The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled against the right to patent pre-roll video advertisements on the Internet, in a 26-page decision Friday. The ruling upheld an earlier decision by the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles that invalidated Ultramercial’s Patent No. 7,346,545 for such advertisements. Ultramercial sued Hulu and WildTangent for failing to pay royalties for the video ads.
U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., separately ordered two debt selling companies to remove sensitive consumer information they allegedly posted online and required that they inform the 70,000 consumers listed on how they can protect against identify theft, said an FTC news release Wednesday. The orders came at the FTC’s request, it said. The FTC alleged that Cornerstone and Co. and Bayview Solutions “posted consumers’ bank account and credit card numbers, birth dates, contact information, employers’ names, and information about debts the consumers allegedly owed on a public website.” It alleged that the companies exposed that information to “sell portfolios of past-due payday loan, credit card, and other purported debt.” Companies "must treat sensitive consumer information with appropriate care and security, and the FTC will take action when they fail to do so," said Jessica Rich, FTC Bureau of Consumer Protection director, in the release. The complaints are here and here.
Federal authorities Wednesday arrested Blake Benthall, the alleged owner of Silk Road 2.0, said a news release from the U.S. District Attorney’s office in Manhattan Thursday. “As alleged, Blake Benthall attempted to resurrect Silk Road, a secret website that law enforcement seized last year, by running Silk Road 2.0, a nearly identical criminal enterprise,” said Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara. He accused the site of selling drugs and others black market items. “This Silk Road, in whatever form, is the road to prison,” he said. The complaint against Benthall alleges the site had 150,000 active users generating some $8 million per month in September, said the release. Original Silk Road founder Ross Ulbricht was arrested last year (see 1407110074). He's being tried under New York’s “kingpin” statute in a case overseen by U.S. District Court Judge Katherine Forrest in New York.
D+M Group said in a statement Thursday it will "protect itself" against a lawsuit filed by Sonos last week (see 1410220043) alleging that its Heos by Denon wireless music system infringes on patents owned by Sonos. “D+M has been a technology innovator for over 100 years and has an extensive intellectual property portfolio to protect our products," Denon said. "Given our experience and wealth of expertise, we absolutely stand behind our Heos products and technology and are well prepared to defend our intellectual property,” said Jim Caudill, CEO, D+M Group. Denon said its engineers and designers worked "for more than 10 years to develop Heos by Denon."
U.S. District Court Judge Alison Nathan’s ruling slapping a nationwide preliminary injunction on Aereo (see 1410230060) could lead to more litigation for the streaming service, said Fletcher Heald First Amendment attorney Kevin Goldberg in a blog post Wednesday. Aereo could appeal the portion of the injunction limiting it to broadcasting time-delayed content, or broadcasters could appeal that the injunction allows Aereo to provide some form of streaming service. “A time-delayed Aereo is still a competitor in many ways,” said Goldberg. Either side of the case could also choose to let the matter be decided on the merits. “This obviously suits the broadcasters to some extent, since Aereo may not be as attractive to potential subscribers without the live viewing function,” Goldberg said. NAB and Aereo did not comment.
A who’s-who list of manufacturers of aluminum and tantalum electrolytic capacitors and their subsidiaries "engaged in at least a five-year conspiracy to fix, raise, maintain, and/or stabilize prices of capacitors" in the U.S., alleged a class-action complaint filed by Quathimatine Holdings, a Texas City, Texas, firm that does business as Divicom USA. Quathimatine is a terminal and pipeline equipment company that bought capacitors from one or more or the defendants and was "injured" as a result of their "anticompetitive conduct," said the complaint, which was filed Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Oakland, California. "Capacitors are found in nearly every electronic product on the market in a wide variety of industries, including consumer products (audio and visual), telecommunications, automotive, computer, and industrial equipment," the complaint said. "Sometimes hundreds of Capacitors can be found in a single electronic device. For example, Apple iPhone 4s and iPads have 469 and 702 capacitors, respectively. Given their necessity in nearly every electrical device, the global market for capacitors is large -- estimated to be $18.25 billion in 2014 and projected to continue growing." Several "macroeconomic factors support the birth of the conspiracy" to fix prices beginning in 2009, "as well as its continuation through the present," the complaint said. "These factors include: the negative effects on business due to the global economic recession; increased raw material costs; technological innovations; and increased competition from other cheaper forms of capacitors produced by aggressive Taiwanese, South Korean, and Chinese manufacturers." The defendants "accomplished their price-fixing conspiracy through, among other things, meetings and the exchange of confidential information regarding pricing, costs, manufacturing and supply issues," it said. "The purpose of these secret, conspiratorial meetings, discussions, and communications was to ensure that all Defendants agreed to participate in and implement an unlawful, continuing price-fixing scheme." Named as defendants were AVX, Elna, Hitachi Chemical, Kemet, Matsuo, NEC-Tokin, Nichicon, Nippon Chemi-Con, Panasonic, Rohm, Rubycon, Samsung, Sanyo, Taiyo-Yuden, Toshin Kogyo, United Chemi-Con and Vishay Intertechnology. Of those we canvassed for reaction to the complaint, only Panasonic spokesman Jim Reilly responded Sunday by email to say: "The matter involves ongoing litigation, so it would not be appropriate for us to comment on it."
U.S. District Court Judge Alison Nathan granted a nationwide preliminary injunction barring Aereo from streaming broadcast content while it's still being aired by broadcasters, in an order released Thursday (http://bit.ly/1yr2szD). Though broadcasters also had requested that the injunction bar Aereo from offering a time-shifted stream of broadcaster content (see 1410150094), Nathan said that at previous stages of the case and before the Supreme Court, the plaintiffs limited their arguments to content that was being rebroadcast live. “Plaintiffs will be held to their earlier decision, strategic or otherwise, to seek a preliminary injunction limited in scope to enjoining retransmission of their copyrighted works while the works are still being broadcast,” the order said. The judge dismissed Aereo’s arguments that it shouldn’t be enjoined because the Supreme Court’s Aereo decision had classified it as a cable system. “While all cable systems may perform publicly, not all entities that perform publicly are necessarily cable systems, and nothing in the Supreme Court's opinion indicates otherwise,” Nathan said. She said the high court’s decision did not contradict the ivi decision that online video providers aren’t multichannel video programming distributors, and the justices' silence on whether Aereo should get a compulsory copyright license showed that Aereo should not. “Within two weeks of this Opinion and Order, the parties shall submit a joint letter outlining how the case should proceed,” Nathan said. “In light of the extensive discovery period that has already taken place, this Court intends to set a rapid schedule for the completion of discovery, so that the case may proceed expeditiously to the final merits stage.”
Contrary to HDMI Licensing’s court complaint alleging promoters of the InfoComm show gave "safe haven" to exhibitors that violated HDMI trademarks (see 1409150064), it’s HDMI Licensing that’s the real villain because it treated any company on the InfoComm show floor that used the "HDMI" acronym "as a common criminal," InfoComm alleged in a counterclaim. HDMI Licensing reached out to exhibitors "indiscriminately, without devoting even minimal investigation to ascertain whether the exhibitors or other third parties had obtained a proper license from HDMI Licensing to use its alleged trademarks," said the counterclaim, filed in U.S. District Court in Las Vegas (http://1.usa.gov/ZyfZZw). It "threatened these exhibitors and other third parties with expulsion from future InfoComm trade shows unless they either ceased using the alleged trademarks or pay a licensing fee," it said. "These false and/or misleading threats amounted to blatant extortion. HDMI Licensing falsely represented the authority to revoke the exhibitors’ and other third parties’ invitation to the trade shows in the event they refused to comply with its demands." HDMI Licensing "continued this campaign of lies and threats through 2013 and 2014, causing InfoComm’s reputation with respect to intellectual property rights to be substantially injured," it said. "This diminution in reputation is likely to have a snowball effect, causing dwindling attendance for future trade shows because would-be exhibitors and other third parties would rather avoid being bullied by an entity claiming to own a trademark for something as generic as the words ‘thermos’ or ‘videotape.’" HDMI Licensing President Steve Venuti didn’t respond to requests seeking comment.
The Alliance of Artists and Recording Companies (AARC) is unfazed by the denials of Ford and General Motors and their respective suppliers Clarion and Denso that their car infotainment products fall within the scope of the Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA), Linda Bocchi, AARC’s executive director, told us Wednesday in an emailed statement. Ford and Clarion filed a joint motion of dismissal, while GM and Denso each filed counterclaims seeking declaratory judgments that their products don’t violate the AHRA and that they’re therefore not obligated to pay royalties under the AHRA. All four companies argued that the CD-copying hard drives marketed with their car infotainment systems are not serial-copying digital audio recording devices as defined under the AHRA 1410140084. But "in their many pages of filings, defendants fail to explain why they should get all the protections and benefits of the Audio Home Recording Act without paying the royalties the statute also requires," said Bocchi. "Their motion to dismiss is unconvincing and we expect it to be denied. And their indefensible, continued refusal to pay what they owe artists, songwriters, and copyright owners under the law is yet more evidence why this litigation is a necessary last resort." AARC sued the automakers and their suppliers in late July in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
Oral arguments on whether a nationwide preliminary injunction against Aereo should be issued while the broadcasters’ case against the streaming service is tried on the merits will be in U.S. District Court in Manhattan Wednesday, said court filings in the case. Aereo has “paused operations nationally” on its own, but has argued that the court should not issue such an injunction, and argued that it should receive the same compulsory copyright license issued to cable companies. "Aereo is entitled to a compulsory license under the Copyright Act, and no preliminary injunction should issue on remand," Aereo has said. Aereo’s argument is based on the majority opinion in the ABC v. Aereo U.S. Supreme Court decision in broadcasters' favor in June (ref:1409040014), which said Aereo’s service bore a close resemblance to a cable system and should therefore be bound by the same copyright and retransmission consent rules. The U.S. Copyright Office has said it doesn't believe Aereo is eligible for a compulsory copyright license. Aereo has also taken to the FCC its argument that it's a multichannel video programming distributor (MVPD), meeting with Chairman Tom Wheeler, Commissioner Ajit Pai, and numerous commission staffers, including Media Bureau Chief Bill Lake, General Counsel Jonathan Sallet, and aides to Commissioners Mignon Clyburn, Jessica Rosenworcel and Mike O’Rielly. The meetings concerned reports that the commission is re-opening a proceeding on whether over-the-top video providers should be considered MVPDs, said an ex parte filing Friday (http://bit.ly/1z89QEa). “We believe that clarifying the MVPD definition to narrowly include linear online video services like Aereo’s would have clear benefits to consumers, creators and distributors alike,” said Aereo CEO Chet Kanojia in a post on the Aereo website. Meaningful competition for regular MVPDs from over-the-top providers “can only materialize and develop into a sustainable business in a stable and certain regulatory environment,” said the ex parte. “Timely” FCC issuance of an NPRM on redefining online services as MVPDs action “is crucial” to Aereo’s ability to bring a competing OTT service to market, the ex parte said.