HEVC Advance’s new royalty structure (see 1803140037) caps rates at 1 percent on the per unit cost of H.265-enabled devices. The patent pool lowered the royalties after getting licensee feedback that royalties above 1 percent were burdensome, it said.

Apple landed a U.S. patent Tuesday that describes techniques for generating maps of indoor venues, including those of individual floors, to supplement GPS functionality commonly found on smartphones. Though a smartphone can use GPS to determine location, including latitude and longitude, and display that on a “virtual map” on the screen, “maps of indoor space may not be easily available,” said the patent (9,913,100), which names seven Apple inventors and is based on an application filed in September 2014. “Even when the maps are available, the maps may not be up to date due to frequent changes to the indoor space,” such as when a store moves into or out of a mall, said the patent. “Even when the maps are up to date, indoor navigation may be difficult or unavailable due to lack of accurate GPS signals in the indoor space as well as lack of integration between maps of outdoor space and maps of indoor space.” The solution the patent describes is to enlist the help of a “venue data service,” asking owners of individual properties to “upload” information to that service, including the “geometries” of floors. The service also would periodically “survey” property owners to “validate the venue data” and certify that the information is up to date, it said. The service also could generate “fingerprint data” about the venue that “can include expected measurements of the environment variable at various locations of the building,” it said. A smartphone can then use the fingerprint data to determine where within the venue the mobile device and its owner are located “using sensor readings of the environment variable,” it said. Apple representatives didn’t comment Wednesday.

The U.S. retained the top ranking in the 2018 edition of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Global Innovation Policy Center's annual global IP index (see 1702080038). It beat the U.K. by .01 points amid improving what the Chamber views as conditions on copyright and trademarks issues and a worsening situation on patents. The climate in the U.S. for patents is creating “considerable uncertainty for innovators,” the Chamber said. The U.S. dropped to a tie with Italy for No. 12 on patents, down from No. 10. “The majority of countries took steps to strengthen their IP systems and foster an environment that encourages and incentivizes creators to bring their ideas to market,” said GIPC President David Hirschmann. “While a clear pack of leaders in IP protection top the rankings, the leadership gap has narrowed in a new global race to the top.” The U.S. ranking “is the latest evidence that harmful congressional actions and court decisions have dangerously weakened the U.S. patent system, the central foundation of our innovation economy,” said Innovation Alliance Executive Director Brian Pomper. “The U.S. has dropped in its ranking primarily due the excessive cost and uncertainty for U.S. innovators created by the America Invents Act’s inter partes review process, as well as recent Supreme Court decisions that have created confusion over what can and cannot be patented.”

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., and industry groups lauded 94-0 Senate confirmation of Andrei Iancu as Patent and Trademark Office director (see 1802050062), in Monday statements. Iancu “is incredibly accomplished in the field of intellectual property law and has been a strong advocate for an effective U.S. patent system throughout his career,” Goodlatte said. “With Iancu at the helm, we hope that America's innovators will benefit from an IP system that incentivizes invention, protects property, and curbs damaging abuse of patent litigation,” said CTA CEO Gary Shapiro. Iancu “has a well-deserved reputation as a thought leader on intellectual property issues,” said Internet Association Senior Vice President-Global Government Affairs Melika Carroll. BSA|The Software Alliance and the American Intellectual Property Law Association also praised Iancu's confirmation.

The Senate confirmed Andrei Iancu Monday as Patent and Trademark Office director. The Senate was still voting at our deadline, but at least 51 senators had already voted yes. President Donald Trump nominated Iancu in August, months after previous PTO Director Michelle Lee resigned (see 1706060067 and 1709060017 or 1709060026). The Senate Judiciary Committee advanced his nomination in December (see 1712140021). Iancu will make an "outstanding" PTO director, said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, on the Senate floor: "In an area fraught with allegiances to particular industries or groups, Andrei can bring a neutral, unbiased perspective because he’s already had to approach issues from so many different angles" as an Irell and Manella IP lawyer. Iancu "has a real opportunity to be proactive in patent law rather than responding to problems after they have grown," said Computer and Communications Industry Association President Ed Black. "We hope the new director can withstand pressure from those who are now successfully misusing the patent system and implement changes to curb that abuse."

Microsoft’s push to use TV white spaces is a threat to low-power TV, the Advanced Television Broadcasting Alliance blogged Wednesday. Microsoft filed for a trademark -- AIRBAND -- for use in providing apps and business consulting in white space telecom. “The proposed set aside of three channels in the television broadcast bands will severely limit the rebuild of many Low Power TV and Translator stations displaced in the recent FCC incentive spectrum auction,” ATBA said. “Microsoft is looking for a free ride on channels they could have purchased, channels that T-Mobile spent over $8 billion to buy and channels that broadcasters have spent untold billions to develop and maintain.” Microsoft didn’t comment.

A patent assigned to A10 Networks enabling data traffic geotagging could end "free flow of data on the internet” if the technology is implemented, blogged Marketa Trimble, professor at University of Nevada School of Law. Patent 9,762,683 covering use of packet header extension for geolocation/geotargeting, approved in September, should “enable the insertion of geolocation information into an IPv6 packet and the transmission of that geotagged IPv6 packet into a communication network,” wrote Trimble. The technology could allow individual companies to prioritize traffic originating, and on a larger scale prevent distributed denial of service attacks “by blocking traffic from certain problematic geographic regions,” said the patent. An AT&T Labs Research paper “noted one even more striking possible application for packet geotagging technology: the capability of limiting the transmission of packets through routers and switches located in only one country,” Trimble wrote Monday. The AT&T researchers don’t reference US 9,762,683, but they proposed the possibility of “using packet encapsulation to add the geolocation information,” she said, which means countries could mandate that the movement of internet data under their control could be instructed not to cross borders. A10 and AT&T didn't comment Tuesday.

The International Trade Commission began a Tariff Act Section 337 probe of imported iPhones that don’t incorporate Qualcomm baseband processor modems, the ITC announced last week. Qualcomm's Nov. 30 complaint said Apple imports some iPhones that include its chips and others that instead incorporate infringing baseband processor modems. The ITC launched a similar investigation in August (see 1708080062), with the new investigation addressing different patents. Qualcomm alleged infringing devices include the iPhone 7, 7 Plus, 8, 8 Plus and iPhone X Limited. The ITC will consider 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 Friday.

Vizio landed a U.S. patent Tuesday for a method of encrypting content “on the fly” when “casting” programs from a smartphone to a “second screen” device like a TV. “Currently few if any casting agents can provide content encryption notifications to stream receivers for the stream or content to be casted,” says the patent (9,860.217), which is based on a September 2014 application and lists Vizio Chief Technology Officer Matthew McRae as the inventor. Casting unencrypted content to a second-screen device “is often not a large concern for home environments but can present a significant issue with business environments,” where data being cast to a display device “can contain sensitive business information that would be relatively easy to compromise between the content server and the stream receiver,” says the patent. “The inventor recognized that it would be useful to provide a technique that would give a user of stream casting devices the ability to have content being streamed to second screens to be encrypted. Ideally, the encryption would occur ‘on the fly’ such that the stream would be encrypted prior to being transmitted and decrypted just after being received and just prior to being displayed.” Vizio didn’t comment Tuesday.

BlackBerry hopes the partnership agreement it signed last month with Teletry will bring “more consistency” to its patent licensing program, plus “a broader reach” that will result in “higher IP revenue,” CEO John Chen said on a Wednesday earnings call. Under the agreement, Teletry “can sublicense a range of BlackBerry patents to the majority of the smartphone manufacturers worldwide,” Chen said. BlackBerry picked Teletry because of its “track record in licensing,” he said. BlackBerry retains ownership of its 40,000-patent “portfolio,” and will continue to operate its own licensing program, he said.