Digimarc is working on methods of harnessing Amazon’s traffic in online retailing to redirect it to brick-and-mortar stores using concealed “steganographic” encoding on the screens of smartphones and desktop computers, said a U.S. patent application (20170221121) published Thursday at the Patent and Trademark Office. “The experience begins with the consumer going to an online retailer's website (e.g., Amazon) to search for a product,” said the application, which is unusual for its plain wording. It named “Walmart and/or Best Buy,” as online rivals. “With a mobile phone camera-scan of the product page, relevant information is transferred to the consumer's phone. From there, the consumer can interact with the options on the mobile phone to be directed to the nearby brick and mortar store of choice carrying that product at the price they want." Four inventors from the Portland, Oregon, area are named in the application, filed Feb. 8. At least three of the listed inventors hold key positions at Digimarc, based in nearby Beaverton. Amazon and Digimarc representatives didn’t comment Thursday.

Vizio landed a U.S. patent Tuesday that describes a device and method for “correcting lip sync problems on display devices,” Patent and Trademark Office records show. “Maintaining synchronization” between audio and video on a modern TV “is dependent on a number of variables,” said the patent (9,723,180), which lists Chief Technology Officer Matthew McRae as the inventor, based on a January 2014 application. “The sensor creates timestamps for each of the video and audio, and then calculates a difference between those timestamps.” Those differences are then sent to the external device, “which then compensates for the difference.” Company representatives didn’t comment Tuesday.

The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers and BMI are combining their repertoires into a database of copyright owners to provide clearer and more accurate information to those who want to license musical works. The performing rights organizations said they began working on the project about a year ago and expect to launch the combined "secure, user-friendly and searchable" database in phases beginning at the end of 2018. A BMI spokeswoman said it will contain more than 20 million works, or about 90 percent of the music licensed in the U.S. It may become customizable and eventually include other databases, Wednesday's release said. Last week, Reps. Jim Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., and Suzan DelBene, D-Wash., introduced a bill that would direct the register of copyrights to create and maintain a searchable database of sound recordings, permitting businesses that want live music performed there to identify and pay copyright holders (see 1707200012). House IP Subcommittee Vice Chairman Doug Collins, R-Ga., called the announcement a "substantive step forward" that will help stakeholders achieve a "free-market solution."

Japan is the strictest nation for law enforcement of copyright infringement, threatening throttled speeds, a 2 million yen fine (roughly $18,000) and up to two years in prison for downloading pirated content, and up to 10 years for uploading, blogged anti-piracy tech firm Red Points CEO Laura Urquizu Monday. She said Germany has strict laws on torrenting, and the U.K. and the U.S. use a "medium-strict" approach to monitoring peer-to-peer networks and using pressure on ISPs to block sites. Netherlands, at the lax end, is changing, with anti-piracy group BREIN becoming more aggressive in court, she said. Nations like Canada, Brazil and India have "ultra-lax copyright laws and/or enforcement." Enough circumvention techniques allowing pirating to continue no matter how strict copyright law and enforcement may be where pirates live, she said.

Pirate websites and apps always will find advertisers, so an effort by ad agency partnership Trustworthy Accountability Group (TAG) to track piracy apps and convince marketers not to advertise with them is unlikely to move the needle on piracy, blogged anti-piracy tech firm Red Points CEO Laura Urquizu Friday. Media companies would be better served trying to find ways to more quickly take down content-infringing websites, links and apps, she said. Most such pirate apps don't garner much major advertiser support, but given their high volumes of traffic they still get advertisers, though more along the lines of "annoying pop-ups [and] scams for making money online," Red Points said. TAG said the blog post "misses the point entirely, as TAG's new app anti-piracy tool is not a silver bullet, but a single piece of TAG's comprehensive approach to fighting content piracy across the industry. ... Only by working together as an industry to exchange information, use cutting-edge anti-piracy services, and raise the standards for all companies can we address this insidious threat. Nearly a dozen established, effective anti-piracy vendors have already been validated by TAG to offer anti-piracy services."

The Electronic Frontier Foundation temporarily withdrew its appeal of World Wide Web Consortium Director Tim Berners-Lee's decision to advance the encrypted media extensions (EME) specification as a W3C recommendation for playing copyrighted video on a browser but plans to refile its objection at the end of next week, blogged EFF Special Adviser Cory Doctorow in an updated Thursday post. He said the appeal was withdrawn for "purely logistical reasons" after consulting with W3C CEO Jeff Jaffe on timing. The previous day, Doctorow wrote that EFF formally appealed the July 6 decision, saying it was "improper" for Berners-Lee "to overrule the widespread members' objections and declare EME fit to be published as a W3C Recommendation." Work on the specification began four years ago and was aimed at enabling video playback with digital rights management (DRM) protection in a browser without the need for a plug-in (see 1703070054). "EME offers a better user experience, bringing greater interoperability, privacy, security and accessibility to viewing encrypted video on the Web," W3C said last week. Doctorow, EFF's W3C Advisory Committee representative, said last week a covenant is needed to require W3C members to promise to use laws like Digital Millennium Copyright Act Section 1201 to go after people who infringe copyrighted media and not against those who bypassed DRM for legal reasons such as security researchers or those who make videos more accessible to disabled people. On Wednesday, he said: "Through this appeal, we ask that the membership be formally polled on this question: 'Should a covenant protecting EME's users and investigators against anti-circumvention regulation be negotiated before EME is made a Recommendation?'"

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., wants the Trump administration to name a new Patent and Trademark Office director to build on "good work" of his committee and several Supreme Court decisions on curbing patent litigation abuse, he said Thursday. At a Courts, IP and the Internet Subcommittee hearing on how "bad patents" affect U.S. businesses, Goodlatte said companies are forced to settle patent lawsuits rather than expand. TC Heartland v. Kraft Foods (see 1705220045) was supposed to sharply reduce such cases, but Goodlatte singled out the Eastern District of Texas as continuing to be friendly to patent infringement lawsuits (see 1608010016). He cited passage of his Innovation Act in previous Congresses as a way to curb such problems, but hasn't committed to the bill's reintroduction (see 1702010069). Chris Mohr, Software & Information Industry Association vice president-intellectual property, said congressional and court actions have helped limit abuse, but only Congress can do "true litigation reform." United for Patent Reform co-Chair Beth Provenzano, vice president-government relations and political affairs at the National Retail Federation, said Congress needs to keep provisions in Section 101 of the Patent Act, the Supreme Court's 2014 Alice v. CLS Bank (see 1406200066) and inter partes review process strong to defend against bad patents.

“Lots of parties,” not just LG Electronics, contributed intellectual property to the A/322 document on ATSC 3.0 physical-layer protocol, John Taylor, LG senior vice president-public affairs, emailed us Wednesday, denying that IP royalties are what’s motivating his company to lobby the FCC to include A/322 in 3.0 rules. He responded to Pearl TV comments recently at the FCC that arguments by the few parties that support mandating A/322 in the final rules “are not persuasive, in particular because some parties may stand to benefit from their intellectual property interests in A/322” (see 1706300003). “Multiple parties have IP in A/321, too,” said Taylor. “We expect to collect royalties for essential patents whether the FCC includes A/322 or not.” LG “of course” has pledged to adhere to the ATSC’s RAND policy,” he said of licensing LG patents on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms. LG and its Zenith “have a great relationship with Pearl and other broadcasters,” Taylor said. “This isn’t a big dispute, just a difference of opinion.” LG regards as “unfounded” Pearl’s argument that manufacturers would bypass A/321 if both that and the A/322 documents were mandated in the final rules, leaving devices orphaned, he said. The company disagrees with critics like Sinclair that argue that mandating A/322 in the final rules would thwart innovation (see 1707040001).

Judge Ketanji Jackson scheduled an Oct. 18 hearing in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on motions for summary judgment filed by both sides in a legal battle between the recording industry and Ford and General Motors over scope and applicability of 1992's Audio Home Recording Act (AHRA) (see 1411090002). Contrary to arguments from plaintiff the Alliance of Artists and Recording Companies, car infotainment systems from the automakers and their suppliers Clarion, Denso and Mitsubishi aren't “digital audio recording devices” under the AHRA, the automakers argued in their April 11 summary-judgment motion (in Pacer). Jackson let the case proceed to the discovery phase.

Nokia and Xiaomi are collaborating on a multiyear patent agreement to cross-license each company’s cellular standard essential patents, said the companies in a Wednesday announcement. Xiaomi also acquired patent assets from Nokia as part of the transaction, they said. Under the agreement, Nokia will provide network infrastructure equipment for web providers and data center operators, and the companies will work together on optical transport solutions for data centers, they said. The companies will explore opportunities for further cooperation in IoT, augmented and virtual reality and artificial intelligence.