Samsung withdrew its European application to register “HDR10" as a trademark Aug. 16, weeks after the EU Intellectual Property Office, acting on opposition from LG Electronics, ruled the application “not eligible,” according to documents on EUIPO’s website (login required). Months earlier, Samsung abandoned an attempt (see 1703150031) to register HDR10 at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Samsung declined to comment Thursday. After late-March publication of the application, EUIPO received “third party observations” from LG that “give rise to serious doubts concerning the eligibility of the trade mark for registration and therefore the Office decided to re-examine the application,” the agency told Samsung in an Aug. 1 letter.
Legislation in the Wisconsin Assembly containing provisions of a deal Foxconn CEO Terry Gou signed with Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) to bring a $10 billion display plant to Kenosha (see 1708110033) cleared the Jobs and Economy Committee Monday 8-5 along party lines. That the site is a 20-minute drive north of Illinois is fueling Assembly fear the jobs could go to Illinois residents, so committee Republicans wrote a successful amendment to thwart that scenario. It directs Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. (WEDC) to try “to the extent possible” to negotiate “terms” into the Foxconn contract that “encourage” the company to hire Wisconsin residents. Republicans defeated an amendment by Rep. Tod Ohnstad (D) of Kenosha that would have forced Foxconn to refund up to $3 billion in cash “tax credits” if the company “fails to demonstrate to the satisfaction” of WEDC that Wisconsin-resident job applicants “are accorded preference over other applicants having substantially equal relevant qualifications and credentials.” Ohnstad was “disappointed,” he said. Courts have found laws requiring employers give hiring preferences to state residents are invalid forms of nonresident discrimination under the 14th Amendment's Privileges and Immunities Clause, said Barbara Gadbois of the law firm Gibbs Giden. “Nothing in the language” of Ohnstad’s amendment “would create a safe harbor” protection from a constitutional challenge, Gadbois said Tuesday. The contract bears watching to see if it stands on firm constitutional footing, said the specialist in construction and public contracts law.
CTA President Gary Shapiro took President Donald Trump to task for comments Trump made Tuesday blaming “both sides” for last weekend’s violence during a white supremacists’ rally in Charlottesville, Virginia (see 1708150020). “Generally I do not comment or write about social issues (other than those involving the LGBT community),” Shapiro emailed us Wednesday. “But I think it is fair to say that American businesses and especially the tech industry believes that our economy is best served by a president who unites us,” said Shapiro. By most “objective measures,” Trump is “fulfilling his famous campaign promise to ‘Make America Great Again,’" Shapiro wrote last week (see 1708110003).
Though mainstreaming of 4K is barely underway, papers scheduled to be presented at the next SMPTE technical conference will delve into viability of 8K for displays and broadcasts, said the just-released conference program. The technical conference opens Oct. 24 in Hollywood for three days. With demos showcasing the future of 8K already prevalent at “major industry conferences and shows,” the “value of 8K as a storytelling tool deserves further consideration,” said an abstract of a paper by advanced-imaging specialist Pierre Routhier, former Technicolor vice president-global 3D strategy. Routhier thinks progress in bandwidth and compression could be “more effectively leveraged” in delivery of "better" pixels. With NHK poised to launch 8K broadcasting services next year as a prelude to 8K Super Hi-Vision coverage of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, a paper from NHK research engineer Tomohiro Nakamura will describe “multi-format” 8K camera system NHK developed for portability and to address the motion-blur problem, his abstract said.
The UHD Alliance will have more ubiquitous market presence and “expanded vision” under its new chairman, Warner Bros. Vice President-Technology Michael Zink, and new president, Mike Fidler, a former Sony and Pioneer executive, Fidler told us. The “original focus” of the alliance, formed at CES two years ago, was developing specifications, “and that’s still going to be a core part of the direction,” said Fidler. Members “also understood there was a need in the marketplace for greater education around the entire UHD category,” he said. “It’s very important for consumer education to be at a broader level of support coming out of the alliance.” Outgoing alliance President Hanno Basse, Fox Films chief technology officer, conceded at the NAB Show that he wished the Ultra HD Premium logo had wider market presence (see 1704240064). The alliance wants to boost membership to include the “traditional audio companies” and wants more participation from content companies, he said. The alliance also wants to expand its outreach to “the broadcast community, and how that evolves into an effective way to deliver a premium experience,” he said.
The Wisconsin Assembly’s Democratic Caucus members pressed leaders of the nonpartisan Legislative Fiscal Bureau on ramifications of $3 billion in cash incentives Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) agreed to grant Foxconn to build a $10 billion plant near Kenosha (see 1708040060). Terms of the memorandum of understanding Walker signed with Foxconn CEO Terry Gou are incorporated in a bill pending in a special session of the Assembly that Walker called to consider the legislation. Though Republicans hold majorities in both chambers, Democrats made clear in Thursday's webcast hearing that they won't acquiesce quietly. “Treat me like an idiot and just give me the numbers,” said the most outspoken of these, Rep. Jason Fields (D). “What are we giving and what are we getting” in return? Fields asked Fiscal Bureau Program Director Rob Reinhardt. What the state pays out in payroll incentives depends on how many Wisconsin employees Foxconn actually hires and how much it pays them, said Reinhardt. What if the deal “goes to hell?” Fields asked. “How are we protected? That’s really what everybody wants to know.” Were Foxconn to “tell us next month, 'Sorry, we’re going to Ohio,' then we’ve wasted a lot of time here, but we didn’t give them any money,” responded Reinhardt.
Nvidia’s autonomous-driving “road map” will include “development partnerships” it forges this year and next with a “growing number of car companies” on nonrecurring engineering and artificial intelligence projects, said CEO Jen-Hsun Huang on an earnings call. Beginning in 2018, he expects “robot taxis.” Huang expects fully autonomous “branded cars will start hitting the road around 2020 and 2021." He thinks cryptocurrency “is here to stay,” he also said Thursday: "This is a market that is not likely to go away anytime soon, and the only thing that we can probably expect is that there will be more currencies to come. It will come in a whole lot of different nations."
Disney envisions the ESPN-branded livestreaming service that debuts next year as becoming “a dynamic sports marketplace that will grow and be increasingly customizable,” said CEO Bob Iger on an earnings call, while also optimistic about his company's relationship with Netflix despite pulling some movies from the streaming service. The $1 billion investment Disney made a year ago to buy 33 percent of BAMTech gave the company “a good perspective on just how strong and high quality” an ESPN livestreaming service offering can be, said Iger. Amid “trends we're seeing,” including the “dramatic” increase in “app-based media consumption,” Disney seized the “opportunity," he said. Paying $1.58 billion more to now have 75 percent of BAMTech, as Disney announced Tuesday it will do (see 1708080065), “gives us immediate access to the team and the technology we need to deliver the highest-quality direct-to-consumer experience, which ultimately gives us much greater control of our own destiny in a rapidly changing market,” said Iger later that day. He wouldn’t comment directly on the ESPN brand’s “potential pricing power going forward,” when asked whether there’s an opportunity with the new livestreaming service to show linear ESPN is undervalued within MVPD bundles. Iger conceded ESPN “suffered a bit from the overall impact of digital technology and new forms of media consumption.” On pulling films from Netflix starting in 2019 to feed content to the Disney-branded service debuting that year, it applies for now to Disney and Pixar titles, said Iger, not Marvel and Lucasfilm. There has been “talk” inside Disney about launching “proprietary” Marvel or Star Wars over-the-top offerings, “but we're mindful of the volume of product that would go into those services, and we want to be careful,” he said. Disney has “had a great relationship" with Netflix, and he hopes that continues. Netflix licensed a "number" of ABC shows, and "we hope they'll continue to,” he said. That company didn’t comment Wednesday. Disney shares closed down 3.9 percent Wednesday at $102.83.
Fossil’s “successful entry” into wearables enabled the company “to expand our addressable market and to work with new wholesale partners in the consumer electronics channel,” said CEO Kosta Kartsotis on a Tuesday earnings call. On the call, the company announced a sizable loss in the second quarter and the stock market reacted Wednesday by dropping the closing share price to $8.87, a 25 percent decline. “But we didn't get as far as we wanted to" during Q2, said Kartsotis. “Much of our time has been spent finalizing the specifics around margin and other details given that this is a new distribution channel for us.” That CE "channel works a little bit differently,” said outgoing Chief Financial Officer Dennis Secor. Fossil suffered from a “lack of understanding exactly how that channel works ... we're catching up quick,” said Secor. The company named a board member to succeed Secor (see the personals section of this issue). “Our products are too big for female customers and female customers are our core,” he said. “We're just going to have a product that looks better; it feels better and allows for much better branding and design.”
CBS is in “the early stages” of developing a “24/7" livestreaming sports channel in the mold of its CBSN online news service, part of its over-the-top strategy, said CEO Leslie Moonves on a Monday earnings call. The new channel, which will debut later this year, “does not yet have a name,” but “we think sports fans are looking for something like this,” he said. CBSN “has been a terrific growth engine," with streams up 38 percent in Q2, he said. “We're now broadening its reach by making it available on CBS All Access, and for the first time as a stand-alone channel in skinny bundles.” On Monday's announcement that CBS All Access will expand internationally starting in 2018's first half, the plan is to debut the service first in Canada “and then follow that up with additional countries on multiple continents shortly thereafter,” said Moonves. “Over time, we will add content from across our corporation to make our service more and more attractive. We are very aware of the international success that other streaming companies have had. We now see a huge opportunity for CBS to go direct to consumer on a much bigger scale worldwide.” CBS All Access and Showtime's over-the-top service are on pace to exceed 4 million subscribers combined in 2017, said Moonves. “We're more than halfway to our goal of 8 million subs by 2020, which is obviously quite conservative now. These services are just starting to hit their stride with much more and bigger programming to come.” Showtime OTT will beam the Aug. 26 pay-per-view matchup between Floyd Mayweather and Conor McGregor direct to consumers, said Moonves. “This is the first time we've made a boxing or pay-per-view event available in this way."