China and India have room for improvement in intellectual property (IP) rights enforcement, though China demonstrates progress, said Teresa Rea, deputy director of the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) before the House IP Subcommittee Wednesday.
Court of International Trade activity
The European Parliament should refuse consent to the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, the International Trade Committee (INTA) said Thursday. It voted 19-12 to approve the draft report by David Martin, of the U.K. and Socialists and Democrats, nixing an amendment that would have pushed back the final vote until the European Court of Justice (ECJ) rules on European Commission questions about whether the pact violates fundamental rights. The decision by the lead committee follows its rejection by all of the other committees vetting ACTA. A plenary vote dealing the final death blow is expected July 4. Civil liberties groups were elated.
Three European Parliament panels vetting the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement urged the lead committee to refuse consent to the controversial pact, they said Thursday. Opposition from the Civil Liberties (LIBE) and Industry (ITRE) committees was expected, but the Legal Affairs (JURI) Committee’s stance surprised one digital rights activist. But the close votes, and the European Commission’s determination to press on, mean the treaty is likely still in play, European Digital Rights Advocacy Coordinator Joe McNamee said.
Claims and counter-claims about the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement flew Wednesday at a lively European Parliament Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) Committee workshop on the controversial treaty. Much of the criticism of ACTA is based on very selective readings of its text, said Anders Jessen, head of unit for public procurement and intellectual property (IP) at the European Commissioner for Trade Directorate. He constantly urged foes to cite chapter and verse on where the agreement allegedly violates fundamental rights.
The Obama administration believes it’s “critical to find a smart innovation-leaning balance” to cybersecurity legislation, said Danny Weitzner, White House deputy chief technology officer for Internet policy. And part of the balance is for the government to have authority to ensure that companies that have “our critical infrastructure are engaging in adequate security practices,” he said at the Computer & Communications Industry Association’s Washington caucus.
Every political group in the European Parliament looks set to reject the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, members of the House’s International Trade (INTA) Committee said during a debate Wednesday in Brussels. “It’s clear to me ACTA will be rejected by Parliament,” said INTA Chairman Vital Moreira, of Portugal and the Socialists and Democrats (S&D). Lawmakers should make it a “dead letter,” said David Martin, of the U.K. and S&D, who’s writing the response for the lead committee vetting the pact. The European Commission continued to defend the treaty and to try to counter ongoing criticisms, but it will now probably have to decide what its next steps are if Parliament nixes ACTA.
The European Parliament should reject the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, said the author of the response to the controversial treaty from the Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) Committee Tuesday. ACTA takes a one-size-fits-all approach to counterfeiting, copyright and trademark infringements that fails to meet the unique needs of each sector; doesn’t define key terms; and creates a legal fog for companies, technology users, and Internet platform and service providers, Amelia Andersdotter of Sweden and the Greens/European Free Alliance said in a draft report. Separately, the pact’s Internet provisions came under fire Tuesday from the European privacy watchdog, which said they don’t adequately balance intellectual property (IP) rights enforcement with privacy and data protection.
TiVo fired back at Motorola Mobility, claiming the set-top box supplier along with its customer Time Warner Cable infringed three patents, including the so-called time-warp patent that’s been at the heart of recent multimillion-dollar settlements. Google has agreed to buy Motorola. TiVo on Monday filed counterclaims in U.S. District Court, Tyler, Texas, in response to a patent infringement suit Motorola filed against it in February 2011. TiVo also asked to have Motorola’s three DVR-related patents found invalid. Motorola sued TiVo alleging it infringed three patents, including those covering a DVR with archival storage and a method for implementing playback features for compressed video that were originally issued in 2001 and 1999 to Imedia Corp.
The Justice Department should be “vigilant in monitoring the anticompetitive use of standard essential patents” and consult with the International Trade Commission in investigations of alleged infringement, said top Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Antitrust Subcommittee Chairman Herb Kohl, D-Wis., sent a letter Thursday to Attorney General Eric Holder on the DOJ Antitrust Division’s decisions to allow Google’s acquisition of Motorola Mobility, and Apple, Microsoft and Research In Motion’s acquisitions of Nortel patents. “While we take no position on the merits of the acquisitions, we take seriously the concern raised by the Department about the potential for ‘inappropriate use of [standard essential patents] to disrupt competition … particularly as they relate to smartphones and computer tablets,'” Leahy and Kohl said. “We share the Department’s concern that patent holders may choose to seek an exclusionary order from the International Trade Commission (ITC) in a manner that would threaten competition, rather than simply dispute the reasonable terms of the license in court in a way that would allow continued use by competitors. The misuse of ITC exclusion orders to prevent rival technologies poses a significant threat to competition and innovation, especially where competitors have developed products based on a mutual commitment within a standard-setting organization to license standard essential patents on reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms.” Leahy and Kohl believe that ITC exclusion orders may have “anticompetitive effects” if “a patent is part of a standard and is encumbered by an agreement to license the patent on reasonable and nondiscriminatory terms,” they said.
An Arizona company is marketing license preparation services for spectrum the FCC is not even close to making available, is not accepting applications for, and which may have little value when it does, Communications Daily learned from company documents and interviews. The company, Smartcomm LLC of Phoenix, also has charged up to 280 times what others are charging for similar license preparation services.