The Patent and Trademark Office's Patent Trial and Appeal Board was correct when it declared invalid an Intertainer patent for creating and distributing videos with clickable links, said the U.S Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit in an opinion (in Pacer) Friday affirming PTAB's 2015 decision. Hulu had challenged the patent. Intertainer challenged PTAB's construction of various claim terms, but the Federal Circuit decision by Judges Raymond Chen and Kara Stoll and written by Sharon Prost dismissed those arguments. Intertainer didn't comment Monday.

Broadband iTV, Hawaiian Telecom, Oceanic Time Warner Cable and Time Warner Cable are arguing over whether the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit's ruling (in Pacer) earlier this month on McRo v. Bandai Namco Games America is applicable to BBiTV's appeal (see 1604070068) of a U.S. District Court's 2015 ruling on its patent violation litigation. The TWC appellees in a letter (in Pacer) Friday in the Federal Circuit said McRo has no impact on this case and BBiTV's letter "seems to be a pretext" for arguing about the patent containing a technological solution for transferring control of electronic program guide (EPG) from cable operators to content providers, but that argument was never presented in District Court or in BBiTV's briefing. There's nothing in the claims about EPG control transfer, and the patent claims automation only for a process done by hand, TWC said. In its citation of supplemental authority letter (in Pacer) earlier this month, BBiTV said the patent claim isn't centered merely on automation but also provides an inventive process for updating the EPG. The McRo patent fight had to do with automating a 3-D animation method. Charter Communications owns TWC.

Despite claims of proprietary formatting for imported DVD sets, a classification protest lacked necessary information, Customs and Border Protection responded to an application for further review dated in June and released this month. The DVD sets, imported by Vintage, included digital catalogs, brochures, and educational, documentary and marketing videos, CBP said. Vintage protested CBP's classification of the DVDs under one subheading and said the media is better classified under another due to proprietary formatting. The classification hinges on whether DVDs include "proprietary formatting," previously defined by CBP as "encrypted in such a way that it can only read data if the devices with which the media are used contain a decryption algorithm that is not publicly available." While Vintage said "the subject DVD sets contain data that is encrypted in such a manner that they can only be played by a machine specifically encoded to read the data properly," proprietary formatting is not "necessarily tied" to the copyrightable content of the merchandise, CBP said. The associated duty rate is 2.7 percent.

Public Knowledge urged DOJ to appeal a U.S. District Court decision in New York that struck down a portion of the department's decision on the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers and Broadcast Music Inc. consent decrees that dealt with 100 percent licensing. Judge Louis Stanton said Friday that Justice's Antitrust Division erred in its concluding statement saying the department continues to believes the existing ASCAP and BMI consent decrees mandate 100 percent licensing (see 1609190062). “The plain language of the consent decree, BMI's statements to the DOJ, BMI's marketing language about its licenses, and appellate precedent all support the DOJ's interpretation," said PK Policy Counsel Raza Panjwani in a written statement Monday. "Fractional licensing threatens to deprive the public of access to music by undermining a licensing marketplace that generates over a billion dollars in revenue annually for BMI alone, and which hundreds of thousands of business and outlets rely on to use and play music. This decision introduces uncertainty for users, opens the door to anticompetitive behavior, and should be appealed and reversed."

Flo & Eddie repeated their belief Florida law grants them a “common law” performance royalties right for songs recorded before 1972 because of a 1943 state Supreme Court decision and changes to state law enacted in 1941. Flo & Eddie, who own The Turtles' “Happy Together” and the rest of the band's music, argued in a brief to the Florida Supreme Court that a common law pre-1972 performance right exists in the state, as part of its lawsuit against SiriusXM. The court is reviewing SiriusXM's appeal of a 2015 U.S. District Court ruling in Miami that found a performance right exists in state law after the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals delayed a ruling in the case in June (see 1606290085). Flo & Eddie said it “did not forfeit its common law copyright by selling records.” Claims “for unfair competition, conversion, and civil theft of a sound recording, that are grounded on constitutionally protected property interests under Florida's very broad definition of property as 'anything of value,' exist independently from Florida's common law copyright to perform and reproduce a sound recording,” Flo & Eddie said. “Finally, under Florida law, by creating buffer copies of Flo & Eddie's sound recordings, Sirius XM has violated Flo & Eddie's copyright in the reproduction of its sound recording, irrespective of the duration of the copy.” Flo & Eddie was expected to argue in a brief to the New York Court of Appeals that a similar common-law pre-1972 performance right exists in that state as part of the state court's review of SiriusXM's appeal of a Flo & Eddie lawsuit to the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals (see 1608050059). A copy of Flo & Eddie's brief to the New York Court of Appeals wasn't immediately available.

The National Music Publishers Association praised Songwriters of North America (SONA) Thursday for its lawsuit against DOJ over the Antitrust Division's decision in its review of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers and Broadcast Music Inc. consent decrees (see 1608040066). SONA filed the suit in the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., Tuesday (see 1609140027). “Songwriters and music publishers were dumbfounded” when Justice “not only decided that the outdated consent decrees would remain in place, but they took liberties with their interpretation” that the consent decrees' language mandates 100 percent licensing, said NMPA President David Israelite in a statement. DOJ's decision “unlawfully and unconstitutionally deprives creators of their rights," he said. "It also could invalidate private contracts, which is something all property owners should be extremely concerned about.”

U.S. and European advertising, media and technology organizations announced Thursday the formation of a coalition to develop new global standards for online ads. In a joint news release, the 17-member Coalition for Better Ads -- including the Association of National Advertisers, Google, Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB), Network Advertising Initiative (NAI) and Washington Post -- said it will create "consumer-based, data-driven standards ... to improve the consumer ad experience," develop technology to implement such standards and solicit consumer and business feedback. "Members recognize that there is room for improvement with the current online advertising, as indicated in part by the emergence of ad blocking,” said Nancy Hill, CEO of American Association of Advertising Agencies, another member. She said the ad industry needs to find out why consumers aren't responding to such ads and fix it. In a speech last week, IAB CEO Randall Rothenberg criticized the ad-blocking industry, but conceded the ad industry hasn't responded to increasing consumer dislike and distrust of online ads (see 1609090057). NAI CEO Leigh Freund said in the release that when consumers have a bad experience with ads, it affects publishers, ad tech companies, agencies and advertisers. Fixing the issue "in a structured way" will put consumers first and hold the industry accountable, she said. Other coalition members are BVDW Germany, Digital Context Next, Direct Marketing Association, European Publishers Council, GroupM, IAB-Europe, IAB-Tech Lab, News Media Alliance, Procter & Gamble, Unilever and World Federation of Advertisers.

The European Commission's draft copyright law revamp proposal “is more of a regression than the reform we need to support European businesses and Internet users,” said Mozilla Chief Legal and Business Officer Denelle Dixon-Thayer in a blog post. The draft, released earlier Wednesday, would require service providers to monitor content uploaded by subscribers to ensure it's not copyright-protected. The EC proposed its expected pan-EU ancillary copyright aimed at allowing publishers to claim royalties from news aggregation services like Google News (see 1609140010). The regime “does little to address much-needed exceptions to copyright law,” Dixon-Thayer said: “It provides some exceptions for education and preservation of cultural heritage,” while a new exception for text and data mining “could ultimately restrict, rather than accelerate, TDM to unlock research and innovation across sectors throughout Europe.” There are “no exceptions for panorama, parody, or remixing,” Dixon-Thayer said. “We also regret that provisions which would add needed flexibility to the copyright system -- such as a UGC (user-generated content) exception and a flexible user clause like an open norm, fair dealing or fair use -- have not been included.”

Pandora and Warner Music Group reached a direct licensing agreement Thursday covering WMG's full music catalog. "With this agreement, we're on a path to launch the world's most personal and complete music experience that our listeners will love," said Pandora CEO Tim Westergren in a news release. Two days earlier, the company signed deals with other music labels (see 1609130048). That paved the way for its subscription plan announced Thursday (see 1609150046).

The Copyright Office issued a rulemaking notice Thursday that would allow an author, claimant to a copyright or representative to ask the CO to remove “extraneous and unnecessary” personally identifiable information from online versions of their copyright's application. PII that would be eligible for removal includes driver's license numbers, Social Security numbers, banking information and credit card information, the CO said in the Federal Register. The CO would retain the extraneous PII in offline and hard-copy versions. The new rule would codify an existing CO practice of deleting extraneous PII on request, the office said. The CO hasn't charged a fee for removing extraneous PII, but would begin to impose a $130 fee for such requests under the proposed rule. Requests for reconsideration of previously denied PII removal requests will cost $60, the CO said. The NPRM wouldn't permit removal of an author's or claimant's name because the CO is required to preserve non-extraneous information as a matter of public record, the office said. Anonymous and pseudonymous works are covered by copyright for 95 years after the work's original publication or 120 years after the work's year of creation. Works published under the author's real name are covered under copyright until 70 years after the author's death. Extraneous PII began appearing more frequently online by 2007 as third parties began “harvesting” information collected via the CO's online registration system and then posting that information on “alternative” websites, the CO said. Comments are due Oct. 17.