ASCAP distributed more than $1 billion to songwriter, composer and music publisher members in 2017, the performance rights group announced Thursday. With 660,000-plus members, revenue hit a record for a fourth straight year, up 8 percent as distributions grew 10 percent.

Comcast updates to its X1 system let its X1 set-top boxes fall outside the scope of an International Trade Commission limited exclusion order in November against the company (see 1711280017), Customs and Border Protection ruled March 5, recently released. Comcast has been litigating set-top patent issues with Rovi, now named TiVo, for years (see 1803150024). "Comcast has carried its burden of demonstrating that the changes made to the X1 system will prevent Comcast’s customers from using the modified X1 system, of which the STBs at issue are a component, in a manner which directly infringes," CBP ruled. The design changes, most of which are redacted in the ruling, removed some features that allowed users to remotely schedule TV program recordings. "In support of the efficacy of its redesign, Comcast produced customer complaints from its Internet forums, which Comcast assuaged by publicly explaining that the remote recording functionality had been removed," said CBP. Redesigned X1 boxes imported by Arris and Technicolor on behalf of Comcast are no longer prohibited from entry into the U.S. CBP wasn't persuaded by TiVo's claims the same infringing features remained despite Comcast's changes. Comcast thinks the ITC "reached the wrong decision in this case, and we removed the remote DVR scheduling feature at issue while we pursue an appeal," a spokeswoman said Wednesday. "The letter simply acknowledges the favorable ruling we received from Customs last month.” TiVo declined to comment.

Various models of iPhones and iPads violate three U.S. patents on fingerprint authentication technology held by South Korean company Firstface, alleged a complaint (in Pacer) filed Friday against Apple in U.S. District Court in San Francisco. One of the patents (8,831,557), issued in September 2014, was the basis of a federal complaint that Firstface also filed Friday against Samsung (see 1804140001). Two 2017 patents in the Apple complaint -- 9,633,373 granted April 25, and 9,779,419 granted Oct. 3 -- “are not at issue” in the action against Samsung, “but are in the same patent family as the '557 patent,” said Firstface lawyers in a notice of pendency (in Pacer) filed Tuesday with U.S. Magistrate Judge Joseph Spero in San Francisco. Apple didn’t comment Tuesday.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer should focus on securing “strong copyright provisions” in U.S. trade agreements because “robust” intellectual property protections are “essential to American innovation and economic growth,” Sens. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, and Bill Nelson, D-Fla., wrote Lighthizer Friday. “Without adequate global safeguards to combat the growing international incidence of counterfeit goods and intellectual property theft, the strength and vitality of America’s most creative and innovative sectors diminishes.” USTR didn't comment.

It’s “time for quick action” for companies that want to sway the U.S. Trade Representative’s office against imposing Trade Act Section 301 tariffs of 25 percent on 1,200 classifications of goods imported from China in the list released Tuesday (see 1804040054 or 1804040023), said DLA Piper in an "international trade alert." Companies “have the opportunity to present their views on specific products listed under the proposal for higher tariffs before the list is finalized and the tariffs become effective, in an effort to seek the removal of a product from the final list,” said the law firm Wednesday. Written comments are due May 11, with an April 23 deadline for requesting to appear at a May 15 public hearing, it said. May 22 is the deadline for written comments to “rebut statements made at the hearing,” it noted. The USTR notice spells out how someone who wants a product removed from the list should file comments and what those comments should say, said the alert: Commenters “should explain why the inclusion of the specific product will not be effective in curbing China's actions that are targeted by this Section 301 action, and also how the tariff would negatively impact US persons (including the affected company and its customers)." USTR didn't comment Thursday on whether the May 15 public hearing at the International Trade Commission building will be streamed live. The agency's recent history has been to hold hearings "off-camera." U.S.-threatened sanctions and the Chinese response to "reciprocate" are likely stage setting for future negotiations, Merrill Lynch analysts emailed investors. "Despite the exchange of tariff threats, we believe there is still room for negotiation between the US and China," said Helen Qiao and Sylvia Sheng Tuesday. "We maintain our view that China will continue its 'carrot and stick approach,' threatening retaliation but also proposing to expand its imports of US products, cut the auto duty, and ease restrictions for US companies investing and selling in China," they said. "We expect the final version of both the US and China trade measures to be more toned down."

Three weeks after HEVC Advance announced it was scrapping royalty fees on most H.265 content (see 1803140037), it welcomed 12 new members, the largest haul in its three years. They include four South Korean entities remaining in rival MPEG LA’s H.265 patent pool. Korean Broadcasting System is among three joining HEVC Advance as licensors only, as is Fraunhofer, Pete Moller, the patent pool’s CEO, emailed. Humax, another South Korean MPEG LA member, is joining as licensor and licensee, and the rest include GoPro and Western Digital, which come as licensees only, he said. "Widespread" adoption of the video compression standard is "accelerating,” the pool said Tuesday. Except for Fraunhofer, the new members were in place before the content fee cut, Moller said. “Many important companies [are] reaching out to talk that previously felt the content fees were too significant of a barrier,” said Moller. “Discussions in the best of situations take 3-6 months."

With “ever growing interest in digital media,” there's a “need to develop consumer-accessible technologies to further enhance the listening experience,” said a U.S. patent (9,930,463) Sonos landed last Tuesday. It describes methods of “defect detection via audio playback” in a multiroom home entertainment network, describing a company product for streaming within a household. A spokeswoman declined further comment Monday.

Google said it's considering its next steps in its long-running legal dispute with Oracle over its use of coding and names in Oracle's Java application programming interface (API) technology in its Android mobile operating system after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled against Google Tuesday. The three-judge Federal Circuit panel remanded the case to U.S. District Court in San Francisco for another jury trial, reversing a federal jury's 2016 verdict that Google's fair use of Oracle's API technology qualifies as a transformative fair use (see 1605260067). Oracle's appeal of the case to the Federal Circuit last year drew support from MPAA, while many tech sector stakeholders backed Google (see 1702220031 and 1705300064). “Although Google could have furthered copyright’s goals of promoting creative expression and innovation by developing its own APIs, or by licensing Oracle’s APIs for use in developing a new platform, it chose to copy Oracle’s creative efforts instead,” said Circuit Judge Kathleen O'Malley in the Federal Circuit panel's ruling, which was joined by Circuit Judges Jay Plager and Richard Taranto. “There is nothing fair about taking a copyrighted work verbatim and using it for the same purpose and function as the original in a competing platform.” The Federal Circuit's opinion “upholds fundamental principles of copyright law and makes clear that Google violated the law,” said Oracle General Counsel Dorian Daley in a statement. “This type of ruling will make apps and online services more expensive for users,” Google said in a statement Wednesday.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., applauded the administration for addressing “rampant piracy and counterfeiting” through foreign trade negotiations in its Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator’s (IPEC) annual report to Congress. “I am encouraged by the IPEC’s annual report, which lays out a thorough strategy to continue economic growth by ensuring American innovation is protected and able to flourish,” Goodlatte said Thursday.

China moved into second place as a source of international patent applications filed in 2017 under the World Intellectual Property Organization’s patent cooperation treaty, reported WIPO Wednesday. China closed in on long-time leader U.S., and at the current pace of filings will overtake the U.S. within three years as “the largest source of applications,” said WIPO. China’s Huawei and ZTE were the world’s top two filers overall in 2017, followed by Intel, Mitsubishi and Qualcomm, it said. “Overall, inventors from around the world filed 243,500 international patent applications via WIPO" in 2017, 4.5 percent more than a year earlier, it said.