB), highlighting its report (http://bit.ly/VDPPDc) estimating future digital music sales. The “robust” music streaming industry will “largely be offset by [a] decline in revenues from legacy services such as ringtones and ringback tones,” said the release. Services like Pandora and Spotify will “increasingly find themselves competing with personalised services from the leading OTT (over-the-top) players, including Apple and Google,” it said. “The report cautioned that piracy was still responsible for major revenue leakage, particularly in emerging markets, such as China,” it said. Smartphones and tablets are expected to be the “main platforms of growth, although digital music revenues on the PC/laptop will remain robust over the forecast period,” it said.
Health and enterprise markets, wearables, and beacons enabled by Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) technology will help revive the GPS tracking device market, which is forecast to pass $3.5 billion in 2019, said ABI Research. While having “huge potential,” the GPS personal tracking market has been slowed by awareness, return on investment, product cost, subscription models and indoor location, which have blocked the economies of scale required to support marketing campaigns, ABI said. Over the last 12 months, the GPS market has seen growth from wearables and enterprise companies using tracking technology for workforce management, it said. The connected home market will offer opportunities for GPS tracking devices through personal protection products for children, pets, cars and seniors, it said. “Carriers eager to solve the problem of saturated markets have begun to reconsider this space” due to the emergence of wearables and the Internet of Things, said senior analyst Patrick Connolly. Low-cost GPS devices are being adopted worldwide for various applications, and Bluetooth Smart-enabled beacons will solve the issue of indoor location while helping to create a low-cost entry point for OEMs and consumers, he said. “With BLE beacons forecast to penetrate into all aspects of life over the next three years, consumer awareness and acceptance will quickly emerge,” Connolly said.
The U.S. is “reserving the right to vet other countries’ implementation” of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) “before its own obligations come into effect,” said the Electronic Frontier Foundation’s (EFF) Jeremy Malcolm, senior global policy analyst, and Maira Sutton, global policy analyst, in a blog post Thursday (http://bit.ly/VnM9Fs). EFF cited the recently launched TPP: No Certification website (http://bit.ly/1pPSV1E) as its source. The stance by the U.S. has “worrying implications for other countries planning to take advantage of whatever flexibilities remain in the TPP text after the negotiations are finished,” said EFF. “The leaked draft of the TPP requires signatory countries to provide ‘legal incentives for service providers to cooperate with copyright owners,'” it said, saying the term “legal incentives” is “vague.” “Certification means that this ambiguity or flexibility could disappear, leaving countries with only one, extreme interpretation of their obligations under the TPP -- whatever interpretation the US Trade Representative (USTR) unilaterally decides,” which might include strict copyright regulations, it said.
The U.S. should “move forward on privacy legislation now,” said Microsoft in comments (http://1.usa.gov/VkoAgC) to NTIA on big data and consumer privacy. The comments, made public by NTIA Tuesday (http://1.usa.gov/1sZUhYN), were in response to the White House big data report in May (CD May 2 p3). “Strong, comprehensive federal privacy legislation could establish a framework that enables all players to harness the potential of big data while respecting the privacy rights of those whose information contributes to the data,” Microsoft said. The Internet Association, whose members include Amazon, Facebook and Google, was more cautious in its comments (http://1.usa.gov/1sDoGyq). The association expressed concern that “any legislative proposal to address ‘big data’ may create a ‘precautionary principle problem’ that hinders the advancement of technologies and innovative services before they even develop.” “We urge the [Obama] Administration to work with stakeholders to identify the actual privacy and discrimination harms, if any, posed by ‘big data,'” it said.
The global market for biometric technology is expected to have a valuation of $23.3 billion by 2019, said a biometric market report released Wednesday (http://bit.ly/1ywSefy). The estimate would be a compound annual growth rate of 20.8 percent based on the market’s 2013 value, it said. “Increasing security concerns due to the rising terror attacks and crimes have created a need for high level security,” but “privacy concerns and [the] high cost of biometrics system[s] may hinder the growth of this market,” it said. NTIA has facilitated stakeholder meetings to determine best practices for the biometric industry’s facial recognition efforts (CD June 25 p12; June 24 p6).
The alleged operator of an email scam will pay $350,000 to settle FTC charges over deceptive emails that claimed recipients would violate the Affordable Care Act if they did not click a link to enroll in health insurance, said an FTC Tuesday news release (http://1.usa.gov/ViRSfp). The emails violated Section 5 of the FTC Act with misinformation and the Controlling the Assault of Non-Solicited Pornography and Marketing Act (CAN-SPAM Act) “by failing to provide consumers the opportunity to decline to receive future emails, and to provide a valid physical postal address,” the FTC said. The email links led to pages with advertisements for insurers, the FTC said. The alleged operator, Yair Shalev, received payment from those websites and the insurance companies advertised on the site had not authorized the email messages, according to the commission. All five FTC commissioners voted to approve the proposed stipulated order. Neither Shalev nor his attorneys could be reached for comment.