Patent and Trademark Office veteran Shira Perlmutter will be register of copyrights and Copyright Office director, Librarian of Congress Carla Hayden announced Monday. Perlmutter will take over in late October as the 14th register. She vacates her role as PTO chief policy officer and international affairs director, positions she had since 2012. Perlmutter “brings to this role a deep knowledge of domestic and international copyright law and policy and a background in negotiating international intellectual property agreements,” Hayden said. “She has experience working with a wide range of stakeholders and finding common ground on complex issues.” The Senate won’t have to confirm Perlmutter. Senate and House Judiciary Committee leaders in 2017 considered making the register a presidentially appointed, Senate-confirmed position with a 10-year term, but momentum slowed (see 1706090050). Maria Strong was acting register. At PTO, Perlmutter oversaw domestic and international IP policy and legislative engagement through the Office of Government Affairs. She was CO associate register-policy and international affairs in 1995. She previously was associate general counsel for IP policy at Time Warner and World Intellectual Property Organization copyright consultant. Perlmutter looks forward to “rejoining the dedicated staff of the Copyright Office on its mission of promoting the creation and dissemination of works of authorship.” NAB, Public Knowledge, the Computer & Communications Industry Association, Digital Media Association, RIAA, Motion Picture Alliance and Copyright Alliance welcomed the news. “The Copyright Office will now have new leadership at a time when updating its operations is more important than ever,” CCIA President Matt Schruers said. Copyright Alliance CEO Keith Kupferschmid described Perlmutter as a “proven leader and a beacon of knowledge and integrity within the intellectual property community for decades and will serve all stakeholders and users of the Copyright Office services well.” Perlmutter “consistently worked to promote understanding and progress in copyright law and has established herself as a preeminent authority,” said RIAA CEO Mitch Glazier. PK looks forward to working with Perlmutter to “protect and advance the rights of everyday users, fans, and consumers online,” said Senior Policy Counsel Meredith Rose.

Philips unleashed a torrent of complaints Thursday in U.S. District Court in Wilmington, Delaware, accusing seven tech companies of infringing various “secure authenticated distance measurement” patents for digital video delivery content protection. Accused of violating four patents were LG (in Pacer) for a laptop and 43-inch 4K smart TV, plus Dell, HP and Lenovo (in Pacer) for laptops and 27-inch monitors. Chip companies Intel, MediaTek and Realtek (in Pacer) allegedly infringed two of the four patents. All the finished products were sold through Best Buy, Walmart or other big-box retailers, said the complaints. Philips said it gave each of the defendants “actual notice” of the alleged infractions via warning letters, yet all “continued to actively induce, and contribute to, their customers’ infringement." Philips seeks a jury trial and wants punitive and compensatory damages “in an amount no less than a reasonable royalty for the use made of the patented inventions.” The defendants didn't comment Friday.

The U.S. needs to increase funding to support “collaborative, pre-competitive R&D” in the semiconductor industry and offer “incentives” for boosting domestic production, said the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation Thursday. It should invite participation of semiconductor enterprises “headquartered in like-minded nations,” said ITIF. The increasing cost, complexity and scale required to innovate and manufacture semiconductors “means that no single nation or enterprise can go it alone,” it said. “In the face of challenges from China, allied cooperation in semiconductors is critical.” China views the semiconductor sector as the linchpin of its digital development and "broadest-scale economic growth plans,” said ITIF. It has shown it’s willing to use “every tool at its disposal in its efforts to develop a world-class semiconductor industry,” it said.

The Copyright Office issued interim rules and an NPRM Wednesday for the Music Modernization Act (see 2009090054). Effective Oct. 19, an interim rule governs “notices of license, data collection efforts, reports of usage and payment by digital music provider blanket licensees and related records of use, notices of nonblanket activity and reports of usage by significant nonblanket licensees, and data collection efforts by musical work copyright owners.” Also effective Oct. 19, another interim rule governs “obligations of the mechanical licensing collective (MLC) to report and distribute royalties paid by digital music providers.” The NPRM involves “categories of information to be included in the public musical works database, the usability, interoperability, and usage restrictions of the database, and proposed regulations in connection with the Office’s general regulatory authority related to ensuring appropriate transparency of the mechanical licensing collective itself.” Comments are due Oct. 19.

The Treasury Department will soon require declarations to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. when transactions involving critical technologies would normally be subject to an American export license. Its final rule makes some changes and clarifications, partly due to industry comments. It's effective Oct. 15, said Tuesday's Federal Register. Existing declaration requirements for critical tech apply to transactions “for which specific actions occurred” Feb. 13-Oct. 14.

Administrative Law Judge Dee Lord with the International Trade Commission is “not inclined” to sever into two probes the ITC's Tariff Act Section 337 investigation into allegations that Lenovo computers, tablets and parts infringe five Nokia patents, she told a Sept. 3 telephonic conference, per a transcript (login required) posted Monday in docket 337-TA-1208. Lee ordered the parties Aug. 14 to show cause why the “disparate” issues between four H.264 patents and the remaining invention didn’t warrant severance (see 2008160004). Nokia and ITC staff argued in their Aug. 26 replies there was substantial overlap between the bodies of intellectual property (see 2008270001), and Lord agreed, according to the transcript. “On balance, it seemed to me that we ought to keep everything in one place,” she said.

IBM said the Commerce Department Bureau of Industry and Security should impose targeted export controls on specific facial recognition software, not restrict the entire category, since some of the technology can be used for benign purposes. There are “clear use-cases that must be off limits” for export, such as artificial intelligence-powered software used for mass surveillance and human rights abuses, but other technologies are safe for everyday uses, said Friday comments on a July BIS notice on potential license requirements for items that may be used for crowd control reasons and human rights abuses. IBM said BIS should control facial recognition technologies that use “‘1-to-many’ matching end uses.” Comments are due Tuesday.

Google device “redesigns” built without the embedded source code that Sonos alleges infringe its multiroom audio patents are “hypothetical,” not real, and should be struck from the International Trade Commission’s Tariff Act Section 337 investigation into the allegations (see 2002060070), said a Sonos brief (login required) in support of the motion to strike posted Thursday in docket 337-TA-1191. Google misrepresented that the redesigns were “fixed and definite” when it told Chief Administrative Law Judge Charles Bullock it made the redesigns available to Sonos for inspection, said Sonos. “Google refuses to produce the alleged redesigns to Sonos for Sonos to test and is only willing to provide a limited demonstration of certain functions under the supervision of a Google attorney,” it said. “Such testing is necessary to determine whether or not the supposed redesigns actually removed the infringing code.” That Sonos was deprived of the opportunity to test the redesigns “directly contradicts” Google’s argument that the revised source code is embedded in physical working products that Google made available for inspection, said Sonos. Google didn’t comment Friday.

The record industry has started to climb out of the valley it fell into during the initial rise of digital music and file sharing but has further to go, said panelists Thursday at an event held by George Mason University’s Center for the Protection of Intellectual Property. Industry revenue declined 50% after 1999 and has started to climb back up, said RIAA CEO Mitch Glazier. Music streaming jump-started that growth, said Garrett Levin, CEO of the Digital Media Association, which represents Pandora, Amazon and other streamers. Streaming led to increased music consumption, said Larry Miller, director of New York University's music business program. Levin said over a third of internet users pay for a premium streaming service. That changed the way the sector works, said Miller: “Music has become a consumption business, with no peak, only a hill surrounded by plateaus.” Emerging players such as TikTok should pursue partnerships and licensing agreements with the music industry instead of shifting liability to users, Glazier said.

Groups are scrambling to get the Music Modernization Act’s music licensing collective ready to issue licenses by January (see 2004220055). The timeline between the MMA’s October 2018 passage and January is tight, Mechanical Licensing Collective Board Member Danielle Aguirre told a George Mason University panel Wednesday. Validating copyright ownership data has been a big push for the MLC over the past six months, she said: Copyright owners are being asked to take a more active role in “identifying their works,” cleaning up data and working with the MLC to make sure it’s correct. The MLC will be better if songwriters do their part to get the data correct, said Songwriters of North America founding member Adam Gorgoni. He noted if there’s a conflict and copyright owners participate in sorting out those differences, “theoretically, everyone will get paid what they deserve, and that’s our goal.” SONA will continue its due diligence to ensure songwriters are “treated fairly” and when there are disagreements, “we’re going to fight,” he said. Spotify Global Head-Publisher Operations Lisa Selden noted time's tight. The biggest challenge is getting the final regulations from the Copyright Office, testing the work with the MLC and having it ready for licensing, she said. CO General Counsel Regan Smith welcomed comments in ongoing proceedings regarding the MMA, noting the proposed rule on transparency and additional disclosure.