The Copyright Office is extending to June 14 the deadline for comments on its NPRM on royalty reporting practices of cable operators under Section 111 of the Copyright Act and proposed revisions to the statement of account forms, it said Thursday. Replies are due July 6.

Customs and Border Protection needs more authority to combat counterfeiters, the Senate Finance Committee was told. Brenda Smith, executive assistant commissioner in CBP's Office of Trade, said it will take a few months of consultation with the private sector to say what kind of authority. Ranking member Ron Wyden, D-Ore., pressed for a deadline, and when Smith demurred, asked her to report back within 60 days. "I will do my best," she responded. Smith said Congress might also need to increase penalties for counterfeit goods. Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, told her, "We'll see what we can do to back you up and help you." The hearing highlighted a recent GAO report that 20 of 47 items ordered by auditors from online sellers were counterfeit (see 1803060042). CBP reported that intellectual property rights seizures rose again in FY 2017, though the dollar value fell. Wyden noted solving the counterfeiting issue "isn’t going to be as simple as putting a few more policy tools in CBP’s kit." Agency hiring difficulties hurt its ability to protect "U.S. consumers and businesses from illegal and unfairly traded goods," he said: "The internet has transformed" commerce and "CBP is too often playing catch-up ball tracking these fake products down." Smith said "the scope of the challenge is tremendous." Cooperation from package shippers is improving, she told senators. The agency receives advance electronic data from Chinese and Hong Kong mail services; 88 percent of counterfeits originate from those locales.

The Music Modernization Act (HR-4706/S-2334) (see 1802090021) would benefit consumers by establishing a more competitive music market, Public Knowledge said Wednesday in a letter to Judiciary Committee leadership in both chambers. The group offered reservations about the Classics Act (HR-3301) over concerns works wouldn't be fully “federalized.” The group applauded bill author Rep. Doug Collins, R-Ga., "for including a number of pro-competitive and pro-consumer provisions in the Act, such as a blanket license, new performing rights organization, and a searchable, publicly accessible database of licensing information,” said Policy Counsel Meredith Rose. A House Judiciary Committee aide told us Wednesday the committee expects to mark up a package of music copyright bills in the coming weeks.

Contractor WinMagic owes Samsung SDS America (SDSA) $277,100 in refunds for botching the installation of encryption software for itself and an unnamed client, alleged the U.S. subsidiary of Samsung’s global information technology company in a federal complaint Thursday. SDSA signed an April 2016 contract to license WinMagic’s SecureDoc Enterprise encryption software for its own use and for “its client’s business operations,” said the complaint (in Pacer), filed in U.S. District Court in Newark, New Jersey. The complaint didn’t identify the client, but a copy of the attached contract suggested it was a large customer, because it said SDSA ordered 7,000 copies of the SecureDoc software. SDSA’s representatives “specifically and unequivocally advised WinMagic that the SecureDoc solution must be compatible with the encryption configuration that SDSA and its client were required to utilize on the computers used in their business operations based upon the requirements of their respective parent companies,” said the complaint. WinMagic nevertheless failed to properly “configure the SecureDoc solution to be compatible with the very encryption requirements that SDSA previously identified as a mandatory component” of the contract, it said. Almost immediately after WinMagic technicians began installing SecureDoc in September 2016, SDSA “provided WinMagic with written notice of serious issues” with the encryption software that “were so severe that SDSA was wholly unable to use the technology solution for any purpose,” it said. Three months later, SDSA canceled the contract and demanded its refund, “consistent with the express warranty provision contained” in the agreement, it said. “To date, WinMagic has failed and refused to provide a full refund of the $277,100 that SDSA paid to WinMagic for SecureDoc,” said the complaint, which alleged fraudulent concealment, negligent misrepresentation, unjust enrichment and other accusations. WinMagic representatives didn’t comment Friday.

While TVEyes' redistribution of Fox content is transformative by making specific Fox content searchable and convenient, that redistribution -- involving virtually all Fox content -- is so broad that TVEyes failed to show its video search product can be justified as fair use, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said in a docket 15-3885 ruling Tuesday. The 2nd Circuit also reversed a lower court ruling that some TVEyes functions are fair use and remanded a permanent injunction against TVEyes so the lower court can revise the injunction to enjoin the company from offering its Watch function. Judge Dennis Jacobs wrote the opinion, joined by Jon Newman. In a concurring opinion, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan of Manhattan, sitting by designation, didn't agree with the majority's characterization of the Watch function being "somewhat transformative." TVEyes' counsel didn't comment.

Panasonic filed applications Feb. 16 to register “HomeHawk” as a trademark for the remote home monitoring system the company introduced at CES, Patent and Trademark Office records show. Panasonic, also on Feb. 16, applied in the U.S. and Japan to trademark a stylized logo for goods and services that include “home security monitoring cameras.” Company representatives didn’t comment Monday.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative plans a hearing March 8 on its “Special 301” investigation of foreign countries that deny adequate and effective protection of intellectual property rights or deny fair market access to U.S. citizens who rely on IP protection, it said in Thursday's Federal Register. The hearing had tentatively been set for Tuesday. Post-hearing briefs are now due March 14, it said. USTR’s Special 301 report is still set for publication around April 30. Friday, USTR didn't have for us more details of the hearing at 1724 F St. NW, Rooms 1 and 2.

The Copyright Office website "is currently unavailable, due to technical problems," the CO said Thursday afternoon, and at that time we couldn't access its website or some pages associated with the parent Library of Congress. Clicking on some URLs associated with CO and LOC returned this error message on our browser: "The requested URL / was not found on this server. Additionally, a 404 Not Found error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request." The LOC didn't comment further.

With the FCC order set to take effect March 5 authorizing voluntary deployment of ATSC 3.0 (see 1802010025), MPEG LA is encountering “a great deal of enthusiasm for an ATSC 3.0 pool license,” said spokesman Tom O’Reilly. Having announced in August a call for patents essential to the 3.0 suite of standards (see 1711010054), “to facilitate creation of a joint license for ATSC 3.0,” MPEG LA held two meetings on forming a patent pool “and will hold our third meeting next month,” said O’Reilly. “Fifteen companies are participating so far.” He gave no timeline for when a 3.0 patent pool might be operational. MPEG LA runs 15 patent pool programs, including one for nine licensors for some essential patents embedded in ATSC 1.0. The two largest joint-license programs MPEG LA administers in terms of the number of participating licensors are those it runs on behalf of 38 companies in the AVC/H.264 pool and 36 companies in the HEVC/H.265 pool. The FCC 3.0 order released Nov. 21 said the commission will use the first five years of 3.0 deployment to "monitor" how the marketplace handles royalties for essential patents, electing for now not to impose licensing rules on 3.0's rollout (see 1711210004).

The Patent and Trademark Office granted the UHD Alliance’s petition to “revive” the group's application to register the Mobile HDR Premium logo as a certification mark for qualifying smartphones, tablets and other mobile devices, said the agency in a Wednesday notice. PTO declared the application dead in late December after an agency examiner rejected it for several flaws in May and the alliance failed to respond to the rejection by the six-month deadline (see 1801140001). The alliance “has firsthand knowledge that the failure to respond to the Office Action by the specified deadline was unintentional,” said the group's Tuesday petition. Despite PTO’s abandonment of the application, alliance President Mike Fidler said his group has “absolutely no intention” of ditching the Mobile HDR Premium logo (see 1801180031). Mobile World Congress (MWC) opens Feb. 26 in Barcelona, where Fidler told us Thursday the alliance plans to promote the logo, having unveiled it officially for the first time at last year’s MWC (see 1702280045).