The Copyright Office is proposing significant increases in filing fees to take effect in the spring. Thursday’s announcement said the proposed fee schedule shows large increases for “registration of a claim in an original work of authorship,” including a nearly 500 percent increase for a paperwork filing involving “registration of updates and revisions to a database that predominantly consists of nonphotographic works.” The fee for that paperwork filing would increase from $85 to $500. CO proposes an electronic filing for registering a claim in an original work of authorship would increase from $55 to $250, for paper filing, $65 to $250. Some fee schedules are reduced by about 20 percent, and other increases range from 15-180 percent.

Copyright legislation Congress is considering could “have devastating effects on regular Internet users and little-to-no effect on true infringers,” Electronic Frontier Foundation Policy and Activism Manager Katharine Trendacosta wrote Monday. EFF urged supporters to tell Congress not to pass the Copyright Alternative in Small-Claims Enforcement Act (see 1909110030). The “obscure” board envisioned by the bill would have “enormous power” to levy huge penalties against “ordinary Americans,” she wrote.

Nokia declared more than 2,000 patent “families” to the European Telecommunications Standards Institute as 5G “standard-essential,” said the company Wednesday. ETSI is one of seven standards development organizations that belong to 3GPP, which is managing 5G standardization. The 2,000th family includes U.S. and European patents on higher-throughput “network resources” for smartphones, industrial devices and other equipment, said Nokia.

CTA applied to register the NEXTGEN TV logo as a certification mark Sept. 25, the day before introducing it publicly as the linchpin of the industry’s go-to-market strategy for ATSC 3.0 TVs (see 1909260021), said newly posted records at the Patent and Trademark Office. The logo “is intended to certify that the goods to which the mark will be applied have been evaluated to meet certain use and performance standards, namely that the goods are ATSC 3.0 standard compliant,” said the application that Wiley Rein filed on CTA’s behalf. The association will “later provide” a copy of the “standards governing the use of the certification mark on or in connection with the goods/services in the application,” it said. Details remain murky on the performance metrics that would minimally qualify a TV to bear the logo.

The International Trade Commission opened two Tariff Act Section 337 investigations into allegations that imports of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. semiconductors and the chips and downstream products that contain them, infringe Globalfoundries patents, said the commission Monday. In one investigation (docket 337-TA-1176), the ITC will consider whether to issue a limited exclusion order and cease and desist orders banning imports of allegedly infringing TSMC semiconductors; chips that contain those semiconductors from Xilinx, Qualcomm and MediaTek; and TVs and smartphones that contain TSMC semiconductors from Hisense, TCL, BLU, Motorola, Google and OnePlus. In a second investigation (docket 337-TA-1177), the ITC will consider the same sanctions for a different set of allegedly infringing TSMC semiconductors, plus the chips that incorporate them from Apple, Nvidia, Broadcom and Cisco. The ITC also will probe smartphones, tablets, wearable devices and set-top boxes with TSMC semiconductors from Apple, Nvidia, Asus and Lenovo, and switches that incorporate them from Arista and Cisco. Representatives of the various respondents we canvassed didn’t comment Tuesday.

Pivotal Commware responded to questions by FCC Wireless Bureau staff on its request for a waiver of Section 20.21(f) of rules on industrial signal booster labeling disclosure requirements (see 1909190012). Initial comments were due Monday in docket 19-272. “Pivotal will sell the Device only to wireless service providers, who will, in turn, provide the Device to their 5G broadband customers as an integral part of the service provider’s broadband service offering,” the company said: “The Device will not be available at retail. Instead, wireless service providers will deliver the Device to their customers, with instructions on how to self-install the Device on a window.” It poses no interference risk “because the Device cannot operate without authentication from the service provider. In the event the customer terminates service, the service provider will be able to shut down and lock the Device remotely,” Pivotal said. Booster company SureCall said the FCC should deny the waiver. “The labeling requirement for Industrial Signal Boosters serves a critically important purpose in protecting the integrity of wireless networks and it should not be waived for any party,“ said SureCall in comments not yet posted: “Waiver in this case would significantly harm consumers by giving a single manufacturer an unfair advantage in the sale of its non-conforming products.”

The Copyright Office is accepting comments until Nov. 8, replies Dec. 9, on the proposed blanket compulsory license under the Music Modernization Act (see 1909130067), said the agency Tuesday. The blanket license takes effect in January 2021.

The Copyright Office’s eCO Registration System will be offline at 6 p.m. Oct. 5 until 6 a.m. the following day to “accommodate Pay.gov maintenance,” said the CO Monday.

MPAA now goes by the Motion Picture Association, including online, the group said Wednesday. That's "the name we will now be known as globally. Our U.S.-specific work will still fall under Motion Picture Association -- America," a spokesperson emailed us. Logo here.

Telecom and tech issues weren’t discussed in Thursday night’s Democratic presidential debate, but a few candidates targeted China for stealing U.S. intellectual property. China steals “our products, including our intellectual property,” said Sen. Kamala Harris, D-Calif. “They dump substandard products into our economy. They need to be held accountable.” The problem with China isn’t the trade deficit, but that it’s stealing IP and violating World Trade Organization rules, said ex-Vice President Joe Biden. Entrepreneur Andrew Yang said an executive friend visited China recently and “saw pirated U.S. intellectual property on worker workstations to the tune of thousands of dollars per head.” The friend asked how American workers can compete with that, Yang said, citing lost American revenue.