Vodafone will license its LTE “standard essential” intellectual property through the Via Licensing one-stop patent pool, said the pool’s administrator Monday. Vodafone is the 21st licensor to join the LTE pool, it said.

A spike in fraudulent trademark applications, mostly from China, is blocking new innovation and harming small businesses, said House Intellectual Property Subcommittee Chairman Hank Johnson, D-Ga., at a hearing Thursday. He’s crafting legislation to combat frivolous trademark applications (see 1905090055). Congress needs to know what additional authority the Patent and Trademark Office might need to address that issue, plus data about the prevalence of counterfeit goods online, said ranking member Martha Roby, R-Ala. Commissioner for Trademarks Mary Boney Denison highlighted PTO efforts to thwart bad trademark applications, including requiring foreign applicants hire a U.S. lawyer to hold them accountable and auditing post-registration maintenance filings for irregularities. The agency is updating its examination guidance and training for employees and creating a task force to develop additional remedies, she said. A new electronic database will also help, as will updated requirements for specimens, voluntary updates to trademarks and providing education to applicants on use and commerce, said the official. House Judiciary ranking member Doug Collins, R-Ga., targeted e-commerce platforms, which some say aren’t doing enough to combat counterfeit goods online. Roby said phony items have an economic impact and carry human health and safety risks. E-commerce platforms “have the choice to aggressively protect consumers from counterfeits and show respect for others’ property rights, but brand owners argue some are making a merely cosmetic effort,” Collins said. He urged effective policies and practices that detect and block counterfeit sales automatically, swift response to consumer complaints and quick removal and banning of fraudulent sellers.

Qualcomm will appeal the $271 million European Commission fine for predatory pricing of its 3G baseband chipsets, it said Thursday. The antitrust investigation found the manufacturer held a dominant position in the global market for the chipsets 2009-11, and it abused its position by selling quantities of three of the chipsets below cost to Huawei and ZTE in an effort to eliminate rival Icera. Icera was becoming a viable supplier of the chipsets, posing a threat to Qualcomm's business. The EC based its decision on a price-cost test for the three Qualcomm chipsets, plus qualitative evidence showing the anticompetitive rationale. The fine considers the duration and seriousness and is 1.27 percent of Qualcomm's 2018 revenue. "This is the second antitrust fine that we've imposed on Qualcomm," said Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager. In 2018, the company got a $1.2 million fine because it granted exclusivity payments, she said: In both cases, Qualcomm's objective was to protect its dominant position in baseband chipsets to shut out rivals. Qualcomm slammed the "meritless nature" of the decision, saying the EC spent years "investigating sales to two customers, each of whom said that they favored Qualcomm chipsets not because of price but because rival chipsets were technologically inferior." The decision is based on a "novel theory of alleged below-cost pricing over a very short time period and for a very small volume of chips," it said. "There is no precedent for this theory, which is inconsistent with well developed economic analysis of cost recovery, as well as Commission practice."

Register of Copyrights Karyn Temple’s testimony before the Senate Intellectual Property Subcommittee was rescheduled for 2:30 p.m. July 30 in 226 Dirksen, the committee said.

Comments are due Aug. 15 on proposed partial distribution of 2016 and 2017 satellite royalty funds, the Copyright Royalty Board said in a Federal Register notice Tuesday.

The Choose Your Own Adventure book series publisher doesn't point to anything explicitly misleading in Netflix's use of a reference to that series in its Black Mirror: Bandersnatch original production, as the 2nd Circuit's Rogers decision requires it to, Netflix said Friday in a court reply (in Pacer). The reply was in support of its motion to dismiss Netflix's amended claim. Chooseco is alleging trademark infringement and unfair competition (see 1901140004). Netflix said the "choose your own adventure" phrase is artistically relevant to Bandersnatch's story and structure. It said the phrase was dialogue in a lengthy work, and was never used to market the film, and there's no likelihood of confusion under the 2nd Circuit's Polaroid. Chooseco outside counsel didn't comment Monday.

Samsung asked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals not to disclose “highly confidential” royalty rate-related information in Qualcomm’s FTC antitrust case (see 1907090066). Qualcomm July 8 filed a motion that would make public Samsung’s royalty rate information previously sealed by a lower court. Samsung requested (in Pacer) emergency intervention Friday and a ruling on the request by July 29. If Qualcomm’s motion is granted, Samsung royalty rates “under two different licenses would be disclosed to third parties, including other current and future licensors and competitors who could misuse this information to Samsung’s competitive disadvantage,” Samsung said. The company “would face irreparable harm if its highly confidential effective royalty rates under two separate licenses were released publicly,” it said.

Samsung hatched a scheme at January 2012 CES to steal the trade secrets of mobile wallet solutions provider Dynamics and embed the stolen technology in at least 10 models of Galaxy smartphones dating to the S8, alleged a complaint Friday (in Pacer) in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. Samsung beckoned Dynamics CEO Jeffrey Mullin to leave his company’s CES booth on Day One of the show to meet with Samsung executives in a private Bellagio Hotel suite, said the complaint. Under a “duly executed” nondisclosure agreement signed at the Bellagio, Mullen “demonstrated Dynamics’s magnetic emulation technologies to Samsung personnel and discussed, pursuant to the NDA, how the technologies could be incorporated into a device,” it said. “At some point in time” after the Bellagio meetings with Mullen, Samsung began feeding the technological secrets, in violation of the NDA, to LoopPay, a Dynamics competitor that Samsung bought three years later (see 1502180051), it said. Without the Dynamics information Mullen disclosed to Samsung under the NDA, “neither LoopPay nor Samsung would have incorporated the magnetic emulation features into Samsung products that provide consumers with the ability to complete safe and secure financial and other transactions,” it said. “Dynamics is the rightful recipient and owner of at least the purchase price Samsung paid for LoopPay,” plus the “substantial revenue” directly related to the technologies Mullen disclosed at CES to Samsung under the NDA, it said. Samsung never publicly disclosed what it paid for LoopPay, but Dynamics believes it to be roughly $250 million, it said. Samsung didn’t comment Friday.

After many associations urged the Commerce Department to grant more time for comments on its next advance NPRM for foundational technologies, officials said it will consider the request but suggested industry has ample time. “There’s no surprise that it’s coming,” said Rich Ashooh, assistant secretary-export administration, at the Bureau of Industry and Security’s annual export controls conference this week. Nazak Nikakhtar, undersecretary-industry and security, said companies should have given “quite a bit of thought” to foundational technologies already. “That it’s been out there for a while, and everybody knows the foundational technology piece is coming, hopefully businesses have given thoughts to their comments.” Nikakhtar said BIS plans the notice “very, very soon.” BIS plans its first proposed set of rules for export controls on emerging technologies in “weeks, but not months,” Ashooh said. But Nikakhtar said Commerce is moving slowly to make sure it's fully “understanding the technologies, understanding the applications” and “going about this in the right way.” Ashooh said the upcoming controls won’t be a “categorical rule” on broad groups of technologies but instead will be applied slowly to individual components. He said BIS is working on controls on one “basket” of technologies and will continue to issue more controls as they're created. “This process will have no end,” he said. “It will continue as technologies continue.”

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals should stay a lower court’s antitrust judgment (see 1905220035) against Qualcomm as the company seeks to reverse the patent-licensing decision, the defendant asked (in Pacer), posted Tuesday. The chipmaker is looking to avoid renegotiating licensing agreements with phone manufacturers, warning the judgement would "fundamentally change the way it has done business for decades." The FTC sued the chipmaker, claiming Qualcomm has a mobile chip monopoly.