MPEG LA continues to "move forward" toward forming an ATSC 3.0 patent pool, "with hopes of having a pool license out early next year," emailed spokesperson Tom O'Reilly Tuesday. More than a dozen companies expressed interest in joining a 3.0 pool, O'Reilly told us earlier this year (see 1802170001). MPEG LA announced a call for 3.0-essential patents, the first step in the patent pool formation process, nearly 16 months ago.

The Copyright Royalty Board published a final rule Monday setting January 2019-December 2023 royalty rates for making ephemeral copies of sound recordings for transmission to business establishments. It sets royalty fees at 12.5 percent for 2019, increasing by 0.25 percent each year.

Better protecting U.S. intellectual property rights should be a high priority in negotiating a new trade agreement with Japan, tech groups urged the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative in comments posted this month in docket USTR-2018-0034. USTR sought comment in late October to develop U.S. negotiating positions with the aim of addressing “both tariff and non-tariff barriers and to achieve fairer, more balanced trade.” A “flexible” and “balanced” IP “regime” is critical “for the continued growth of the digital economy,” said the Computer & Communications Industry Association. A U.S.-Japan free trade agreement “should reflect the two trading partners’ commitments to preserving limitations and exceptions in copyright law needed to further innovation,” said CCIA. U.S. trade policy “has long reflected domestic copyright principles by including necessary intermediary protections for online services in trade agreements dating back to 2003,” it said. The “single most important part” of the semiconductor manufacturing industry is its IP, said SEMI, the industry’s top supply-chain trade group. Continued technological development “requires significant resource commitments, and as such, strong global intellectual property protections are a top priority,” it said. “The ability to leverage this intellectual property means that companies in this industry can engage in trade and reinvest revenue into research.” SEMI strongly supports efforts to better protect IP, “and encourages greater enforcement of trade and investment rules,” it said. A Semiconductor Industry Association top negotiating priority is a U.S.-Japan trade deal that ensures access to encryption products, said SIA. “We recommend that all U.S. trade agreements contain specific commitments preventing parties from placing discriminatory restrictions on commercial foreign products with encryption,” said SIA. It also wants a trade agreement that bolsters protections of trade secrets, which remain “extremely vulnerable, especially in jurisdictions with weak laws and/or enforcement practices," it said. SIA warned about "misappropriation of trade secrets enabled or encouraged" by government industrial policy. Comments were due by midnight Monday. The U.S. Office of the Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator received comments last week as it looks to put together its next three-year joint strategic plan (see 1811260014).

Given the time and resources the U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia, spent on previous copyright litigation against Cox, it makes sense for it to handle similar civil claims brought by music labels (see 1808020009), Judge Liam O'Grady said in a docket 18-cv-00950-LO-JFA memorandum opinion (in Pacer) Monday denying a Cox motion to transfer the case. O'Grady said though Cox claims the court's decision in the BMG suit on Digital Millennium Copyright Act safe harbor protection won't be relevant to the new suit by Sony Music and others, that ruling "will at the very least touch on the issues presented here." Conversely, the Northern District of Georgia, where Cox seeks transfer, hasn't had occasion to examine the DMCA issue, he said. Cox didn't comment Tuesday.

The Copyright Office extended comments to Nov. 26 for a rulemaking on “noncommercial use of pre-1972 sound recordings that are not being commercially exploited” (see 1810160023). Replies are due Dec. 11, the office said Tuesday.

It’s “not resolved” whether CTA members have the will to file a lawsuit to block tariffs on Chinese imports before they rise to 25 percent Jan. 1, CTA President Gary Shapiro told us at CTA Unveiled New York Thursday. The association hired Akin Gump to draft a court complaint and is shopping it to other trade groups seeking support (see 1810290025). “It will take an action” from the Trump administration to stop the hike, Shapiro told us. President Donald Trump and Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping agreed to meet later this month, and “one report said they’re even going to have dinner” together, Shapiro noted. “If it’s a very successful dinner, we can avoid a depression. We’re hoping there’s some sort of deal cut or delay.”

Google efforts to fight online piracy include building an advertising blocker into the Chrome browser that filters ads from web pages that don't comply with industry quality standards, and recent launch of its Copyright Match Tool for finding near-identical re-uploads of creator videos on YouTube, the company said Wednesday. It said it has launched multiple initiatives to provide legitimate alternatives as part of search results. The five principles in its anti-piracy efforts are creating "convenient, legitimate" piracy alternatives; "rooting out and ejecting" pirate sites from its advertising and payment services; using scalable copyright removal processes; guarding against false infringement allegations; and providing transparency. It said search isn't a major driver of traffic to pirate sites, and search can't eradicate pirate sites, while whole-site removals "are ineffective and over-censor content." The company reported YouTube paid $3 billion to rights holders for video content, and October 2017-September 2018 it paid $1.8 billion in advertising revenue for the music industry. It removed 3 billion URLs from search for infringing copyright.

Chairman Joe Simons recused himself from the FTC’s Qualcomm case in California federal court claiming anti-competitive patent licensing behavior (see 1809190041), an agency spokesperson said Tuesday. The spokesperson declined to give a reason. Simons previously was a partner at Paul Weiss, which has represented Qualcomm. Simons’ recusal divides the commissioners evenly along party lines, and the commission wouldn't act in a 2-2 vote. Documents Simons submitted to the agency disclosing his previous clients and investments don't list any Qualcomm entities. A federal judge on Tuesday denied a joint request from the FTC and Qualcomm to delay the ruling to allow for settlement talks.

Samsung filed last week to register four U.S. trademarks for the “Infinity” display, the bezel-less screen it first introduced on Galaxy S8 smartphones, Patent and Trademark Office records show. Samsung filed similar applications a few days earlier in India, say the records. The applications are to trademark “Infinity-O,” “Infinity-Flex,” “Infinity-U” and “Infinity-V,” they say. Samsung didn’t comment.

Samsung filed applications last week in South Korea and the U.S. to register a trademark for the SmartThings IoT subsidiary it bought four years ago (see 1408180053), Patent and Trademark Office records show. The trademark consists of Korean characters in “stylized font” that “transliterate” to SmartThings but have “no meaning in a foreign language,” said the applications. Wednesday, the company didn’t comment.