Sony is seeking a ban on imports of Arris digital cable and satellite set-top boxes and gateway products, it said in a Section 337 complaint March 10 at the International Trade Commission. Arris and its subsidiary Pace allegedly import and sell digital cable and satellite set-tops and gateway products that infringe Sony patents. Named in the complaint are Arris and Pace digital cable set-tops supplied to Comcast for Comcast’s Xfinity service, plus Arris and Pace digital satellite set-tops supplied to AT&T's DirecTV for DirecTV’s Genie brand. Arris media gateway products and telephony gateway products also are included. Sony asked the ITC to issue a limited exclusion order and cease and desist orders banning import and sale of infringing products by Arris and Pace. The ITC seeks comment by March 27, it said in Friday's Federal Register. The agency recently began an investigation of Arris set-tops allegedly infringing Kudelski patents and imported for use with Xfinity's X1 service (see 1703070039). Arris again declined to comment Friday.

Existing licensors in Via Licensing’s LTE patent pool renewed their commitments for an additional five-year term starting in September, Via said Thursday. Companies that offer LTE essential patents through Via’s patent pool include AT&T, China Mobile, Deutsche Telekom, Dolby, Google, HP, KDDI, MediaTek, NTT Docomo, Newracom, SK Telecom, Telecom Italia and Telefónica, Via said in a news release. “We are delighted with our licensors’ continued commitment to Via’s LTE pool and to Via’s fair and transparent pricing model for LTE licenses,” said President Joe Siino. “The efficiency of our reasonable license terms and pricing transparency is demonstrated by the growing numbers of licensors and licensees in our LTE pool.”

ZTE overtook Huawei as the biggest filer of international patent applications through the World Intellectual Property Organization in 2016, while Qualcomm came in third, WIPO said in its annual report Wednesday. Patent applicants based in the U.S. maintained their No. 1 ranking for the 39th year running, with nearly a quarter of the 233,000 applications filed globally -- a 7.3 percent increase from 2015 -- under WIPO’s Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT). Japan placed second with a 19.4 percent share, followed by China with 18.5 percent, WIPO said. Applications originating in China jumped 44.7 percent from a year earlier, WIPO said. If that trend continues, China will overtake the U.S. within two years as the largest user of the PCT system, it said. There also was strong 2016 growth in applications originating from Italy (up 9.3 percent from 2015), Israel (up 9.1 percent), India (up 8.3 percent) and the Netherlands (up 8 percent), WIPO said. But applications from Canada fell 17.3 percent for the second straight year of double-digit declines in filings, WIPO said. It cited declining applications from BlackBerry and Nortel.

Broadcom's Tariff Act Section 337 complaint with the International Trade Commission, seeking an investigation into allegations that imports of semiconductor devices for consumer audiovisual products are infringing its patents (see 1703080001), has comments due March 21, the ITC said in Monday's Federal Register. Broadcom said March 7 that Funai, LG, MediaTek and Vizio were among companies making or using infringing SoCs and similar processing components and circuits for DTVs. Funai, LG, MediaTek and Vizio had no immediate comment Tuesday.

Technicolor filed a series of patent infringement complaints against Samsung in France and Germany, Technicolor said in a Wednesday announcement. Ten Technicolor patents are at issue in the complaints covering video coding, telecom and “other associated technologies,” Technicolor said. The complaints involve a “range” of Samsung products, including mobile phones and TVs, it said. Technicolor held “extensive negotiations” with Samsung “to reach a fair agreement,” but decided to take legal action “to protect itself and defend the value of its intellectual property,” it said. Samsung representatives didn’t comment.

Several licensors in the H.264 patent pool filed patent infringement complaints against ZTE in Dusseldorf, Germany, MPEG LA said in a Wednesday announcement. The complaints allege ZTE offers mobile phone products in Germany that use “patent-protected” H.264 methods without licenses from the individual patent holders “or a portfolio license that includes these patents offered by MPEG LA,” it said. MPEG LA runs the H.264 patent pool on behalf of three dozen licensors, which until recently included ZTE, “up to and through” the date of its last patent expiration, said MPEG LA’s website. In a separate announcement Wednesday, MPEG LA said several H.264 licensors also filed patent infringement complaints against Huawei, also in Dusseldorf. ZTE and Huawei didn't comment.

Dolby Labs joined Via Licensing's LTE patent pool, said Via, a Dolby subsidiary, in a Wednesday announcement. The pool provides a “fair, transparent and cost-effective license to all essential LTE and LTE-Advanced patents” from Via’s LTE licensors, said the company. The LTE technologies are used in smartphones, tablets, laptop computers, vehicles, voice and data services and the IoT. Other participants in Via’s LTE patent pool are AT&T, China Mobile, Deutsche Telekom, DTVG Licensing, Google, HP, KDDI, MediaTek, Newracom, NTT DoCoMo, SK Telecom, Telecom Italia, Telefónica and ZTE.

Kudelski and affiliates OpenTV, Nagra and Nagravision filed a complaint Jan. 26 at the International Trade Commission, seeking a Tariff Act Section 337 investigation into patent infringement by set-top boxes and remote controls imported for use with Comcast cable services. Kudelski said Arris is making set-top boxes and Universal Electronics is making voice-enabled remote controls that infringe its patents. After import, the set-tops and remote controls are used with Comcast’s Xfinity X1 service, the complaint said. Kudelski seeks a limited exclusion order and cease and desist orders banning the import, sale and lease of infringing devices by Comcast, Arris and Universal Electronics. The ITC is seeking comments by Feb. 9, it said in Wednesday's Federal Register. Comcast disagrees with "Kudelski’s allegations and we will vigorously defend the cases," emailed a spokeswoman for the cable company.

The International Trade Commission began a Tariff Act Section 337 investigation into allegations Apple smartphones and tablets infringe patents held by Nokia, said the ITC last week. In a complaint filed Dec. 22, Nokia said Apple’s iPhone 6, 6S, 7 and SE smartphones and its iPad Mini 2, iPad Mini 4, iPad Air, iPad Air 2 and iPad Pro tablets infringe its patents. The ITC will decide whether to issue a limited exclusion order and cease and desist orders banning import and sale of infringing merchandise by Apple. That company didn't comment Tuesday.

The FTC made some important strides in protecting competition, said Republican Commissioner Maureen Ohlhausen Tuesday in prepared remarks, but "a course correction" is needed in several areas, including "unnecessary and disproportionate costs" imposed on U.S. businesses and the value of intellectual property rights being discounted. During a discussion of antitrust policy at a Heritage Foundation event, Ohlhausen, who may become the next FTC chair at least on an interim basis (see 1701230043), said the most obvious examples of the Democratic-controlled commission imposing excessive costs on businesses is when it "wrongly sues a firm to potentially devastating effect." But she said pervasive regulation is a "more insidious effect." The FTC isn't a rule-making agency, but she said she worries "about the cost of compulsory process and second requests that firms experience in merger review and similar burdens in consumer protection investigations." She said she would like to convene a meeting with the FTC's Competition and Consumer Protection bureaus to address this issue and "narrow the scope and expense of compulsory process." She said the commission also should approach decisions with a regulatory humility philosophy "that has been absent in the last several years." That approach is something she has talked about often (see 1611160017). On IP rights, Ohlhausen said other countries, especially in Asia, take or permit the taking of U.S. proprietary technologies without payment, and "the FTC has unfortunately contributed to that dynamic." A patent's "essential quality" is the "right to exclude," but Ohlhausen said the commission "sees a competition problem" when patent owners "ask a court to enjoin unlicensed infringers." The commissioner said the FTC "wrongly heeded calls" from tech users who want to pay small royalties, citing the Google-Motorola Mobility case (see 1301040038) and last week's Qualcomm lawsuit (see 1701170065). "I hope that the commission under the Trump administration will act to protect IP rights," she said.