Sony expects to emerge relatively unscathed financially for the fiscal year ending March 31 from the cyberattack that caused “serious disruption” to the Sony Pictures Entertainment network and information technology infrastructure, the company said Wednesday. But for the $15 million in “investigation and remediation costs” to be recorded for Q3, Sony thinks the “impact of the cyberattack” on its overall results for the fiscal year “will not be material,” the company said. Sony Pictures expects to finish the year with a 7.3 percent revenue increase and an operating profit about 2.4 billion yen higher than a year earlier, Sony said. Though the Sony Pictures operating income target is slightly lower than in the October forecast, its revenue target actually is 3.5 percent higher than the forecast in October, a month before the cyberattack. The White House has blamed on North Korea the hack of Sony Pictures, which resulted in many emails and other confidential information being released online (see 1412180056).

Promoting cross-border data flows while “respecting data protection rules” was one of the Computer & Communications Industry Association's five recommendations to improve Europe digital trade via the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership. CCIA released a report with the recommendations in a news release Monday. The report said TTIP should avoid “forced localization of data, network infrastructure or investments.” “We need international trade rules based on our shared transatlantic values and high standards,” Christian Borggreen, CCIA-Europe director, said in the release. “The EU-U.S. trade talks offer an historic opportunity to eliminate needless barriers to digital trade and create policies that reflect the realities of a 21st Century, Internet-enabled economy.”

A week after announcing it would acquire Red Bend Software and software services company Symphony Teleca (see 1501220039), Harman said Thursday it formed a strategic collaboration with Chinese Internet search provider Baidu to launch vehicle networking technology. The CarLife collaboration will offer “advanced Internet capabilities, entertainment features and location-based services” on Harman in-vehicle infotainment head units in the Chinese market. In a statement, David Jin, Harman’s president-Northeast Asia and Greater China, said succeeding in the “quickly evolving segment of in-car technology requires a platform that can be easily updated and adapted,” and CarLife will allow Harman to provide “flexible, innovative solutions and content to OEMs that have been tailored to fit the Chinese auto market.” The cross-platform technology is compatible with Android and iOS operating systems, covering more than 95 percent of smartphone users, Harman said, and will provide “millions of drivers” a “more open and intelligent vehicle networking experience.” On the Harman earnings call Thursday, CEO Dinesh Paliwal compared CarLife to Apple's CarPlay and Google's Android Auto. He said CarLife will contribute to the “democratization of technology at the entry level” of the car market. Harman will work with Baidu to integrate advanced connectivity, entertainment features and location-based services into its head units, “resulting in a more immersive connected car experience,” Paliwal said. He said China and other emerging markets represent the largest growth opportunities for the company.

AT&T said it’s buying NII Holdings’ Nextel Mexico wireless business for $1.88 billion. The deal includes Nextel Mexico’s spectrum licenses, network assets and 3 million subscribers. AT&T said its purchase of Nextel Mexico will “support AT&T’s plans to bring greater competition and faster mobile Internet speeds to the Mexican wireless market.” The deal also will advance AT&T’s plan to create North American mobile service area that covers more than 400 million consumers in Mexico and the U.S., the carrier said Monday. AT&T said it expects the deal to close by the middle of the year, pending approval by a federal bankruptcy court in New York “which is overseeing the restructuring of NII Holdings.”

The Consumer Product Safety Commission and Alibaba are collaborating on voluntary consumer safety, CPSC said in a news release Tuesday. China’s online and mobile commerce company will block the sales of illegal or recalled U.S. products or make them unavailable to U.S. buyers on Alibaba platforms, it said. The company will also provide product safety information for U.S. importers on its platforms.

Global patent filing increased 9 percent in 2013, said a World Intellectual Property Organization report released Tuesday. China’s patent filing increased 26 percent in 2013, reaching 25 percent of all patent filings worldwide, said the report. The U.S. had the second highest number of patent filings, which grew 5 percent in 2013, said WIPO. The European Patent Office had a 0.4 percent decline in patent filings; Japan’s filings slowed by 4 percent. Trademark filings grew by 6 percent globally in 2013. WIPO said China’s 14 percent growth in trademark filings was the highest globally; such filings increased by 13 percent in the U.S.

U.K.'s BT said it began “exclusive negotiations” with Deutsche Telekom and U.K. telco Orange to buy the EE wireless carrier for the equivalent of $19.5 billion in cash and new BT shares. The proposed deal would give DT a 12 percent ownership stake in BT, while Orange would own 4 percent. The exclusivity of those negotiations will last for several weeks, allowing BT to finalize a definitive deal and complete its due diligence, BT said in a Monday news release.

The FTC’s safe harbor negotiations with the European Union have become “more difficult,” FTC Commissioner Julie Brill said at a Direct Marketing Association event Monday (see 1412080061). “Expectations in the European public” are “very high” in terms of “doing away with safe harbor or radically altering it,” she said. “The adults of the room understand the difficult situation that they’ve been placed in and they’re trying to come up with a reasonable way out,” Brill said. But the negotiations are “harder now,” she said.

TechAmerica will begin work to form a position on the classification of smart watch products for customs duty purposes, the group said on its website. TechAmerica's Customs Committee formed a working group "to develop common positions to provide in advocacy efforts" with Customs and Border Protection and other countries' customs officials, it said. The effort is in preparation for the World Customs Organization Harmonized System Committee meeting in March, during which one or more smart watches will be classified, it said Wednesday. The classification decisions are used to promote consistency in product tariff treatment around the world. The past few years have seen major progress in smart watch technology, and many TechAmerica members now sell the products, it said. "Due to the different functions included in the smartwatches," several classification categories are being considered, including classification as digital cameras, pedometers or wrist watches, it said: "Depending on how these products ultimately are classified, the rate at which wearable technologies and/or their components are assessed for tariffs can vary significantly."

The European Parliament passed a resolution Thursday urging the EU Commission and member states to “break down barriers to growth” in the EU’s digital single market, a Parliament news release said. “The resolution underlines that ‘the online search market is of particular importance in ensuring competitive conditions within the digital single market’ and welcomes the Commission’s pledges to investigate further the search engines’ practices,” it said. Members of Parliament want EU competition rules enforced and for search engines to be unbundled from other commercial services. They want the EC “to consider proposals with the aim of unbundling search engines from other commercial services” in the long run, the release said. Consumer Watchdog urged the European Parliament to pass the resolution in order to break up Google’s “monopolistic dominance” in the EU, in a news release Thursday. House Communications Subcommittee ranking member Anna Eshoo, D-Calif., led a Nov. 25 bipartisan letter from House lawmakers to European Parliament officials cautioning them about the resolution’s stemming of cross-border data flows.