The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia erred in its decision to throw out a class action lawsuit against Viacom and Google, which was accused of illegally collecting personal information of children 13 years and younger (see 1606270047), said Electronic Privacy Information Center President Marc Rotenberg, whose group filed an amicus brief with the plaintiffs. It "could not be more wrong about the Video Privacy Protection Act," he emailed. "The text of the Act and the legislative history makes clear that Congress intended a broad interpretation. The court showed a stunning lack of understanding about the nature of Internet advertising, the role of search engines, and the significance of persistent identifiers ('cookies'). ... The discussion of [personally identifiable information] is entirely incoherent." The 3rd Circuit opinion said IP addresses, browser and operating system settings, unique device identifiers, and other pieces of data didn't qualify as personal information. In a blog post Monday, EPIC said the 3rd Circuit's opinion contradicted a 1st Circuit decision in April that said "unique Android ID and GPS coordinates constituted PII" under the Video Privacy Protection Act -- setting up a possible Supreme Court review.

MPAA Senior Vice President-Government and Regulatory Affairs Neil Fried took issue with Internet Association CEO Michael Beckerman's Medium opinion piece last week that warned against legislative proposals that would revamp the existing safe harbor provisions and notice-and-takedown framework in Digital Millennium Copyright Act Section 512 (see 1606230029). The current DMCA language places too much of the burden for identifying copyright infringement on content creators while putting little onus on online service providers like YouTube, Fried said in a blog post. “Congress did not intend the DMCA to create a relentless game of Whac-A-Mole,” he said. “But that's what we're left with, because technology companies are not truly collaborating.” The best way for Beckerman to accomplish his goal of forestalling legislative changes to DMCA is for tech firms “to work together with creators, rather than just offering more of the same,” Fried said Sunday. He said MPAA's Where to Watch search engine directs viewers to fully legal online sources for movies and TV shows “since other search engines continue to direct audiences to unlawful sites.” If tech firms “would engage voluntarily and collaboratively with the creative community on solutions that work for everyone, we might be able to meet Congress's objectives for the DMCA without having to change the law,” Fried said. IA didn't comment.

Qualcomm said it filed a patent infringement complaint against Chinese smartphone maker Meizu in Beijing Intellectual Property Court. The complaint seeks rulings that terms of a patent license offered by Qualcomm to Meizu comply with China’s Anti-Monopoly Law (AML), and Qualcomm’s “fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory licensing obligations,” said Qualcomm Friday. The complaint also seeks a ruling setting a basis for a patent license with Meizu for Qualcomm technology used in 3G and 4G mobile devices. Meizu has been expanding its business through the use of Qualcomm intellectual property without compensating the company, Qualcomm said. More than 100 other Chinese companies have accepted a rectification plan submitted by Qualcomm and accepted by China’s National Development and Reform Commission last year after the NDRC found that Qualcomm had violated the AML. “Qualcomm’s technologies are at the heart of all mobile devices," said Qualcomm General Counsel Don Rosenberg: "Meizu is choosing to use these technologies without a license, which is not only unlawful, but is unfair to other licensees that are acting in good faith and respectful of patent rights, and ultimately damaging to the mobile ecosystem and consumers.” Meizu didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The Computer and Communications Industry Association told the Copyright Office Thursday it supports the office’s NPRM that would significantly reduce the fee for online service providers to designate agents to receive notifications of claimed infringement under Digital Millennium Copyright Act Section 512, but raised concerns about the NPRM’s agent renewal requirements. The CO sought comment last month on the plan, which would lower the fee to $6 per designation in anticipation of a switch from using paper forms to designate those agents to an online filing system. The designation fee framework currently includes an initial $105 fee and an additional $35 fee for each of up to 10 alternate designated agents (see 1605250055). Comments were due after our deadline Friday. Lowering the agent designation fee “in most circumstances would be a beneficial idea,” but the NPRM “also suggests an unwise recurring formality for intermediaries relying on the Section 512 safe harbor,” CCIA commented. A footnote in the NPRM says the CO “contemplates requiring electronic re-registration of all currently designed agents once the Office’s proposed digital database is released,” CCIA said. “It also suggests that online services would be required to subsequently renew such designations every three years.” The industry group said it believes such a rule “would be inconsistent with Section 512, would have negative implications for continued investment in the Internet industry, and would be ultimately unnecessary.”

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act has been crucial to the development of the internet over the past two decades, said Internet Association CEO Michael Beckerman in a Medium opinion piece Thursday. “While a few players are pushing a divisive narrative and attacking the laws that form the economic foundation of the internet, the reality is that we are all in this together,” Beckerman said. DMCA “is working,” he said. “The internet sector is now a global driver of the economy, reaching nearly $1 trillion  --  or 6 percent  --  of our GDP in 2014 alone. An era of previously unimagined cultural diversity is available globally at the touch of a finger.” The internet’s overall growth “surpasses the growth of infringing activity on a percentage basis,” Beckerman said. “DMCA has ensured that legal platforms can scale: studies indicate that the introduction of lawful online video and music platforms is typically followed by reductions in online infringement by 50 percent and 80 percent, respectively.” Beckerman said top internet companies have demonstrated their “commitment to holding up our end of the bargain” in the DMCA-created notice-and-takedown system via a “plethora of voluntary ‘DMCA-plus’ programs in use today” like Facebook’s Rights Manager and YouTube’s Content ID program. “Rather than spending their time lobbying Congress for wholesale legislative rewrites, our hope is all sides can come together and focus efforts on doing everything possible to improve the system,” Beckerman said. The Internet Association previously defended the DMCA Section 512 Tuesday, when the group said it opposes legislative proposals that would revamp the statute’s safe harbor provisions and the framework for the notice-and-takedown system (see 1606210040). An advertising campaign by almost 200 recording artists and music industry entities urging Congress to enact a DMCA revamp to rein in Internet Association member Google and other internet companies is underway (see 1606200047). Free State Foundation President Randolph May and Senior Fellow Seth Cooper supported the recording industry’s DMCA revamp campaign Thursday in a blog post for The Hill. A DMCA revamp “shouldn't be about taking sides in the disputes,” Cooper and May said. “Online service providers should retain a safe harbor for good-faith efforts to remove infringing content. But songwriters and recording artists deserve an easier and more efficient means for curtailing online posting of copyrighted music. And reforms should include simpler ways to combat multiple postings by repeat infringers.”

A new LG Electronics trademark application at the Patent and Trademark Office suggests further proof that the company wants to be a big player in components for autonomous cars. LG seeks to register the trademark “Lightminum” for a class of goods and services related to self-driving vehicles, including vehicle traction control systems, “sensors for use in the control of engines” and vehicle “braking devices” and systems, said the application (serial number 87070709), filed June 14. LG also wants to reserve use of Lightminum for a range of other possible goods and services in consumer and industrial applications, including battery chargers for mobile phones, tablets, headphones, digital signage and data-processing equipment, the application said. LG filed a similar application June 13 (application number 4020160044102) with South Korean trademark authorities, the PTO application said. “While I can’t comment on the trademark application specifically, it’s no secret that LG is working on autonomous car technologies," spokesman John Taylor emailed us Wednesday. For example, LG’s Advanced Driver Assistance Systems technologies "support autonomous driving systems," Taylor said. "The vehicle components business represents one of LG’s fastest growing areas, and our core technologies and open-standards philosophy position LG to be a strong player in autonomous vehicle components.”

The Internet Association opposed what it called “concerning ideas” for revamping the Digital Millennium Copyright Act Section 512, which includes DMCA safe harbor provisions and the framework for the notice-and-takedown system. Some proposals made during Copyright Office roundtables last month on its study of Section 512 and through other venues have common themes, many of which involved "forcing internet companies to police the web,” the association said in a Tuesday blog post. It said such proposals would “endanger user speech online” and would “be a huge barrier for creative, growing internet companies to actually introduce new, legal online platforms and functions.” Almost 200 recording artists and music industry entities have an advertising campaign urging Congress to enact a DMCA revamp to rein in association member Google and other internet companies (see 1606200047). The Internet Association singled out several “short-sighted” proposals, including “notice and staydown” proposals that would require companies to keep infringing content offline once it’s identified through a takedown notice. A requirement to “staydown” would force platforms “to monitor the web for reappearing content (that is accused of be infringing), all without the knowledge of when licensing deals have changed and without regard for fair use or other instances of legal content use,” the association said. Proposals to block a platform from receiving Section 512 safe harbor protections if it has general knowledge of infringement occurring are particularly vague, and “because the legal protections are so important to companies just to exist in the first place, companies would be thrown into a world of uncertainty where they’d be forced to monitor content just in case something might be infringing -- and potentially block it without certainty,” the association said. It criticized proposals to implement strict repeat infringement policies: “Blind termination requirements create tunnel vision that ignores huge parts of copyright law, and creates incentives for litigation over legal creativity.”

The Supreme Court ruled in Cuozzo Speed Technologies v. Lee that the Patent and Trademark Office's ability to institute inter partes reviews via the 2011 America Invents Act isn't subject to appeals. The Supreme Court also upheld Patent and Trademark Appeal Board's patent claims interpretation standard. Cuozzo sought a Supreme Court review after the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled in 2015 that AIA bars parties from challenging PTAB authority to conduct IPRs. Cuozzo unsuccessfully defended its patent on an interface for displaying a vehicle's speed and the speed limit at a particular location during a Garmin-initiated PTAB IPR. “Applying the broadest reasonable construction standard in inter partes review is not, as Cuozzo suggests, unfair to a patent holder, who may move to amend at least once in the review process, and who has had several opportunities to amend in the original application process," Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in the court's majority opinion Monday, joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan and Anthony Kennedy. “And though the application of one standard in inter partes review and another in district court proceedings may produce inconsistent outcomes, that structure is inherent to Congress' regulatory design, and it is also consistent with past practice, as the patent system has long provided different tracks for the review and adjudication of patent claims.” Justice Clarence Thomas filed a concurring opinion, and Justice Samuel Alito filed an opinion that partially concurred and partially dissented. Justice Sonia Sotomayor joined Alito's opinion. Congress has given PTAB “considerable authority” to review patent claims but has also “cabined that power by imposing significant conditions on the Patent Office's institution of patent review proceedings,” Alito said. “Unlike the Court, I do not think that Congress intended to shield the Patent Office's compliance -- or noncompliance -- with these limits from all judicial scrutiny.” PTO believes the Supreme Court's ruling “will allow [PTAB] to maintain its vital mission of effectively and efficiently resolving patentability disputes while providing faster, less expensive alternatives to district court litigation,” said Director Michelle Lee in a statement.

The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Thursday against claims by Universal Music Group's Capitol Records, EMI and other record labels that Vimeo ignored infringing content posted to its website, finding that pre-1972 recordings included in videos are covered by the safe harbor provisions in Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) Section 512. A U.S. District Court in New York ruled in 2014 that Section 512's safe harbor provisions didn't extend to pre-1972 recordings posted online because they were protected by New York state law. Additionally, “the mere fact that a video contains all or virtually all of a 'recognizable,' copyrighted sound recording and was viewed in some fashion by a service provider’s employee is insufficient to prove knowledge or red flag knowledge of infringement; and Plaintiffs’ evidence was insufficient to support the imputation of knowledge to Vimeo through the theory of willful blindness,” Judge Pierre Leval said for the three-judge 2nd Circuit panel. Judges Peter Hall and Gerard Lynch joined Leval in the unanimous opinion. The purpose of the Section 512 safe harbor provisions “was to make economically feasible the provision of valuable Internet services while expanding protections of the interests of copyright owners through the new notice-and-takedown provision," Leval said. "To construe [Section 512] as leaving service providers subject to liability under state copyright laws for postings by users of infringements of which the service providers were unaware would defeat the very purpose Congress sought to achieve in passing the statute.” Vimeo believes the 2nd Circuit's ruling is “a significant win for not just Vimeo, but all online platforms that empower creators to share content with the world,” a spokesman said in a statement. “The court rightly preserved the balance struck by the DMCA in protecting rights holders and service providers, and we are very pleased with the decision.” UMG didn't comment.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit consolidated three petitions for a review of the Copyright Royalty Board’s 2016-20 noninteractive webcasting rate-setting (Web IV) ruling with SoundExchange’s petition in docket 16-1159 (in Pacer). The three additional appeals of the CRB ruling were by musician George Johnson, the Intercollegiate Broadcasting System and the National Religious Broadcasters Noncommercial Music License Committee (all in Pacer). SoundExchange’s statement of issues to be raised and other initial filings are due July 1, and other parties must file their statements by July 11, the D.C Circuit said in a Thursday order (in Pacer). The CRB’s final version of its 2016-2020 noninteractive webcasting ruling, released in early May, set rates at 0.17 cent per performance on nonsubscription services and 0.22 cent per performance on subscription services (see 1605020058). SoundExchange is seen as likely to focus its appeal at least partially on CRB's use of Pandora’s past direct licensing deals with independent music label rights consortium Merlin and independent label Naxos as benchmarks for the Web IV rate-setting (see 1606010065).