The International Trade Commission set the first settlement conference for Aug. 7 in its Tariff Act Section 301 investigation into Sharp allegations that Vizio and its suppliers are infringing five Sharp LCD display patents (see 2007010053). The second settlement conference is scheduled for Dec. 17, said Administrative Law Judge Dee Lord’s order (login required) posted in docket 337-TA-1201. Lord’s order set a Sept. 27, 2021, target date for completing the investigation.
Registration for the Sept. 3-5 IFA 2020 show opened Wednesday, the same day the EU lifted some travel restrictions, but won't allow residents of the U.S., where COVID-19 isn't contained, to enter its external borders. IFA organizers “very much hope that the travel restrictions for US travelers will be eased” by the beginning of September and that “physical participation” in the show will "be possible -- hopefully without a quarantine,” emailed spokesperson Nicole von der Ropp Thursday. The EU says it will revisit the travel-ban policy every two weeks. IFA organizers said they're confident conditions will permit a vastly downsized in-person event at the Messe Berlin fairgrounds, limited to 4,000 people daily (see 2005190035). Samsung announced Tuesday it was pulling out and will stage its own virtual event in early September.
Vizio denies allegations in Sharp’s complaint (see 2005220045) at the International Trade Commission that it “engaged in unfair competition” via Tariff Act Section 337 violations, said the vendor's response (login required) posted Wednesday in docket 337-TA-1201. Commissioners voted May 20 to open an investigation into the allegations Vizio conspired with its panel maker Xianyang CaiHong Optoelectronics and TV set assembler TPV to infringe LCD display patents. The patent claims are “invalid or unenforceable and cannot support any contention for alleged infringement,” said Vizio. Sharp didn’t comment.
The pandemic “accelerated” consumer e-commerce adoption, said Brie Carere, FedEx executive vice president-chief marketing and communications officer, on a fiscal Q4 call Tuesday. E-commerce increased to 27% of U.S. retail in April, from 16% in calendar 2019, partly because “total retail contracted” during coronavirus lockdowns, she said. FedEx expects e-commerce as a percentage of retail will stay “elevated,” said Carere. “This shift has left an indelible mark on the retail industry, causing the bankruptcy of some chains that have been around for decades.” E-commerce helped retailers “with a strong omnichannel strategy flourish,” she said. “Surging” e-commerce sales from large retail customers drove a “sizable mix shift” to direct-to-consumer residential volume from commercial business-to-business transactions in Q4 ended May 31, said Carere. U.S. residential volume was 72% of revenue in the quarter compared with 56% a year earlier, she said. Carere thinks the strong shift to e-commerce was “structural,” not temporary: “We have seen a huge uptick in the categories that people are willing to purchase online.” FedEx saw that trend develop pre-COVID, “but it has accelerated when you think about things like furniture, large packages, high-value electronics,” she said. COVID-19 brought a “huge change in who is buying online,” especially 65-and-older consumers, she said. “I do not anticipate that these buying behaviors will revert back.” Wednesday, the stock closed up 12% at $156.66.
Calendar 2020 estimates for “end-unit” sales of smartphones are “meaningfully lower” than pre-COVID-19, “even though estimates for enterprise laptops and Chromebooks have increased,” said Micron CEO Sanjay Mehrotra. “Reduced level of global economic activity has also curtailed near-term demand.” The pandemic's impact on Micron’s production early in Q3, which ended May 28, was limited to two “back-end assembly and test sites” in Malaysia, he told investors Monday. See here for Q3 details.
The “predictive text” functionality on LG’s Risio 3 prepaid smartphone for Cricket Wireless infringes two patents for an “automatic dynamic contextual data entry completion system,” alleged the patents’ owner, Mountech, in a complaint (in Pacer) Monday in U.S. District Court in Wilmington, Delaware. One patent (7,991,784) was granted in August 2011. The other (8,311,805) dates to November 2012. Both name New Yorker Prashant Parikh as the sole inventor, but neither lists an assignee. LG “has committed these acts of infringement without license or authorization,” it said. Mountech “has suffered monetary damages and is entitled to a monetary judgment in an amount adequate” to compensate it for LG’s infringement, plus “interests and costs,” it said. “As a matter of policy, LG doesn't generally comment on such pending legal actions,” emailed a spokesperson.
The COVID-19 pandemic is harming Sony “production, development, sale and distribution” of products and services in all segments, said the company’s annual report posted Monday at the SEC, saying Sony expects “this negative impact” to continue well into the future, but it doesn’t risk delaying the holiday launch of the PlayStation 5. Sony-owned factories in China and Thailand making digital cameras and smartphones “are currently operating as usual,” it said. Sony’s retail sales are down “significantly due to the closure of retail stores globally,” said the report. Work-from-home orders and the ban on international flights due to the coronavirus “presented some challenges” in bringing the PS5 to market in time for the holiday, said the report. Sony encountered delays in the PS5 “testing process and the qualification of production lines,” it said. Development is “progressing” well, and “no major problems have arisen in the game software development pipeline,” it said.
Revenue in CalAmp’s LoJack business was $6.6 million in Q1 ended May 31, down from $11.2 million in Q4, said Chief Financial Officer Kurt Binder on a Thursday investor call. It’s the first time CalAmp broke out that stolen-vehicle recovery business it bought four years ago, he said. Executives charted a future for that business. The stock closed 8.9% higher Friday at $8.37. It's moving to "aggressively transition it to a subscription-based business model” from a one-time stand-alone device sale, said Binder. He blamed the revenue decline on the “slowdown in device installations” due to the COVID-19 pandemic shutdown. Installations “got better” as fiscal Q1 progressed, and “more of the markets around the country opened up,” said interim CEO Jeff Gardner. “But it was a struggle.” Reopenings take place “at a different pace,” “depending on the region or the state,” he said. LoJack is “challenged from a performance perspective,” said Gardner. “It's one of my top objectives to begin transitioning this business to a recurring revenue model that offers significant value to our dealer partners and their customers, similar to a model that we provide to all of our international businesses.” The business suffers because its “legacy” product runs on a proprietary RF frequency out of step with the automotive industry, said Gardner: “The world's really moving to telematics,” and LoJack is playing catchup.
BlackBerry CEO John Chen acknowledges it was “a rough year for our share price and our equity value,” but he and the board are “extremely bullish about our going-forward plan,” he told the company’s annual shareholder meeting virtually Tuesday. The ambition is to become the “must-have software provider for endpoints,” said Chen. BlackBerry sees a $38 billion market opportunity in helping “people that build devices” for the smart home or smart city, he said. The compound annual growth rate of the software business has been about 20% the past four years, said Chen. “We're pretty pleased with that number,” but “we're working very hard to make it higher than that,” he said. The “technology lab” was created about a year ago, he said. “We’ve done a lot of good stuff,” including the automotive cybersecurity tech it demonstrated at CES to “predict certain fault conditions in the car,” he said. Shares closed 3.5% lower Wednesday at $4.92.
Chief information officers are “working very quickly on digitizing archaic paper-based processes,” Adobe Executive Vice President Bryan Lamkin told a Morgan Stanley investor conference virtually Monday. The digitization of paper documents and physical signatures, a low CIO priority four months ago, “really ratcheted up very quickly” amid the “disruption” of COVID-19, said Lamkin, general manager-digital media operations. Even for families not sending kids to school or on field trips, there’s “still a lot of permission that needs to go on in the virtual environment for distance learning,” said Lamkin. “Those are all moving aggressively to digital workflows.” Adobe wants to expand its “document cloud” strategy “pretty dramatically,” said Lamkin. PDF is “king on the desktop,” he said. “How do we take that beyond the desktop plan and embed frictionless services within mobile” for delivery “within the context of the web environment”?