Mobile phone supplier BLU Products sells LTE devices in the U.S. and around the world that violate LG Electronics patents, LG alleged Monday in a motion (in Pacer) in U.S. District Court in Wilmington, Delaware, for permission to file a complaint under seal. LG for about a year has “repeatedly contacted” BLU to offer to license the phone supplier its “portfolio of standards-essential patents” on “fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory terms,” said the motion. Portions of the complaint refer to confidential letters and a nondisclosure agreement LG sent BLU that are “not available through a public source,” said the motion. LG “would be harmed if this information became widely known,” it said. The squabble involves five patents "that have been declared as essential to the LTE standard," LG said in a Monday statement announcing the filing of an identical complaint against BLU at the International Trade Commission. "These are the first complaints LG has filed against another phone manufacturer," the company said. They were filed "because BLU, the largest seller of unlocked smartphones in the United States, has ignored all of LG's attempts to discuss a license to LG's intellectual property," it said. "LG is determined to enforce its intellectual property rights." BLU representatives didn’t comment Monday.

Some Supreme Court justices appeared to struggle during oral argument Monday in TC Heartland v. Kraft Foods Group Brands over how much they're willing to rewrite existing rules on the venue for patent infringement lawsuits. Heartland Food Products Group asked the top court to review 28 U.S. Code Section 1400(b), which requires a plaintiff to bring a patent infringement suit only in a U.S. District Court where the defendant resides or has an “established place of business.” The tech sector has taken a substantial interest because of the case's potential to restrict movement of patent cases to Texas' Marshall and Tyler-based district court and others perceived as friendly to plaintiffs (see 1701170066). Justice Stephen Breyer directly questioned how concerns about the Marshall/Tyler district court's oversized role in patent law affected the Heartland case, which involved a transfer of a suit from Delaware to Indiana. Chief Justice John Roberts indicated he was in favor of Heartland's argument. The Electronic Frontier Foundation, Public Knowledge and many top tech firms supported Heartland via amicus briefs. ACT|The App Association, BSA|The Software Alliance and the Software & Information Industry Association were among Heartland's tech backers. The sector strongly supported Heartland's petition to the Supreme Court for writ of certiorari (see 1610140042). House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., said in February he would re-evaluate whether to include language in future patent legislation aimed at revamping rules for placement of patent infringement suits in federal courts depending on the Heartland ruling (see 1702010069). The Supreme Court “has a chance to help rein in decades of misuse of the patent system by taking away a key tool for patent trolls -- venue shopping,” said Computer & Communications Industry Association President Ed Black in a statement. “We hope they use it.”

The Copyright Royalty Board issued an NPRM to amend rules for filing compulsory license royalty claims to reflect CRB implementation of its new electronic filing system. The Library of Congress said in October it would bring the e-filing system live by late 2017 (see 1610170055). The compulsory license filing rules will be amended to “accommodate electronic filing of claims,” CRB said Thursday. The board also proposes to consolidate “nearly identical regulations for cable and satellite claims and make other amendments to the claims regulation to remove outdated references and enhance readability.” Comments are due April 17.

U.S. Trade Representative nominee Robert Lighthizer is “deeply concerned” about counterfeiting and piracy in China, he told the Senate Finance Committee in writing after a recent confirmation hearing (see 1703150027). If confirmed, Lighthizer said, he will use all relevant trade policy tools, including the Special 301 Report and “new procedures” provided under the Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act, to address Chinese counterfeits.

A recent call to scale back the U.S.' current copyright term, which grants copyright protection for a work for the life of the author plus 70 years, “would cause cascading detrimental effects” and misrepresent “the intentions of the founders and framers” of U.S. law, said Tom Sydnor, visiting scholar at the American Enterprise Institute's Center for Internet, Communications and Technology, in a Tuesday blog post. Sydnor responded to Amherst College Librarian Bryn Geffert, who criticized the current U.S. copyright term in an Inside Higher Ed opinion piece. Geffert urged the U.S. to restore the 28-year copyright term envisioned in the 1790 Copyright Act because that would honor the founders' intent and reduce what he views as an excessively long copyright term. A reduction in the U.S. copyright term length “unwittingly urges the US to trigger global financial crises by withdrawing from the World Trade Organization (WTO) and all other multilateral copyright treaties that it has entered into during the last 107 years,” Sydnor said. “The disadvantages of global chaos and larger US trade deficits would outweigh any domestic benefits of a shorter copyright term.” The reduction proposal would also “thwart” the intent of the drafters of the act to “provide a life-of-the-author-plus term of protection,” Sydnor said. U.S. “citizens no longer die at an average age of 39, as they did in 1790.” Geffert didn't comment.

The Department of Commerce's Internet Policy Task Force plans a public meeting April 18 on ways “to communicate to consumers regarding license terms and restrictions in connection with online transactions involving copyrighted works,” said the Patent and Trademark Office in a notice to appear in Tuesday's Federal Register. The meeting will be a follow-up on the IPTF's 2016 white paper that opposed using legislation to address digital transmissions’ place in the existing first-sale doctrine (see 1601280065). IPTF recommended creating a “multistakeholder process to establish best practices to improve consumers’ understanding of license terms and restrictions in connection with online transactions involving creative works,” PTO said in the Federal Register. The paper said “consumers would benefit from more information on the nature of these transactions, including whether they are paying for temporary access to content or for ownership of a copy, in order to instill greater confidence and enhance participation in the online marketplace.” The April 18 meeting will focus on creating voluntary best practices and other nonlegislative solutions, including identifying “best practices for how to inform consumers about the intellectual property rights associated with the content they are accessing or acquiring, and what activities they are permitted to engage in without implicating those rights,” PTO said. IPTF is particularly interested in the perspectives of “particular online services that offer digital transmissions of works to consumers, as well as creators, right holders, consumers, marketing professionals, user interface designers, public interest groups, and academics.” The meeting is set for 1-5 p.m. at the Global Intellectual Property Academy in PTO's Alexandria, Virginia, headquarters.

Existing licensors in Via Licensing’s LTE patent pool renewed their commitments for an additional five-year term starting in September, Via said Thursday. Companies that offer LTE essential patents through Via’s patent pool include AT&T, China Mobile, Deutsche Telekom, Dolby, Google, HP, KDDI, MediaTek, NTT Docomo, Newracom, SK Telecom, Telecom Italia and Telefónica, Via said in a news release. “We are delighted with our licensors’ continued commitment to Via’s LTE pool and to Via’s fair and transparent pricing model for LTE licenses,” said President Joe Siino. “The efficiency of our reasonable license terms and pricing transparency is demonstrated by the growing numbers of licensors and licensees in our LTE pool.”

ZTE overtook Huawei as the biggest filer of international patent applications through the World Intellectual Property Organization in 2016, while Qualcomm came in third, WIPO said in its annual report Wednesday. Patent applicants based in the U.S. maintained their No. 1 ranking for the 39th year running, with nearly a quarter of the 233,000 applications filed globally -- a 7.3 percent increase from 2015 -- under WIPO’s Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT). Japan placed second with a 19.4 percent share, followed by China with 18.5 percent, WIPO said. Applications originating in China jumped 44.7 percent from a year earlier, WIPO said. If that trend continues, China will overtake the U.S. within two years as the largest user of the PCT system, it said. There also was strong 2016 growth in applications originating from Italy (up 9.3 percent from 2015), Israel (up 9.1 percent), India (up 8.3 percent) and the Netherlands (up 8 percent), WIPO said. But applications from Canada fell 17.3 percent for the second straight year of double-digit declines in filings, WIPO said. It cited declining applications from BlackBerry and Nortel.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals paused Wednesday its review of musicians Flo & Eddie's California lawsuit against Pandora over unpaid performance royalties for pre-1972 recordings, saying it wants the California Supreme Court to decide whether state law recognizes that performance right. Pandora appealed a February 2015 ruling in Flo & Eddie's lawsuit by the U.S. District Court in Los Angeles that said a 1982 California law recognizes a pre-1972 performance right (see 1509100067). Flo & Eddie, who own The Turtles' “Happy Together” and the rest of the band's music catalog, sought compensation from both Pandora and Sirius XM on the pre-1972 performance right issue. The 9th Circuit's punting of the pre-1972 performance right question to a state court follows similar reviews by the Florida Supreme Court and the New York Court of Appeals of their states' laws at the respective requests of the 11th and 2nd circuits in those courts' reviews of Flo & Eddie's lawsuits against Sirius (see 1612200066, 1702140067 and 1702160076). “We agree with our sister circuits that certification is the best way to proceed on these issues, especially in California,” the 9th Circuit said in its order. “As an incubator of both musical talent and technological innovation, California has a significant interest in the appropriate resolution of the certified questions. Resolution of these questions will likely affect the state and industries within the state in a variety of ways, and is therefore best left to the California Supreme Court.”

Broadcom's Tariff Act Section 337 complaint with the International Trade Commission, seeking an investigation into allegations that imports of semiconductor devices for consumer audiovisual products are infringing its patents (see 1703080001), has comments due March 21, the ITC said in Monday's Federal Register. Broadcom said March 7 that Funai, LG, MediaTek and Vizio were among companies making or using infringing SoCs and similar processing components and circuits for DTVs. Funai, LG, MediaTek and Vizio had no immediate comment Tuesday.