Western Digital bought more than 100 “patent assets” from IBM in the areas of distributed storage, object storage and emerging nonvolatile memory, the companies said Monday in a joint announcement. The companies also agreed to cross-license each other’s patents, they said. Terms of the acquisition and cross-licensing deals weren't disclosed.

Ericsson and Huawei agreed to extend their global patent cross-licensing pact, Ericsson said in a news release Thursday. The arrangement includes a cross license covering patents on both companies' wireless standard-essential patents, including LTE standards. Under the extended agreement, both companies may "access and implement" each other's standard essential patents and technologies globally, said Ericsson. Huawei will make "on-going" royalty payments contingent upon sales to Ericsson "from 2016 and onwards," said the release.

The Patent and Trademark Office is hosting a half-day meeting for those seeking patent protection in the cybersecurity field, the PTO said in a news release Wednesday. The "collaborative forum" is scheduled for 8:30 a.m. on Feb. 10 at the PTO's San Jose office at 26 S. 4th St., and will give attendees a chance to "share ideas, experiences, and insights" with PTO's staff, the release said. Speakers include John Cabeca, Silicon Valley PTO director, and Aaron Smith, Symantec senior corporate counsel. Potential discussion topics include computer security patent application statistics and trends, enhanced patent quality initiatives and interim guidance on patent subject matter eligibility, PTO said.

Patent and Trademark Office representatives will discuss two "evolving programs" of its enhanced patent quality initiative -- topic submission for case studies and post-grant outcomes -- during the first patent quality chat webinar of 2016, the PTO said in a news release Wednesday. The webinar is scheduled for Tuesday from noon to 1 p.m., and will feature presentations from Patent Quality Assurance Office Director Anthony Caputa, Patent Legal Administration Office Director Brian Hanlon, Technology Center Director Jack Harvey and Supervisory Patent Examiner Stephen Koziol, the PTO said.

The International Trade Commission is seeking comment by Jan. 12 on Advanced Silicon Technologies' Tariff Act Section 337 complaint for an investigation into patent infringement by imports of computing or graphics systems and vehicles containing them. Advanced Silicon said several companies import automotive in-vehicle infotainment systems that provide drivers with various amenities, such as sending texts or making phone calls, managing and playing audio and video content, and accessing content such as sports scores and weather forecasts, that infringe its patents. The petition requests a limited exclusion order and cease and desist orders banning import and sale of infringing merchandise by BMW, Harman Becker, Nvidia, Texas Instruments and other companies. None of the companies commented Tuesday. Advanced Silicon's ITC complaint, was filed Dec. 28, said the agency in a notice in the Federal Register Monday.

The Patent and Trademark Office's online systems have been restored after a "major power outage" last week shut down the agency's IT systems (see 1512230042), the PTO said in a blog post Monday. Customers are able to use the PTO's online systems to search for and file items and to make payments, the blog post said, but because of work needed to repair and stabilize the power supply and hardware, "it is possible that some or all systems may need to be taken offline again." Online systems "may come and go without notice," the PTO said, and the agency will "keep deadline flexibility in mind" based upon the "results and the stability of [its] operations."

A “major power outage” Tuesday night at Patent and Trademark Office headquarters in Washington “damaged equipment that required the subsequent shutdown of many of our online and IT systems,” the agency said in a message posted Wednesday at the top of its home page. The outage and secondary damage knocked out “our filing, searching, and payment systems, as well as the systems our examiners across the country use,” PTO said. “We are working diligently to assess the operational impact on all our systems and to determine how soon they can be safely brought back into service.” The agency will give “status updates” on its systems alert page “as they become available,” and on its Facebook and Twitter accounts, it said. At 1 p.m. EST Wednesday, a systems alert page update reported that "the impacts may be felt through the Christmas holiday."

Rovi renewed its patent license agreement with AT&T for seven years, giving AT&T worldwide access to Rovi’s entertainment discovery patent portfolio. The deal also extends the existing product agreements between the companies, Rovi said. Rovi’s patent portfolio includes interactive program guides and search and recommendation features for linear, recorded, on-demand content and multiscreen applications.

The Patent and Trademark Office Tuesday released its FY 2015 performance and accountability report (PAR), which detailed the agency's financial and performance measurement results and compared them to the previous fiscal year's. The PTO finished FY 15, which ended Sept. 30, 2.7 percentage points, or $76,615, ahead of its FY 2014 amount in total assets, and increased total earned revenue by 1.9 percentage points to $3.07 million, the report said. The agency also increased its federal personnel in FY 15 by 217 employees. In its performance measurements, the PTO didn't meet its target goal of a 16.4-month average first-action patent pendency, finishing with an average of 17.3 months, or its goal of a 83-91 patent quality composite score -- finishing FY15 with a score of 42.9. The PTO also failed to meet its goal of training 6,300 foreign government officials on best practices to protect and enforce intellectual property, it said. The PTO met or exceeded several of its target objectives, including average total patent pendency, average first-action trademark pendency, total average trademark pendency and exceptional office action, the report said. "While the PAR is a record of our achievements, it is also an honest discussion of the challenges we face as an agency moving forward in FY 2016," PTO Chief Financial Officer Tony Scardino said in a blog post Tuesday. Scardino said the PTO will continue efforts in the current fiscal year in managing the transition to a "steady-state operation" as the patent activity comes closer to achieving its pendency and inventory targets and establishing an Office of the Deputy Commissioner.

Nearly 2.7 million patent applications were filed globally in 2014, a 4.5 percent rise from 2013, for the fifth straight year of increases, the World Intellectual Property Organization said in a Monday report. China drove much of the 2014 growth, as “application activity in China outstripped the combined total in its next-closest followers,” the U.S. and Japan, WIPO said. Chinese patent offices accepted about 928,200 filings in 2014, followed by the U.S. (578,800), Japan (326,000), South Korea (210,300) and the European Patent Office (152,700), it said. China is on pace to become the first to accept a million applications in a single year, it said. China also led the world last year in rate of growth (12.5 percent), followed by the EPO (3.2 percent), South Korea (2.8 percent) and the U.S. (1.3 percent), it said. Japan had a 0.7 percent decline, it said. U.S. applicants filed the most patent applications abroad (224,400), followed by Japan (200,000) and Germany (105,600), WIPO said. Chinese applicants filed relatively few applications abroad -- only around 36,700, it said.