Sound United reached a settlement with Sonos, resolving “all patent infringement litigation between the two companies, including the upcoming case filed against Sonos by Denon,” said the Denon and Heos parent company Friday. It "demonstrates our belief in moving the industry forward and removing barriers for both parties to deliver products that delight customers,” said Sound United CEO Kevin Duffy, who said the company’s direction with the Heos multiroom audio system is unchanged. In December, Heos developer Denon said (see 1712210028) it would challenge a Delaware federal district court ruling that it infringed three Sonos patents. The court awarded Sonos $1.9 million in damages.

The International Trade Commission seeks comment by June 5 on a potential limited exclusion order and cease and desist orders banning import and sale of non-volatile memory devices by Toshiba, the ITC said in Wednesday's Federal Register. The ITC began its underlying investigation in 2017, based on allegations Toshiba is making and importing flash memory devices and products containing them, such as memory cards, solid-state drives, digital camcorders, car navigation systems and other consumer electronics, that infringe patents held by Macronix. An ITC administrative law judge recommended the limited exclusion order and cease and desist orders if the ITC finds violations of Tariffs Act Section 337. Toshiba didn't comment.

Enforcing free, fair and reciprocal trade will protect U.S. jobs and foster innovation, White House Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator Vishal Amin said Monday. He met that day with executives from the entertainment, cable/telecom and tech industries during a roundtable on illicit streaming devices. Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., FCC Commissioner Mike O'Rielly and FTC Commissioner Noah Phillips were among attendees. Industry representatives joined from Apple, Netflix, Amazon, the Copyright Alliance, App Association, Disney, 21st Century Fox, NCTA, Viacom and others.

The Department of Commerce is gathering data from U.S. companies on intellectual property transactions, in a mandatory survey. The “BE-120 Benchmark Survey of Transactions in Selected Services and Intellectual Property with Foreign Persons” survey requires all U.S. companies with combined inbound transactions of $1 million or outbound transactions of $2 million for FY 2017 to report type, amount and country involved in the IP transaction. Responses are due June 29-30, depending on format. The department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis is authorized to do the survey through the International Investment and Trade in Services Surveys Act. Companies failing to respond face fines up to $45,000, plus potential criminal penalties. Wiley Rein suggested the survey may “be used to support the goals of the Trump Administration’s ‘America First’ policies,” which emphasized IP protection.

Music labels are trying to revive dismissed copyright infringement claims against ISP Grande Communications and its former management company, Patriot Media Consulting. A docket 17-cv-00365-LY motion (in Pacer) Friday asked U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel of Austin for leave to file an amended complaint. The labels said the proposed amended complaint includes previously unavailable facts supporting their arguments for vicarious copyright infringement by Grande -- claims previously dismissed but with good cause to allow them to plead again. They said recent discovery turned up evidence that Grande and Patriot Media Consulting had the ability to control infringing subscribers but knowingly refused to. The plaintiff labels -- including Atlantic, Capitol, Elektra, LaFace, Roc-A-Fella, Rhino, Sony and Warner Bros. -- said discovery disproves Patriot assertions on which the magistrate judge based recommendations of dismissal of infringement claims. Grande/Patriot outside counsel didn't comment Monday.

Dual-camera technology company Corephotonics sued Apple Monday for patent infringement of camera technologies in the iPhone 7 Plus, iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone X, in a complaint (in Pacer) in U.S. District Court in San Jose alleging the tech company "continues to infringe” its patents for miniature telephoto lens assemblies. After years discussing possible collaboration, the defendant allegedly went "ahead and marketed its newest generations of iPhones with dual cameras that employ Corephotonics’ innovative designs -- without any regard to Corephotonics’ intellectual property rights,” the complaint said. Apple didn’t respond Tuesday.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals' precedent makes "an absolute mess of the repeat-infringer requirement" of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act that will haunt it and lower courts, adult film distributor Ventura Content said in a docket 13-56332 petition for rehearing en banc (in Pacer) filed Friday. A majority of the 9th Circuit in March upheld a lower court's summary judgment in favor of defendant Motherless, which operates a website for user sharing of pornography and which Ventura sued for copyright infringement, with Judge Johnnie Rawlinson dissenting. Ventura said the majority members of the panel improperly followed Rule 56, covering summary judgment, and Motherless clearly didn't have or follow a legally sufficient repeat-infringer policy because company assertions about having such a policy were repeatedly proven false. Motherless outside counsel didn't comment Monday. Copyright lawyer Sarah Bro of McDermott Will blogged Friday that, per the decision, Motherless didn't forfeit safe harbor protection when it screened and removed illegal content like child pornography or organized content into categories, and the court found Motherless' removal of Ventura content after being sued was expeditious enough to comply with safe harbor requirements.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative's annual review of countries' intellectual property practices added Canada and Columbia to a "priority watch list," as other countries remained on it including China, for 12 nations total, one more than 2017 (see 1704280059). Canada remains the only G7 country identified in the "Special 301" report and "downgrade" is amid "significant concerns" like "poor border and law enforcement with respect to counterfeit or pirated goods" and "deficient copyright protection," USTR reported. "Canada does not provide customs officials with the ability to inspect, detain, seize, and destroy in-transit counterfeit and pirated goods entering Canada destined for the United States." Canada's embassy didn't comment, nor did that of China or Colombia on Friday. Colombia should work on issues involving ISPs, USTR said. "As online piracy, particularly via mobile devices, continues to grow, Colombian law enforcement authorities with relevant jurisdiction, including the National Police and the Attorney General, have yet to conduct meaningful and sustained investigations and prosecutions against the operators of large pirate websites and mobile applications based in Colombia," it said on IP generally. China is on the priority watch list for the 14th consecutive year, USTR announced. "Longstanding and new IP concerns merit increased attention, including China’s coercive technology transfer practices, range of impediments to effective IP enforcement, and widespread infringing activity -- including trade secret theft, rampant online piracy, and counterfeit manufacturing." MPAA CEO Charles Rivkin said "American creators still face significant challenges in foreign markets protecting and enforcing their intellectual property rights, especially in the form of online piracy." The International IP Alliance noted that among 24 countries on the lower-tier "watch list" are "key markets for creators like Brazil, Mexico, Switzerland, Thailand, United Arab Emirates, and Vietnam." Added to the watch list for 2018 were the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Tajikistan, while Bulgaria was removed, a USTR representative noted. Others reacting favorably to the report were BSA|The Software Alliance and the Entertainment Software Association.

As the market transitions to 5G, “the engineering challenges embedded in the 5G opportunity play directly to Qualcomm's strengths and the focused investment we have made over the last several years,” said CEO Steve Mollenkopf on a Wednesday earnings call. “We are leading the industry to 5G and we are pleased to see the strength of our roadmap helping to enable the upcoming commercial launches of 5G networks and devices, including the 18 network operators and 20 manufacturers that have selected our X50 5G modem for trials and 5G devices.” Qualcomm will go to market on 5G with a standards-essential-patents-only licensing offering at an “effective” royalty rate of 3.25 percent for “multimode” devices compliant with the Release-15 suite of 5G specifications that 3GPP finalized in December, said Mollenkopf. Modeled after the SEP-only licensing program Qualcomm “successfully” launched in China three years ago, using the same approach for licensing 5G “facilitates the effort to conclude agreements and extensions in 2018 and early 2019, providing for a seamless transition for the launch of 5G devices in 2019,” he said. The company will continue offering its “portfolio-wide” licensing package at the higher 5 percent royalty rate, said Qualcomm Technology Licensing President Alex Rogers in Q&A. “We expect on a go-forward basis that there will be a number of licensees who are interested in extensions and renewals who may want to have SEP-only license agreements,” said Rogers. “We expect there will be a number of licensees who want to maintain portfolio-wide agreements worldwide, but there will also be licensees who want to have SEP-only agreements on a worldwide basis. And that is, of course, something that we can accommodate on a case-by-case basis.”

The Supreme Court ruled Patent and Trademark Office inter partes review (IPR) process is constitutional, in Oil States v. Greene's Energy Tuesday, drawing praise from the Computer & Communications Industry Association. The court “confirmed that [PTO] has the power to double-check its own work,” said CCIA President Ed Black: The IPR “process upheld today has made it less expensive for companies to defend themselves from abusive patent litigation and has helped strike down patents that never should have issued in the first place.” Calling IPR "the bedrock of the America Invents Act," Software & Information Industry Association CEO Ken Wasch said the ruling "upheld both the right of Congress to regulate and reform the patent system, and the ability of our members to bring challenges to poor-quality patents so they can continue to innovate without spending millions in unnecessary litigation.”