NTIA is seeking comments and recommendations on priorities that best advance international communications and information policies at ITU, as the U.S. develops proposals and positions for the 2020 World Telecommunication Standardization Assembly. WTSA-20 will be in Hyderabad, India, Nov. 17-20. NTIA said it’s working with the State Department, which is “leading and coordinating” the preparation process. Comments are due June 8 in docket 200504–0126, said Friday's Federal Register. NTIA’s “principles and objectives” for WTSA-2020 align with the Thump administration’s 2017 national security strategy, “which affirmed that ‘the United States will advocate for open, interoperable communications, with minimal barriers to the global exchange of information and services,'" NTIA said. The U.S. is focused on furthering a multistakeholder approach to internet policy and increasing organizational effectiveness and reducing duplication at ITU, NTIA said. Other U.S. goals include increasing U.S. presence and influence in the ITU-telecom (ITU-T) sector and improving ITU-T processes, procedures and transparency, NTIA said.

Chinese smartphone imports to the U.S. recovered somewhat in March after setting record lows in February, said Census Bureau data accessed Wednesday through the International Trade Commission. China’s supply chain was in lockdown for much of February during the COVID-19 outbreak. Factory production resumed in mid-February. U.S. importers sourced 7.16 million smartphones from China in March, up 23% from February, when the 5.81 million smartphones shipped to America was the lowest monthly Chinese volume since Customs and Border Protection began tracking the category in 2007. Chinese smartphone imports in March were 38% fewer than the 11.69 million handsets sent here in the same 2019 month. Q1 Chinese smartphone imports of 23.9 million were 37% below the volume in Q1 2019. Q1 smartphone imports from all countries declined 32% from a year earlier to 35.97 million handsets.

The FCC asked China Telecom Americas (CTA) for clarity on the company's motion for 30 extra days, until June 23, to respond to an April 24 show cause order (see 2004240046). Executive branch agencies, led by DOJ, recently recommended the FCC revoke CTA's U.S. authorizations for international telecom services. Asking for more time, the company said “in some cases, the scope of the information required to respond to the questions is unclear” and it's seeking clarity from the bureau chiefs involved, said Monday's letter by the International, Wireline and Enforcement bureaus: “We are taking the extension request under advisement pending receipt of any such clarification request.” The letter asks the company to respond by May 11. The carrier said in a filing posted Monday the FCC should disclose “any and all” Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act-related information “obtained, or derived information related to CTA in the Commission’s possession.”

The Commerce Department drafted a regulation on U.S. companies participating in 5G standards-setting bodies involving Huawei. The rule is being discussed internally, said Matt Borman, deputy assistant secretary for export administration, at the department’s Information Systems Technical Advisory Committee meeting. Borman said the rule “will go a long way” toward addressing concerns from lawmakers and industry. Stakeholders said export controls hinder U.S. participation in standards-setting bodies, potentially ceding 5G leadership (see 2004100017). “That's what this draft reg is looking to get at,” Borman said Wednesday. “We certainly don’t want a situation where U.S. companies refrain from participating and then leave the standards field open to Huawei and other companies.” Commerce's Bureau of Industry and Security is continuing to process license applications for exports to Huawei, Borman added. “There's still a review as to whether additional regulatory steps will be taken vis-a-vis Huawei,” he said. “Those are still kind of under review internally.”

The Americans for Free Trade coalition wants the Trump administration to defer due dates for all federal duties and import fees payable through June, it wrote the White House and members of Congress Tuesday. Doing so would “immediately free up billions of dollars of working capital for American companies,” it said. “This cash is even more important for companies that have had to close their doors because of stay-at-home orders, leaving them with little to no revenue to make ends meet. Companies facing urgent liquidity issues need their duty payments deferred in order to succeed when the economy reopens.” More than 470 companies signed the letter, including Audio Control, Fossil, GameStop, JL Audio, Jasco Products and Voxx. CTA was among seven tech groups also signing, including ACT|The App Association and CompTIA. The White House didn’t comment.

Duplicates of customs broker records may be stored on servers outside the U.S. as long as the originals are stored on U.S. servers, Customs and Border Protection said. The March 10 ruling was disclosed by a stakeholder last week and confirmed to us by the recipient. The ruling requested by Craig Seelig at WiseTech Global examined WiseTech's use of a foreign server in Australia as a secondary site. The primary site would be in the U.S. CBP requires that for broker records stored on a server, the server must be located in the customs territory of the U.S., the agency replied. “This is where CBP has jurisdiction to issue a summons and inspect records.” There’s “no rule applicable to duplicate records,” the agency said. “It seems logical then that once the recordkeeping regulations are met, including 19 C.F.R. § 111.23(a), requiring that records be retained at any location within the customs territory of the United States, that duplicates of these records may be maintained outside the territory of the United States." Grunfeld Desiderio lawyer Alan Klestadt, who told a webinar of the ruling, said that, with a coming update to customs broker regulations, more cloud-based recordkeeping could come to be OK’d.

Comments are due May 8 at the International Trade Commission on Sharp’s April 21 complaint (login required) alleging Vizio and its suppliers, Xianyang CaiHong Optoelectronics Technology and TPV, violate five Sharp LCD patents, says Tuesday’s Federal Register, docket 337-3451. Sharp seeks limited exclusion and cease and desist orders banning imports of the allegedly infringing products. None of the proposed respondents commented Monday.

The Commerce Department’s unclear rollout of an export control on geospatial imagery software is causing industry confusion and could lead to broad, unintended impacts on exports of certain artificial intelligence, industry representatives said in interviews last week. “For these companies who now have to supply software without AI, it's like supplying a human body without blood,” said Sanjay Kumar, CEO of the World Geospatial Industry Council. “It will make it impossible for some companies to continue doing business how they were before.” The interim final rule released in January was criticized by industry for unclear definitions that made it difficult for some in the AI field to determine whether the rule applies to them. “That lack of definitions is creating, at best, confusion,” said Jennifer O’Bryan, chair of Commerce’s Sensors and Instrumentation Technical Advisory Committee. Some terms in the rule, such as deep convolutional neural networks, rotational normalization and rotational patterns, “desperately need some sort of definition to make sure that they don't intrude on certain purely commercial technology spaces that use similar AI software,” said O’Bryan, government affairs director for SPIE, an international society for optics and photonics. Stakeholders wish Commerce had issued the rule for public comment before it took effect, saying industry expertise is critical for export controls that involve complex technologies. “To put out an interim rule or a draft rule and have it go into effect immediately before there's any period of public comment just seems incongruous with the principles that we grow up with in this democracy,” said Barbara Ryan, World Geospatial Industry Council policy adviser. The department's Bureau of Industry and Security declined comment.

Comments are due April 30 on an import ban Universal Electronics seeks on Funai, Hisense, Roku and TCL devices that allegedly infringe its patents, said Wednesday’s Federal Register. Streaming players, TVs, set-top boxes and remote controllers imported by the four companies and their affiliates infringe its patented QuickSet technology, which automates the configuration and control of remote controls and home entertainment devices by capturing control codes from remote controls or written specifications, it told the International Trade Commission April 16. The four companies didn’t comment.

The COVID-19 pandemic's economic impact will send global IT spending in 2020 to a 2.7% decline, reported IDC Tuesday. Hospitality and “tourism-heavy” industries likely will be the most negatively affected, with IT spending declining by 5% or more, said IDC. More "recession resistant" industries like government will fare better, increasing slightly in 2020, it said. IT spending in healthcare and telecom is “also forecast to grow slightly” as those segments “respond to new demands presented by the pandemic,” it said.