Extensive case law supports withdrawing Patent and Trademark Office refusal to approve Filmmaker Mode as a registered certification mark, argued the UHD Alliance's request for reconsideration. PTO examining attorney Catherine Caycedo rejected UHDA’s application. Filmmaker Mode, introduced in August 2019, is the uniformly named ease-of-access TV picture setting free of the motion-smoothing and other image processing that creators disdain for rendering their content in the living room as if it were shot on high-speed video rather than film (see 2004090032). Hisense, LG, Samsung and Vizio are the TV brands backing Filmmaker Mode in the U.S. The words in the Filmmaker Mode logo are “unregistrable” because they are “merely descriptive of an ingredient, quality, characteristic, function, feature, purpose, or use of the goods applicant will certify,” said Caycedo in April. Wednesday, UHDA asked her to reconsider “under the standard that to be considered merely descriptive, a mark must immediately describe a quality, characteristic, function, feature, purpose, or use of the goods.” Caycedo didn’t respond to questions Friday. UHDA's next recourse would be to take the case to PTO's Trademark Trial and Appeal Board. UHDA President Mike Fidler declined comment.

Google’s proposed $2.1 billion Fitbit purchase (see 1911010051 or 1911010054) raises “serious competition and privacy concerns" and risks harming people in the wearables, advertising and digital health markets, warned 19 global consumer and citizen groups Thursday. “This takeover must therefore only be approved if merger remedies can effectively prevent those harms.” The groups said they fear Google could shut rival manufacturers out of the wearables market by “degrading their interoperability” with Android devices. The takeover also risks jeopardizing rivals’ access to wearables data in “digital health markets to the detriment of innovation in these critical nascent markets,” they said. It would bolster Google’s “unparalleled market power” in online advertising by giving it “a further data advantage in the personalisation of ads through its ownership of Fitbit’s user database,” they said. Regulators need to get Google to commit to conditional “safeguards,” they said. U.S.-based groups included New America's Open Technology Institute and Public Knowledge. Google didn’t comment.

The International Trade Commission launched a Tariff Act Section 337 investigation into allegations that LG, Samsung and TCL smart TVs and MediaTek, MStar and Realtek video processors infringe four DivX patents on adaptive bit rate streaming (see 2009160052), said a posting (login required) Wednesday in docket 337-TA-1222. The ITC also denied Realtek’s request for a 100-day adjudication into the chipmaker’s challenge that DivX was unlikely to meet the “domestic industry” requirement under commission rules (see 2009260001). “The suggested issues for resolution appear likely to require significant third party discovery and thus may be too complex to be decided within 100 days of institution,” said a Wednesday order (login required). The investigation was assigned to Administrative Law Judge MaryJoan McNamara, said a separate notice (login required) Wednesday. The respondents will have 20 days to file replies to the investigation notice after they're served with the papers. None commented Wednesday. DivX's Sept. 10 complaint seeks an exclusion order against the allegedly infringing products.

LG Electronics and Samsung Display applied to trademark QNED for quantum nano emitting diode display technology, Patent and Trademark Office records show. LG’s application was Sept. 8, Samsung’s Sept. 25, both listing a wide diversity of possible uses for TVs, smartphones, tablets and digital signage. A QNED display uses gallium nitride-based blue-light-emitting nanorod LEDs in place of OLED as the blue light source, emailed Display Supply Chain Consultants President Bob O’Brien Thursday. QNED is "a really cool idea and could bring some real benefits but I think it will be a while before we see QNED in products," emailed Nanosys Director-Marketing Jeff Yurek. "You would still use QDs as a color conversion layer in a QNED stack," he said of quantum dots.

The order Philips seeks at the International Trade Commission on Hisense, LG and TCL smart TVs and Dell, HP and Lenovo PCs for allegedly infringing four secure authenticated distance measurement patents (see 2010050047) would have “deleterious effects on the public interest,” posted MPA (login required) Tuesday in docket 337-3492. Delegate authority to an administrative law judge “to develop a full evidentiary record on the public interest and make recommended findings,” asked the trade group. The import ban would exclude “a wide range of digital video-capable electronics,” including tablets, computers and smart TVs, that incorporate high-bandwidth digital content protection, said MPA. Without HDCP, unencrypted copyrighted content can be “illegally misappropriated with a few clicks,” the association said. The U.S. content industry would face “more detrimental economic consequences from rampant piracy,” which costs creators at least $29 billion annually, said MPA. “Any remedial order preventing the use of HDCP, without viable alternatives, would thus interfere with Congress’ long-standing policies” under Chapter 12 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, it said. The accused devices with HDCP “are widely used in the U.S. and globally to provide secure delivery of entertainment, web-browsing, streaming video, and gaming,” said MPA. “HDCP protects content flowing from a streaming device, game console, Blu-ray player, or set-top box on an HDMI cable to a television display. Billions of devices implement HDCP." Philips didn’t comment.

Philips wrongly says the Tariff Act Section 337 exclusion order it seeks at the International Trade Commission on Dell, HP and Lenovo PCs and Intel, MediaTek and Realtek processors won’t harm consumers, commented (login required) the Computer & Communications Industry Association and others. Philips alleges the laptops, desktops and components, plus Hisense, LG and TCL TVs, infringe its digital video content protection patents (see 2009230038). The proposed import ban would “effectively exclude 80% of the U.S. processor market and 66% of the U.S. computing market,” said CCIA Friday. “Computers are no longer optional entertainment devices. Instead, they are the main or even exclusive portals through which nearly every American interacts with nearly every aspect of modern life, especially during the pandemic.” Philips didn’t respond to questions Monday. Its complaint acknowledged the accused PCs control two-thirds of the U.S. market, saying the remaining third would easily fill the “demand gap.” Others also commented now in docket 337-3492, including Dell, HP and Intel.

Comments are due Nov. 8, rebuttals Nov. 22, identifying online and physical piracy and counterfeit markets to be considered for inclusion on the Trump administration’s 2020 Notorious Markets list, said an Office of the U.S. Trade Representative notice in Thursday’s Federal Register. The “issue focus” of the 2020 list will be on the use of e-commerce platforms and “other third-party intermediaries to facilitate the importation of counterfeit and pirated goods” into the U.S., it said. “The rapid growth of e-commerce platforms has helped fuel the growth of counterfeit and pirated goods” into a $500 billion industry, it said. “This illicit trade has an enormous impact on the American economy by eroding the competitiveness of American workers, manufacturers and innovation.”

Brightstar is teaming with MasTec to bring smartphone and tablet repair to 85% of the U.S. population, said the companies Tuesday. This leverages Brightstar’s repair expertise with MasTec’s vans and SmartConnect service technicians. Brightstar reaches 94% of the U.K. population with its WeFix-branded smartphone and tablet repair. The companies vow to prioritize customer health and safety during the pandemic, promising “no contact between customers and technicians and that all devices are thoroughly sanitized before they are returned.”

Nokia sought a “supplemental” protective order Monday at the International Trade Commission safeguarding Qualcomm’s source code and other confidential materials it wants to access, said a motion (login required) in docket 337-TA-1208. Qualcomm is a “non-party” in the Tariff Act Section 337 investigation into accusations that Lenovo laptops, desktops and tablets infringe five Nokia patents (see 2008050008), but supplies Lenovo components related to the allegedly infringing “functionality,” said Nokia: The Qualcomm materials are “competitively sensitive” and “not normally shared with any third party, absent strict confidentiality.” Qualcomm worries the investigation’s existing protective order doesn’t provide “adequate protection against misuse or disclosure of its sensitive proprietary information, and has requested the entry of an addendum,” it said. “Enhanced confidentiality protection for source code is appropriate” under ITC rules, it said.

Google wireless audio devices infringe five Sonos multiroom audio patents, complained Sonos Tuesday (in Pacer), further escalating their bitter intellectual property brawl. “In the face of Google’s unrelenting infringement, Sonos has no choice but to bring this suit,” said the complaint in U.S. District Court in Waco, Texas. “Sonos has already sued Google for infringing patents on its first group of inventions involving the set-up, control, playback, and synchronization of wireless playback devices.” The new case involves a “second group” of inventions that “tackle the novel technological challenges of how to stream music from a cloud-based service,” plus configuring how “multiple playback devices work together,” it said. The new body of patents also describe “how to dynamically adjust the equalization of a playback device based on the environment in which the playback device is operating,” it said. Sonos’ first complaint is pending in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles (see 2001070041). Google responded in June, alleging in U.S. District Court in San Francisco that Sonos stole “substantial volumes” of Google’s patented search, audio processing and streaming technology (see 2006110024). The companies remain in a fight at the International Trade Commission that shows no sign of abating over the same patents at play in Los Angeles (see 2002060070). The new complaint “illustrates the depth and breadth of our intellectual property as well as our continued innovation, and indicates the degree to which we believe Google has copied our innovations,” emailed a Sonos spokesperson. “Google has chosen to double down on its disregard for IP and smaller American inventors and we believe it is vitally important that Sonos, both for its own sake and for that of other smaller innovative companies, stand up to monopolists who try to copy and subsidize their way to further domination.” Sonos has made "misleading statements about our history of working together," emailed Google spokesperson Jose Castaneda. "Our technology and devices were designed independently. We deny their claims vigorously, and will be defending against them.”