GoldenEar Technology’s head of engineering, Robert Johnston, and President Sandy Gross were granted U.S. patent 9,462,391 from the U.S Patent and Trademark Office for a “vertically and horizontally balanced subwoofer,” dubbed Dual-Plane Inertially Balanced Technology, Gross told us at the HTSA conference in Chicago this week. The patented technology is built into GoldenEar's SuperSub X ($1,249) subwoofer that’s due to ship in two weeks and the SuperSub XXL ($1,999) that’s been out for a year. The patented technology enabled GoldenEar to improve the performance of subwoofers while also making them smaller, said Gross. Compact subwoofers, typically, “if they have impact, make one note and are not overly musical,” he said. “Or if they’re musical, they don’t have impact.” Gross and Johnston came up with a way to mount two passive radiators and two active drivers on the top and bottom of the subwoofer cabinet, resulting in driver-to-room coupling that distributes sound smoothly, while minimizing unwanted vibration, Gross said. The SuperSub X measures a cubic foot.

The International Trade Commission last week began a Tariff Act Section 337 investigation into allegations that imports of integrated circuits with voltage regulators made by Intel and incorporated into products from Dell, HP Inc. and Hewlett Packard Enterprise infringe patents held by R2 Semiconductor, the ITC said. In a complaint filed Sept. 12, R2 said Intel’s microprocessors with Fully Integrated Voltage Regulator voltage spike protection copy its patented technologies and are being manufactured and imported without a license. The ITC will decide whether to issue a limited exclusion order and cease and desist orders banning import and sale of infringing microprocessors, plus downstream products that include them. Dell, HP, HP Enterprise and Intel didn't comment Monday.

Rivada Networks said the Patent and Trademark Office allowed Patent 14/961,088: “Enhanced Location-Based Services using a single device with pseudo location positioning for improved 3D positioning.” The technology will enable a mobile or IoT device to improve its position by “triangulating its location on itself,” without being dependent on other devices, Rivada said in a Friday news release. The patented technology enables location software to work on lower power consumption than other location-based services technologies and has the potential to improve the battery life of mobile devices and reduce battery drainage problems, it said. Location-based technologies currently consume battery power “at an alarming rate, which renders their use in a disaster situation difficult,” said Rivada Chief Scientist Clint Smith.

Yahoo wants billboards and other public advertising to be “smart.” In patent application 14/675,004 filed at the Patent and Trademark Office Oct. 6, based on a March 2015 filing, Yahoo said it’s looking at ways to pull data from consumers’ devices to make messaging more efficient. The patent describes ways that advertising channels in public spaces can be configured to deliver “adaptive and targeted advertising in real time.” It refers to “sensor data” collected from user devices employed to monitor consumer engagement with ads. Unlike online advertising that’s personalized to individual users, the patent covers what Yahoo calls "grouplization," where advertising content is chosen based on an “aggregate representation” of the target audience that’s derived from real-time information. A billboard could be equipped with digital cameras that capture images or video of vehicles approaching the billboard. Using image recognition, information about the makes and models of the vehicles on the road could be used “to further inform the selection of advertisements” based on demographic characteristics. Sensor data could include “keywords spoken” by consumers near the billboard, the speed of the vehicle they’re traveling in or video data indicating whether any individuals looked directly at the advertising content using image recognition or eye-tracking techniques. Where an advertising display includes a touch screen, direct user interaction could be measured. Advertisers could compete for placement through bids based on aggregate audience profiles. Ad content intended for a digital billboard “might need to comply with traffic safety regulations that prohibit video content from being displayed,” it said.

The International Trade Commission began a formal Tariff Act Section 337 enforcement investigation into allegations that Arista continues to import network switches that infringe Cisco’s patents, despite a limited exclusion order and cease and desist orders in place since June 23 (see 1606300029), the ITC said in Tuesday's Federal Register. In a complaint filed in August, Cisco acknowledged Arista says it modified its switches so they no longer violate Section 337 but said Arista never obtained permission from the ITC to continue to import them. The switches still copy Cisco’s patented designs, Cisco said, asking that the ITC enforce the existing exclusion and cease and desist orders, modify them to better cover Arista's products, and impose monetary penalties on Arista while the alleged violations continue. Arista didn't comment.

FTC Chairwoman Edith Ramirez is set to speak Thursday on the agency’s recent work on IP antitrust issues, the Computer & Communications Industry Association said Monday. The FTC is in the midst of a multiyear study on the business practices of patent assertion entities and is updating its joint guidelines with the DOJ for enforcing antitrust policy on IP licensing (see 1608120045 and 1609280063). Ramirez will speak during a joint CCIA-American Antitrust Institute event at the National Press Club. The lunch event is to begin at 12:30 p.m., CCIA said.

Without issuing an opinion, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit Judges Pauline Newman, Timothy Dyk and Richard Taranto affirmed a U.S. District Court ruling in a patent fight between Broadband iTV and Hawaiian Telecom, Oceanic Time Warner Cable and Time Warner Cable, said a judgment (in Pacer) issued Monday. BBiTV was appealing the Honolulu court's 2015 ruling on its patent violation litigation (see 1609260010). BBiTV didn't comment Wednesday. Charter Communications now owns TWC.

Eighty-one IP-intensive industries contributed more than 38 percent of the U.S. gross domestic product in 2014 and supported about 30 percent of all jobs, the Department of Commerce said Monday in a report. The joint Patent and Trademark Office-Economics and Statistics Administration report said IP-intensive industries contribute more than $6 trillion to the U.S. GDP and support at least 45 million U.S. jobs. The report identified IP-intensive industries as those that use copyright, patent and trademark protections most extensively. IP-intensive industries’ proportional contribution to U.S. GDP increased from statistics in a 2012 Commerce report (see report in the April 12, 2012, issue), but those industries’ proportional contribution to overall U.S. jobs numbers dropped slightly, Commerce said.

Andrea Electronics is seeking an exclusion order banning imports of Apple and Samsung products that it says infringe its patents for "audio processing hardware, software, and products containing the same," in a Section 337 complaint filed Sept. 19 with the International Trade Commission. Apple and Samsung computers, smartphones, watches and other products are equipped with "certain audio processing capabilities" that infringe Andrea's patents, Andrea said. It seeks a limited exclusion order and cease and desist order banning import and sale of infringing products. The ITC is seeking comments on public interest issues raised by the complaint, the commission said in a notice published Friday in the Federal Register. Apple and Samsung didn't comment.

Using “predictive time” to turn a TV from sleep to active mode based on previously used program schedules can wake a set more quickly than conventional methods with no increase in power consumption, said a U.S. patent (9,445,038) that Vizio landed Tuesday from the Patent and Trademark Office. Standby power consumption on large-screen TVs “has dropped substantially over the past 10 years,” said the patent, which names Vizio Chief Technology Officer Matthew McRae as the inventor and was filed at the PTO in January 2014. TVs previously turned off power to the display screen when the user would actually turn off the device, the patent said. “In a continual quest to save power, televisions often now turn off power to complete subassemblies." When the user turns the set back on, the process of rebooting the set’s processors “can take anywhere from tens of seconds to over a minute,” and that “has the appearance to users of being an inordinate amount of time,” it said. Using the “present invention,” the amount of time it should take the TV to come alive “should be on the order of less than a second,” it said. Wake-up times “become more refined as time passes,” because a TV can be brought out of sleep “based on long term program selections from an electronic programming guide,” it said. The invention envisions “a database that captures user initiated turn on times and program selections of the television,” it said. “The database engine processes the database when the user turns the device off and makes a determination of when the device is most likely to be turned back on based on historical program selections. The determination results in the device being placed into a deep sleep or hibernation state, and brought back to a near operational state when it is determined that the user is most likely to want to turn the device back on.” Vizio representatives didn’t comment Wednesday on plans to commercialize the invention.