The Disney Plus streaming service, launched in November, had 26.5 million paid subscribers at the Dec. 29 close of fiscal Q1 and added 2.1 million more through Monday, said Disney CEO Bob Iger on a Tuesday earnings call. Disney intends to announce paid subs “as of the end of the quarter we’re reporting on,” he said. “Conversions from free to pay and churn rates were better than we expected,” said Iger. He said Disney won't disclose "specifics" on those metrics. The “next big priority” is launching Disney Plus internationally, he said. The service will debut March 24 in eight Western European markets, including the U.K., France, Germany, Spain and Italy, he said. Belgium, the Nordics and Portugal “will follow this summer,” he said. Disney Plus will launch March 29 in India through Disney’s existing Hotstar service, said Iger. “We see this as a great opportunity to use the proven platform of Hotstar to launch the new Disney Plus service in one of the most populous countries and one of the fast-growing economies.”
U.S. importers of Chinese goods inundated the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative with more than 2,800 List 4A tariff-exclusion requests in the 24 hours before the web portal went dark as scheduled at 11:59 p.m. EST Friday, showed our docket review. A huge backlog of List 3 exclusion requests awaits USTR disposition.
Dish Network asked U.S. District Court in San Jose to “enforce” a “final judgment” ordering Albertis, a former Dish retailer in Puerto Rico, to pay the $92,731 arbitration award it owes the satellite TV company. Dish pursued arbitration after Albertis “garnered a significant amount of incentive payments” from Dish by submitting fraudulent reports making it appear that current and former customers were new subscribers, said Thursday's motion (in Pacer). Dish initiated the federal action in Denver to “confirm” the arbitration award it won, but Albertis “failed to make an appearance, file any responsive pleadings, or otherwise defend” itself, said Dish. Judge Daniel Domenico in Denver entered final judgment (in Pacer) in Dish’s favor Dec. 11. Attempts to reach Albertis representatives for comment Friday were unsuccessful.
The Patent and Trademark Office granted CTA its second deadline extension to file a statement of use (SOU) in its June 2018 application to trademark a certification logo for over-the-counter hearing aids (see 1806250018), agency records show. CTA created the logo to identify reputable OTC hearing aids for consumers with mild or moderate hearing loss that meet minimum performance specs in the ANSI/CTA-2051 standard approved in January 2017. PTO requires SOUs to prevent applicants from hoarding trademarks with no intention of using them in normal commerce. CTA is hamstrung from filing the SOU because it needs to await the FDA’s expected release by late summer of proposed rules establishing the OTC hearing-aid category under legislation President Donald Trump signed into law in August 2017 (see 2001170050). A trademark applicant is entitled to up to five SOU deadline extensions of six months each, but must file the SOU within three years after receiving PTO's notice of allowance (NOA) that clears the application for final approval. PTO issued CTA its hearing-aid NOA a year ago Wednesday.
Advocates for tech and for the disabled arguing against an International Trade Commission import ban on Google smart speakers (see 2001250004) aren't “disinterested” third parties, said Sonos (login required) in ITC docket 337-3428. “Most receive substantial funding from Google, which was largely undisclosed in their submissions.” The public, including those with disabilities, “will not lose access to these features when the accused products are excluded,” Sonos said. Other vendors “can and will fill any void created by the absence of the infringing Google products,” it said. “Google itself could choose to provide non-infringing products.” The third-party submissions don't “argue that Google is the only supplier of devices that can be used by disabled people to control home functions,” said Sonos. It cited Statista estimating more than “a dozen other manufacturers of smart speakers” would be available.
It’s “anybody’s guess” how the coronavirus outbreak will affect the Chinese supply chain after production workers are due to return from the Lunar New Year holiday, said Silicon Labs CEO Tyson Tuttle on a Q4 call Wednesday. “We’re reading the news just like everybody else,” said Tuttle. “Our forecast and guidance takes a normal return from Chinese New Year into account. Things just shut down, and we’re going to see if things start back up on a normal pace. Our hope is that that’s the case.” The stock closed 13 percent lower Wednesday at $102.76 after Silicon Labs reported a 30 percent operating-profit decline for the year that it blamed on "a challenging macro environment." Silicon Labs had been looking at “opening up” the Z-Wave standard “for quite some time” before doing so last month (see 1912200003), said Tuttle. “We are big believers in open standards, and to be able to drive broad adoption.” Z-Wave “performed very well in 2019,” he said. “We saw an opening,” he said of the timing to widen Z-Wave. A “number of customers” were looking toward Z-Wave as “the right solution for a sub-gigahertz standard,” he said. “It’s a very robust standard and it’s widely deployed. You’ve got 100-plus million units of devices deployed out in the market. As companies are looking for a sub-gigahertz standard, it was our belief that we have an opportunity to make sub-gigahertz the wireless standard for IoT.” Q4 sales fell slightly from the year-ago quarter to $219.4 million. They're expected to fall sequentially in Q1, to $209 million to $219 million, with "Infrastructure up, Broadcast flat, and declines in IoT and Access." The company said it may have a loss. "Despite a challenging macro environment, we are pleased to have outperformed the market with secular growth drivers in IoT and Infrastructure providing some offset to macro weakness," said Tuttle.
The many complicated “provisions” for implementing the U.S.-Canada-Mexico Agreement on free trade plausibly means July 1 is the “absolute earliest” it can “enter into force,” Nicole Bivens Collinson, international trade expert with Sandler Travis, told a Sports & Fitness Industry Association webinar Wednesday. President Donald Trump signed USMCA’s enabling legislation Wednesday, saying the agreement “contains critical protections for intellectual property, including trade secrets, digital services and financial services.”
CTA’s application to register NEXTGEN TV as a certification mark for ATSC 3.0-compliant consumer goods (see 1909190066) is scheduled for Feb. 25 Trademark Official Gazette publication, a Patent and Trademark Office status page shows. Opposition parties would have 30 days from that date to try to block the registration. A notice of allowance (NOA) would follow if the application clears the opposition period, giving CTA six months to file a statement of use (SOU), one of the last stages before the logo would proceed to a registration certificate. CTA, when it files the SOU, will provide “a copy of the standards governing the use of the certification mark” on 3.0-compliant goods that “have been evaluated to meet certain use and performance” metrics, said the association's Sept. 25 application. A “potential bar” in PTO’s approval of the NEXTGEN TV logo was lifted this month when Sharp let lapse at the Jan. 4 deadline for filing its SOU on a NXT-GEN consumer TV trademark and logo it applied for in December 2018 (see 2001140030). The application had progressed to the NOA stage in June, but PTO declared it dead Jan. 6. “With the pause in our efforts to re-enter the US consumer TV market,” Sharp was “not able to show usage on a product in the time period required to continue the trademark application so we had to give it up,” emailed Sharp Home Electronics President Jim Sanduski.
The “sweeping remedial orders” that Sonos asked the International Trade Commission to impose against Google (see 2001230001) “would remove from the stream of commerce products and functionalities that far exceed the scope” of the multiroom audio patents Sonos alleges were infringed, commented Google (login required) in ITC docket 337-3428. The products on which Sonos seeks an import ban “contain thousands of features beyond playing music on multiroom audio systems,” it said. Google smart speakers “allow users to control over 30,000 smart home devices, including in-home security systems, cameras, lights, switches, plugs, thermostats, and many other devices, using voice commands,” it said. They provide “significant benefits to users, particularly those with disabilities,” none of which “implicates any claimed invention” of the patents Sonos alleges were infringed, it said. Sonos also gave no evidence to back its “bare assertion” that smart speaker prices would rise only slightly from an import ban, said Google. Low price is “the most important factor for US consumers in purchasing a voice-controlled smart speaker,” and an import ban would harm the public interest if prices increased significantly, it said. Sonos didn't file a response.
A University of Michigan engineering professor accused Apple of stealing his invention for a wrist-mountable heart-rate monitor and using it in the Apple Watch. Apple is guilty of willful infringement of U.S. patent 10,517,484 because the professor, Mohammed Islam, discussed his then-patent-pending invention with Apple employees in at least three face-to-face meetings in Cupertino, California, between June 2014 and July 2016, alleged his complaint (in Pacer) Friday in U.S. District Court in San Francisco. Islam offered to license his technology to Apple during the encounters and in follow-up emails, but the company "declined," said the complaint. Apple emailed Islam in December 2017 and abruptly asked him to stop sharing his invention with the company, it said. Islam seeks damages “adequate to compensate for Apple’s infringement,” plus an order “permanently enjoining” the company from further infringement, it said. Apple didn’t comment Monday. Islam’s complaint is at least the second in recent weeks from an academic accusing Apple of misappropriating patents for cardiovascular functionality in the Apple Watch. Dr. Joseph Wiesel, a board-certified cardiologist on the faculty of the New York University School of Medicine, alleged last month that Apple stole his atrial fibrillation-detection invention and built it into the wearable, also after numerous “engagements” with the company in which he tried unsuccessfully to strike a licensing arrangement (see 1912310002).