Jimm Phillips

The Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division and the FTC support the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s (PTO) efforts to “provide more complete information regarding patent ownership to the public,” the agencies said in a joint filing that PTO released last week (http://xrl.us/bofojr). The filing was one of several submitted in response to PTO’s request for input on its proposal to change its rules on collecting and publishing real-party-in-interest (RPI) patent ownership information. PTO held a roundtable discussion on the proposal last month, at which Google, Hewlett-Packard and IBM expressed support for improved RPI collection (CD Jan 14 p8). PTO had proposed two versions of the rules -- “Broad” and “Limited” -- that would define RPI in different ways. Justice and the FTC said they support “an RPI definition that, at a minimum, includes the [ultimate parent entities] either by including all UPE in the ‘Broad’ definition, or by adopting the ‘Limited’ definition."

Sprint Nextel lost a net 337,000 subscribers across its networks during Q4, with growth on its CDMA and LTE networks only partially outweighing a heavy subscriber exodus from the soon-to-be-shuttered iDEN network used by its Nextel service subscribers. The carrier’s Sprint networks added 401,000 postpaid and 525,000 prepaid subscribers, while its Nextel network lost a net 1.02 million subscribers. Sprint said it also lost a net 243,000 wholesale subscribers. Sprint added a net 605,000 subscribers for the entire year, down from a net 5.1 million added in 2011. Exits by Nextel subscribers will continue to accelerate as the service nears its targeted shutdown in the middle of the year, Sprint CEO Dan Hesse said Thursday during a conference call with investors. Sprint said it expects it will see a diminishing percentage of exiting Nextel subscribers choose to join the remaining networks; about 51 percent of Nextel subscribers who terminated their service during Q4 chose to join other Sprint services (http://xrl.us/boff9q).

Cisco forecast major increases in mobile data traffic through 2017. Faster than previously projected increases in 4G adoption and Wi-Fi offloading bear watching, experts told us. Mobile data traffic will reach 134 exabytes per year -- 11.2 exabytes per month -- by the end of 2017, Cisco said Tuesday in a report. That would be 134 times the total Internet Protocol traffic generated in 2000. It would also be a gain from 2012, when consumers’ global mobile data traffic rose by 70 percent, Cisco said. Traffic reached 885 petabytes per month by the end of 2012 -- up from 520 petabytes per month at the end of 2011, said the maker of equipment for telecom firms to handle data. The monthly mobile data traffic in 2012 was nearly 12 times the total monthly Internet traffic generated in 2000 -- 75 petabytes per month, Cisco said. Global traffic will continue to increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 66 percent through 2017, Cisco said. North America will see growth slightly below the global average -- at a 56 percent CAGR -- to 2 exabytes per month in 2017, Cisco said (http://xrl.us/bigzmr).

Preparation for Superstorm Sandy’s landfall was key to New York-area broadcasters’ efforts to disseminate news and information to the public, said executives from Clear Channel Media and WABC during the FCC’s second hearing Tuesday on the storm’s communications impact. Others testified how Google and Twitter helped to fill the void left by outages in the area’s wireless and wireline communications networks.

The U.S. is experiencing an “historically high” patent grant rate after decades of increases, but the government’s patent system needs improvement, said the Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program Friday in a new report. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office granted 247,713 patents during 2011, a “record high” that follows steady increases in patent grant rates that extend back to 1985, Brookings said (http://xrl.us/bod6n4).

Vringo subsidiary I/P Engine filed a patent suit against Microsoft, claiming Microsoft violated two patents on search relevance filtering technology -- the patents I/P Engine used to successfully sue Google and others last year. The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in New York, alleges repeated violations of U.S. Patent Nos. 6,314,420 and 6,775,664. Vringo acquired the patents when it merged with I/P Engine; Lycos previously owned them (http://xrl.us/bodwup). A Microsoft spokeswoman said the company is “unable to ... comment at this time."

Samsung violated Apple’s design and utility patents, but its intent was “not willful,” U.S. District Judge Lucy Koh ruled late Tuesday, denying Apple’s request for additional damages on top of an existing damage award. A jury for the San Jose, Calif., federal court decided in late August that Apple should receive more than $1 billion in damages after it ruled Samsung had infringed multiple Apple patents on its mobile products (CD Aug 28/12 p6).

AT&T is buying 39 of Verizon Wireless’s lower 700 MHz B-block licenses for $1.9 billion cash and the transfer of several AWS licenses. The announcement quickly drew criticism from groups advocating for public interest concerns and the interest of smaller carriers. The AWS licenses that Verizon Wireless will receive in the deal cover western markets, including Los Angeles, Phoenix, Fresno and Portland, both carriers said. The two carriers are also pursuing related spectrum agreements through private equity firm Grain Management. AT&T said it will lease three 700 MHz B-block licenses in North Carolina that Verizon Wireless is selling to Grain for $189 million -- those cover the Charlotte, Greensboro and Raleigh-Durham markets. AT&T also plans to sell Grain an AWS license covering Dallas, which Verizon Wireless will then lease. The FCC and the Department of Justice will need to clear the transactions covered in the deal; AT&T said it anticipates those transactions will close in the second half of the year (http://xrl.us/bocbhj).

Major changes in the U.S. telecom marketplace in the 15 years since passage of the 1996 Telecom Act highlight the need for reforms to that legislation, said Free State Foundation President Randolph May Wednesday during an event. The pro-deregulation think tank was promoting its new book, Communications Law and Policy in the Digital Age, which focuses on how U.S. telecom law and policy should change over the next five years. Reforms should reflect changes to the marketplace since 1996 -- the switch from analog to digital, the switch from narrow-band to broadband networks and the switch from a mostly monopolistic marketplace to one that’s highly competitive, May said. “Those changes call for a new communications law, and certainly, absent waiting for the new law, changes in the direction of communications policy,” he said.

Verizon Wireless had a record-setting Q4, but its majority owner, Verizon Communications, said Tuesday that it had a $4.22 billion loss in earnings during the quarter due to changes to their benefits and pension plans, debt restructuring and costs related to Superstorm Sandy. Verizon Communications owns 55 percent of Verizon Wireless, and Vodafone the rest. Verizon Communications’ Q4 earnings loss was more than double its $2 billion loss at the same time in 2011. This year’s loss was despite a rise in total quarterly revenue to $30 billion -- the highest amount in 2012 and up from $28.4 billion at the same time in 2011, it said (http://xrl.us/bobv55).