Limelight Networks reached a settlement Monday with Akamai Technologies to end their long-running patent infringement battle over an Akamai-owned content delivery system patent that was the subject of a 2014 Supreme Court case (see report in the June 3, 2014, issue). Limelight agreed to pay $54 million to Akamai -- spread over 12 consecutive quarters -- in exchange for a patent license and a commitment from both parties to reliquish their right to further appeals of the case. A U.S. District Court in Boston ordered Limelight last month to pay Akamai $51 million damages for infringing Akamai’s patent after the case was remanded from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (see 1607010068). “We are pleased by the outcome of this agreement. It eliminates the continuing risk from [Akamai’s] patent and allows us to extend the $51 million payment over a three-year period at an attractive interest rate,” said Limelight CEO Robert Lento in a news release.

The Copyright Alliance is seeking members' support for an open letter to all candidates campaigning in the November general election that backs a “strong copyright system that rewards creativity and promotes a healthy economy.” Copyright law “should protect creators from those who would use the internet to undermine creativity,” the CA-led letter said. “The internet can be a great tool for creators just as it can be a tool” for other disciplines. “However, when misused, it can harm creativity and stifle freedom of expression,” the letter said. The CA also said content creators should be “part of the conversation” on a potential congressional revamp of copyright law. “Some organizations and advocates, who in many cases are funded by online platforms, repeatedly claim to be pro-creators and pro-audience to mask their own self-serving agenda,” the CA said in the letter. “The creative community is rightfully wary of any company or organization that claims to be 'against piracy' when their actions do not match their words.”

MicroVision sees laser-based 3D-sensing technology called “LIDAR” as an “important growth area for us,” CEO Alexander Tokman said on a Thursday earnings call. He defined LIDAR -- an acronym for light detection and ranging -- as a sensing method that uses pulse-laser light to measure ranges, surfaces and volumes. “Think of it as a detection system that works on the principle of radar, but uses light from a laser as a source,” Tokman said. Many top CE companies “are defining new products for 2018 and beyond that use LIDAR-like technologies,” he said. They include “near-field” 3D sensing for gesture-recognition uses, “mid-field” sensing for “robo-guidance” applications and “far-field” sensing for use in autonomous vehicles, he said. MicroVision believes its “baseline capability” in LIDAR technology “is superior” to those of its competitors, he said. “We've garnered interest from some major consumer electronics OEMs based on what we have demonstrated with paper models of our superior capabilities in this area,” Tokman said. “In order to move to the next stage, we plan to create working prototypes, which could be validated and verified by our prospective partners for products starting as early as late 2017 and beyond. The investments we're making today in 3D sensing technology are necessary precursors for tapping into the growth opportunity we expect to see from this emerging market.”

Google landed a new U.S. patent that reveals details of the company’s plan to make online streaming look and feel more like over-the-air TV viewing by offering viewers the chance to channel-surf with familiar up-down hopping and instant picture previews. Current content streaming is too much of a computer experience rather than a traditional television viewing experience, says the patent, published July 19 by the Patent and Trademark Office, based on a May 2014 application. The viewer is faced with “vast amounts of content which require navigating through an endless hierarchy of menus and interacting with cumbersome search boxes,” it says. With TV viewing, “users often enjoy the somewhat addictive pleasure of scanning through content in search of something they want to watch,” it says. “In contrast, current on-demand interfaces often include elaborate text guides meant to facilitate quick surveying of available programming. But reading text requires the kind of cognitive effort that a user often attempts to avoid when watching television.” Google’s solution is to propose that as soon as the viewer accesses one content stream, the device automatically accesses a set of different content streams, chosen on a “more of the same” basis or tailored to the viewer’s preference profile, the patent says. So if the viewer chooses an action movie, the system automatically accesses several other action movies, choosing actors that the viewer has previously watched, it says. Some random content may be thrown in for serendipity purposes, it says. If the user previously has changed channels when things get scary on screen, the device steers clear of scary movies, it says. The extra streams -- Google suggests there should be at least five -- are buffered and labeled with names or numbers similar to those used by broadcast TV stations, it says. That way the viewer can get an instant preview of several online TV streams, just as if they were off-air broadcasts, it says. The buffering plays enough of the content to let the stream take over if the viewer chooses one to watch, it says. The system would work equally well with online radio stations or music delivery services, it says. Google didn’t comment on plans to commercialize the invention.

The Society of European Stage Authors and Composers (SESAC) performing rights organization said its new tool for linking digital music files to specific copyrighted compositions is the first part of a new performing rights intelligence platform aimed at accelerating royalty revenue distribution. The new secure online tool will integrate with the existing online rights database used by SESAC and its Rumblefish and Harry Fox Agency (HFA) subsidiaries, SESAC said. The tool is currently available only to publishers that license streaming services via HFA but will become available to other SESAC, HFA and Rumblefish clients in the coming months, SESAC said. “By powering our licensing and administration business units with the industry leading combined SESAC Holdings database, we're able to make rights administration more efficient, simpler, and more lucrative,” SESAC CEO John Josephson said in a Friday news release.

ICANN's public auction for the registry rights to the .web generic top-level domain concluded with a winning final bid, but the final results aren't confirmed, two domain names industry executives told us Thursday. ICANN and the industry executives separately told us they weren't able to confirm reports the winning bid for .web was $135 million. If true the result would be far higher than the previous highest price paid for a gTLD in a public auction -- GMO Registry's January purchase of the .shop TLD for $41.5 million -- one industry executive said. The identity of the winning bidder for .web wasn't revealed, but the seven parties bidding included Google and domain registry Donuts. ICANN was able to proceed Wednesday with the .web auction after the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles rejected a bid by Donuts to delay the sale amid its lawsuit claiming ICANN was negligent and in breach of contract for not more thoroughly investigating the ownership of rival .web bidder Nu Dot Co (see 1607270027 and 1607250051). ICANN said it would publish the results of the .web auction within seven days of its conclusion.

An independent review of ICANN's Trademark Clearinghouse's (TMCH) services found that few trademark owners are using TMCH's services to register for generic top-level domains (gTLD) during a “sunrise period” before the domains go on general sale or are using the clearinghouse to dispute domain name registrations that include slight variations on their trademarks, ICANN said in a draft report. The Analysis Group independent review was meant to evaluate the efficacy of TMCH's services rather than to make policy recommendations, ICANN said. The independent review found that just under 20 percent of eligible trademark owners have ever used sunrise periods. “Although trademark owners expressed valuing the sunrise period through questionnaire feedback and many apply for sunrise eligibility by submitting proof of use when recording their marks in the TMCH, many trademark owners do not utilize the period,” ICANN said. “This indicates that trademark owners most frequently wait until the general availability period of new gTLDs to register domains of their trademark strings.” Since trademark owners “infrequently dispute resolutions,” an extension of the existing claims service period for disputing domains that match a registered trademark has the potential to be more harmful to non-trademark owner domain registrants than it is to be beneficial to the trademark owners, ICANN said. Public comments on the draft report are due Sept. 3.

The Copyright Royalty Board released the National Music Publishers Association-brokered partial settlement on 2018-2022 statutory mechanical royalty rates, saying in a notice in the Federal Register it's seeking comment on the settlement through Aug. 24. The settlement, agreed to by Universal Music Group and Warner Music Group, would maintain the existing mechanical rate for downloaded songs at 9.1 cents per downloaded copy for songs less than five minutes long and 1.75 cents-per-minute for songs more than five minutes long. The settlement also would maintain existing mechanical rate for ring tones at 24 cents per copy. Apple separately proposed maintaining the existing mechanical rates for downloaded songs but proposed changing the rate for interactive streams to 9.1 cents per 100 plays (see 1607180067). The CRB judges are seeking comment on whether to adopt the proposed mechanical rates and whether to apply them to all copyright owners and licensees.

GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump in his acceptance speech Thursday at the Republican National Convention promised again to end China’s “outrageous theft” of U.S. citizens’ IP. Trump’s pledge to protect U.S. IP from China has been the candidate’s only stated position on copyright policy, leading several industry lobbyists to conclude it’s too early to say how Trump would handle copyright issues if elected president (see 1606290080). During his remarks, Trump also slammed excessive regulation, "the greatest job killer of them all," he said. "We will end it very, very quickly." Under his administration "in my first 100 days," he would go to the department heads in government to demand projects they could slash. “The politicians have talked about this for years, but I am going to do it," Trump said.

NAB, the Radio Music License Committee and Television Music License Committee in a filing released Friday jointly backed DOJ Antitrust Division’s preliminary decision on its review of the department's American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers and Broadcast Music Inc. consent decrees. Music creator groups told DOJ they believe the department’s preliminary decision to clarify that 100 percent licensing, in which any partial owner of a song would be allowed to fully license that song, is required under music licensing rules will compound ongoing damage to the music industry (see 1607200035). Some individual music creators decided to boycott the request for comments (see 1607190063). ASCAP, BMI and the National Music Publishers Association were also widely expected to file comments on the preliminary decision but haven't released them or indicated what they told Justice. NAB and the broadcast music licensing groups countered music creators’ statements about 100 percent licensing, saying a DOJ endorsement of the music industry’s long-standing use of fractional licensing would have undermined “the very rationale for ASCAP’s and BMI’s continued existence in conformance with antitrust law: their ability, in the words of the Supreme Court, to afford users ‘unplanned, rapid and indemnified access to any and all of the[ir] repetor[ies] of compositions.’” Codification of fractional licensing “would, instead, deprive users of those existing procompetitive attributes, substituting in their place a need to secure rights from every partial rights claimant to countless works as a condition of their performance,” the broadcast groups said: Such a change “would entail enormous transactions costs, a practical inability to obtain comprehensive license coverage, and resulting exposure on the part of users to potentially consequential -- even ruinous -- copyright infringement damages.” A fractional licensing mandate also would “upend countless industry agreements, including with program suppliers, that have been negotiated and agreed upon in reliance on the existing music performance rights system,” the broadcast groups said. DOJ was expected to release a final decision as soon as Monday, but it’s unclear whether a request from House IP Subcommittee Vice Chairman Doug Collins, R-Ga., and four other House Judiciary Committee members for an independent review of the consent decrees (see 1607200075) will delay the department’s announcement, an industry lobbyist told us.