The National Customs Brokers & Freight Forwarders' Association has filed an amicus curiae brief at the Court of International Trade in Lizarraga Customs Broker v. Customs and Border Protection ,et al.
Imation and seven other companies are infringing two Toshiba DVD patents because they make or market recordable DVD products without a license from Toshiba or the DVD6C patent pool, of which Toshiba is a member, Toshiba alleges in suit filed Thursday. Its complaint, filed in U.S. District Court, Madison, Wis., also names Advanced Media, CMC Magnetics, Glyphics Media, Hotan, Khypermedia, Moser Baer and Ritek as defendants. It seeks a preliminary injunction and unspecified damages for violation of patents 5,708,651, issued January 1998, and 5,892,751, issued April 1999. “Imation is fully indemnified for patent infringement by our DVD suppliers who are named in the complaint,” a spokeswoman said. “We are confident that our suppliers will defend and indemnify us against Toshiba’s claims. “We expect no disruption in our ability to supply DVDs to our customers.”
The International Trade Administration has determined to reinstate the antidumping duty order on certain hot-rolled carbon steel flat products from Thailand for Sahaviriya Steel Industries Public Company Limited (SSI) for the review period of July 1, 2006 through June 30, 2007, pursuant to the final results of its AD changed circumstances review.
RealNetworks declared its RealDVD technology for copying discs as good as dead. It’s the victim of what the company called a conspiracy by the big Hollywood studios to exploit for themselves consumers’ desire for virtual copies of the discs they've bought, the company said in an antitrust countersuit filed Wednesday. Even if the studios and the DVD Copy Control Association fail in court efforts to keep RealDVD off the market, “RealNetworks will most certainly not be able to successfully execute a ’third’ publicly acclaimed launch of RealDVD after having been tainted with the mislabel of an illegal product following two aborted launches,” said the filing in U.S. District Court in San Francisco.
RealNetworks declared its RealDVD technology for copying discs as good as dead. It’s the victim of what the company called a conspiracy by the big Hollywood studios to exploit for themselves consumers’ desire for virtual copies of the discs they've bought, the company said in an antitrust countersuit filed Wednesday.
Japan wants to revise ITU-R working text on mobile wireless access systems providing communications to a large number of ubiquitous sensors and/or actuators into a preliminary draft new recommendation. That’s according to its submission to next week’s meeting of a working party on the land mobile service. The need to link sensors and actuators in wide areas is growing, the text said. It was referring to environmental monitoring, stolen goods tracing, gas, water, and electricity use monitoring, social security and health care. But large service and platform markets are not fully developed because wireless sensor networks cover only limited areas, the text said. High equipment costs also keeps large markets underdeveloped, it said. A new wireless access system may need to be considered, it said. A large number of low-end terminals need to be supported, the text said, suggesting ten times the population or more than 1 billion terminals in Japan. Secure connections are needed everywhere and anytime on a cell-based wireless system, the text said.
Regulatory implications of cognitive radio systems should be discussed next week at an ITU-R working party meeting on mobile service, said Nokia and Nokia Siemens Networks in a joint proposal. The discussion is aimed at developing preliminary text for a ITU-R recommendation on cognitive radio systems in the land mobile service, the proposal said. The companies said six areas should be discussed: (1) identification of suitable bands; (2) a pilot channel for initial access; (3) a global regulatory framework; (4) technical approaches for efficient and flexible use of spectrum; (5) deployment of cognitive radio systems in land mobile service; (6) key parameters and their ranges such as power level and out-of-band emission.
The Office of Textiles and Apparel has posted to its Web site monthly reports containing official March 2009 trade data from the Census Department for U.S. imports and exports of textiles and apparel.
Activision Blizzard was mum Monday after Genius Products and Numark Industries joint venture Scratch DJ Game said a California Superior Court judge granted a preliminary injunction in Scratch’s suit against Activision Publishing, developer 7 Studios, and ex-7 Studios owner Lewis Peterson. The judge already issued a temporary restraining order in favor of Scratch (CED April 22 p5) and ordered 7 Studios and Activision to hand over all work product associated with the coming videogame Scratch -- The Ultimate DJ game, including all source code and all of the developer’s pre-existing tool and technology, including the source code to 7 Studio’s game engine, Scratch said. Developer 7 Studios and its new parent company, Activision Blizzard, are continued to be “walled off” from disclosing any aspect of the Scratch game or technology with each other or with any third party, Scratch said. Activision Blizzard didn’t respond to a request for comment by our deadline. “We will continue to vigorously pursue our damages case against Activision, 7 Studios and Peterson resulting from their actions to delay and take over the Scratch game,” said Jack O'Donnell, manager of Scratch and CEO of Numark. “We hope that this clear victory ends the delay tactics employed by the defendants to date to stop our game from being completed and brought to market. With the injunction order, we will also now be able to move forward to complete and launch our much anticipated Scratch game,” he said. Scratch DJ Game had accused Activision Publishing of “intentional interference with contractual relationship,” unfair competition and breach of contract, among other things, in its suit over the game, which Scratch had tapped 7 Studios to develop before the developer was bought by Activision Blizzard (CED April 16 p2).
The Los Angeles Harbor Commission has approved up to $44.2 million in Port funding toward the 2009 Clean Truck Incentive Program at the Port of Los Angeles. The funds will be used to offer concessionaires in the Port of Los Angeles Clean Truck Program (CTP) incentives of up to $80,000 for each Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) or Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) truck they purchase. Port terminal operators or concessionaires can also receive up to 80 percent of negotiated cost for each electric truck they purchase for terminal or drayage truck use. (News release, dated 05/08/09, available at http://www.portoflosangeles.org/newsroom/2009_releases/news_050809_lng.asp)