Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman James Inhofe, R-Okla., and Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., wrote President Donald Trump Wednesday about Chinese telecom equipment manufacturers' “ongoing refusal to pay lawfully owed licensing fees to U.S. developers of standards-based wireless technology.” Chinese manufacturers Huawei and ZTE, neither of which is identified in the letter, are under FCC and Capitol Hill scrutiny (see 1909270063). A draft FCC proposal would bar USF funding for the purchase of telecom equipment from companies “posing a national security threat to the integrity of communications networks or the communications supply chain.” The order is seen as targeted at Huawei and ZTE (see 1910300036). Inhofe and Wicker urged Trump to address “this flagrant and willful decision by Chinese companies to ignore the intellectual property rights of the U.S.” and other countries “as a part of your ongoing trade negotiations with China.” The Chinese manufacturers' decision not to “adhere to” licensing laws “not only undermines faith in a world-recognized system of license fee payments, it also exposes the ambition of certain Chinese companies to unfairly seek an advantage over other law-abiding companies,” Inhofe and Wicker said. “We must change the ability of Chinese companies to access the U.S. market while simultaneously eroding the ability of the U.S. and other Western market-based companies to maintain their leading role in the research and development of advanced wireless technology.” The White House didn't comment.

Apple, Fitbit and SVS Sound were the first tech companies to seek product exclusions from the 15 percent fourth-tranche tariffs after the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative began accepting exemption requests Thursday. Apple filed 11 requests, and Specialty Technologies, which does business as SVS, filed two. There's one each for the finished speakers and subwoofers it sources from China. Many of Apple's exclusion requests were for parts, components and accessories. Some were for “final” products sourced as finished goods from China, including the Apple Watch, iMac desktop, HomePod smart speaker and AirPods wireless earbuds, said the docket. “Apple has not identified a source outside of China that is able to meet U.S. demand for this product in the coming year,” said each application. The product is “not strategically important” to Made in China 2025 “or other Chinese industrial programs,” said each application. The company didn’t comment Friday. Fitbit "began to adjust its operations" almost immediately after the Trump administration proposed tariffs on smartwatches and fitness trackers sourced from China, said the company. It "anticipates being able to make substantial additional changes to its supply chain in the foreseeable future." The company will shift production to "outside China" starting in January for “effectively all of its trackers and smartwatches” (see 1910090025). It announced Friday an agreement to be bought by Google for $2.1 billion (see separate report, this issue). The public has two weeks to comment, and requesters have seven days to respond. Importers can file through Jan. 31 at USTR’s online portal. The docket posted about 80 requests from various industries that were filed the first day. Any exclusions granted would be good for a year and would be retroactive to Sept. 1 when 4A tranche took effect.

The Copyright Royalty Board wants comment by Nov. 20 for proposed regulations on rates and terms for digital performance of sound recordings and making associated ephemeral copies. Minimum yearly fees for 2021-25 are $550, $600, $650, $700 and $750.

The Copyright Office scheduled a Dec. 6 symposium to help determine best practices for the Music Modernization Act’s Mechanical Licensing Collective (see 1812210051). The event will explore how to “identify copyright owners and unclaimed royalties of musical works while encouraging copyright owners to claim royalties and ultimately reduce the occurrence of unclaimed royalties,” CO said.

Comments are due Nov. 6 on an EcoFactor Tariff Act Section 337 complaint with the International Trade Commission, alleging imports of smart thermostats and smart heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems infringe its patents, said Tuesday's Federal Register. EcoFactor says Ecobee, Google, Alarm.com, Daikin Industries, Schneider Electric and Vivint are importing the infringing products. EcoFactor seeks a limited exclusion order and cease and desist orders banning import and sale of infringing smart thermostats and HVAC systems by the companies identified. "We are confident that our products do not violate any third party patents and that this claim will not adversely affect our commercial objectives," emailed Schneider Electric. The other companies didn't comment.

Customs and Border Protection is delaying to Nov. 15 comments on its proposal to amend regulations to allow disclosure of information to trademark holders on voluntarily abandoned shipments, says Tuesday's Federal Register notice. The proposed rule would align information sharing procedures for voluntarily abandoned merchandise with procedures for seized merchandise, allowing CBP to better address trademark infringement by way of e-commerce shipments. Comments were due Monday.

Commerce Department export restrictions forced chipmaker Xilinx to remove all remaining Huawei-related “revenue expectations” from its outlook for fiscal 2020 ending in March, said CEO Victor Peng on a fiscal Q2 call Wednesday. He cited "trade restrictions with Huawei and the uncertainty presented to our business." He hopes "agreement between the U.S. and Chinese governments is reached as soon as possible, so we can resume engaging in a manner consistent with an important customer.” Xilinx got about $50 million revenue from Huawei in the first half ended Sept. 28, the “vast majority in Q1 before the restrictions, he said. Q2 sales in the Xilinx Wired and Wireless Group in which the Huawei business resides were down 8 percent sequentially, said Peng. Xilinx gets about 8 percent of its total revenue from Huawei in a normal year, he said. Though Xilinx “expedited” license applications, it hasn’t landed approvals, he said. Commerce got 200-plus Huawei-related license requests since the Chinese company was added to the agency’s entity list (see 1910230029). Huawei and Commerce didn't comment Thursday. Xilinx determined in Q2 there were some “older products that we could legally continue to ship” to Huawei, said Peng. It turned out that revenue from those products was “essentially negligible,” he said. “After one quarter of seeing that and not seeing any additional license approvals, we have decided that it's just prudent to take all the risk out.”

The Commerce Department got 200-plus Huawei-related license requests since the Chinese company was added to the agency’s entity list, according to a Commerce spokesperson. “Given the complexity of the matter, the interagency process is ongoing to ensure we correctly identified which licenses were safe to approve.” Companies haven't received approvals or denials, said trade lawyers with clients that submitted license applications. Huawei didn't comment Wednesday.

Technicolor is the newest licensee to join HEVC Advance, said the H.265 patent-pool company Tuesday. It's an "important milestone," said HEVC Advance, which launched in 2015 with Technicolor as one of five founding members (see 1503260045). Technicolor withdrew less than a year later to license its H.265 patent portfolio directly to device manufacturers, unhappy with the HEVC Advance decision to charge content-streaming royalties (see 1602040042). HEVC Advance later dropped its content fees on “anecdotal evidence” the royalties were hurting H.265 adoption (see 1803140037). "Technicolor did participate in the development phase of the pool but ultimately decided not to become a founding licensor (admittedly at the last moment)," emailed HEVC Advance CEO Pete Moller Tuesday. "Once someone joins as a licensor they cannot withdraw until 12/31/2025 at the earliest. In Technicolor’s case they 'left' before they signed any of the documents." When Technicolor departed, "they did indicate at that time that they planned to license their patents on their own," said Moller. "Ultimately, they sold a number to Dolby (which are in our pool) and then last year 'sold' their entire IP business to InterDigital."

CTA let lapse its 10-year-old trademark to the CEA logo, and the Patent and Trademark Office canceled the registration Friday, agency records show. CTA didn’t respond by the Sept. 17 deadline to PTO’s “courtesy reminder” that the trademark would soon be up for renewal. Two other active CEA trademarks are due to expire in 2023 and 2025, say PTO records. CEA applied for them not long before changing its name to CTA in November 2015 (see 1511110002). PTO granted two trademark registrations May 28, one for the full Consumer Technology Association name, the other for the CTA initials.