International Trade Commission Administrative Law Judge David Shaw expects by Sept. 21 to recommend to the ITC his “initial determination” whether Hisense infringed Sharp’s smart TV patents as Sharp alleged in its Aug. 29 Tariff Act Section 337 complaint (see 1709050045), Shaw said in an order (login required) signed Wednesday and posted in docket 337-TA-1072. Shaw set a January 2019 target date for the ITC to complete its investigation. He plans an evidentiary hearing on Sharp’s allegations in mid-May.

The MPAA identified close to two dozen linking and streaming websites, direct download cyberlockers and streaming video hosting services, website portals for piracy apps, peer-to-peer networks, advertising networks and hosting providers that it says represent the scope and nature of online content theft. A letter to the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative spelling out "notorious markets" outside the U.S. made public Tuesday said streaming piracy enabled by piracy devices preloaded with software for viewing of movie and TV programming is "an emerging global threat." It said the most popular such software is Kodi, and the growth of such piracy is "startling," with 6 percent of North American households having a Kodi device configured to access pirated content. Kodi didn't comment Wednesday. Streaming sites named include Sweden's Fmovies.is and Russia's Movie4k.tv, and direct download cyberlocker sites named include Ukraine's Nowvideos.sx. Website portals singled out in the MPAA letter include Thailand's IpPlayBox.tv and related sites, P2P networks include ThePirateBay.org and Switzerland's 1337x.to, hosting providers include Netbrella, and ad networks include Canada's WWWPromoter.

Samsung is “looking into” the Tessera Technologies complaint at the International Trade Commission alleging various Samsung mobile devices infringe two Tessera patents (see 1709290044), a Samsung spokesman said Monday. Samsung “will take necessary measures accordingly," said the spokesman. Tessera seeks exclusion and cease and desist orders at the ITC against Samsung devices containing “wafer-level” packaged semiconductors, including the “power management IC” chips used in the Galaxy 8 and Note8 smartphones.

The International Trade Commission opened a Tariff Act Section 337 investigation into allegations (see 1709050045) imports of Hisense smart TVs infringe Sharp Wi-Fi patents, said a Wednesday notice (login required) in docket 337-TA-1072. Foxconn CEO Terry Gou, whose company bought Sharp, wants to make Sharp, 8K displays and 5G products the linchpins of the plant his company plans in Wisconsin. The ITC will consider whether to issue limited exclusion order and cease-and-desist orders banning import and sale of any patent-infringing Hisense smart TVs.

TiVo extended its intellectual property license with AT&T, it said in a Wednesday announcement. The companies previously announced a seven-year license renewal at the end of 2015, and the extension will allow AT&T to license TiVo’s patent portfolios through 2025.

The Copyright Office updated its electronic system that designates and searches for agents named by service providers to receive notifications of claimed infringements under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, said a Wednesday announcement. Updates include: the CO can transfer a designation from one user account to another, if requested; system users can now view terminated designations; users can delete in-process designations; and a preview screen is available for users before they submit payment. The office said service providers that previously registered a designation through the old paper-based system must file one electronically by Dec. 31 for $6 to maintain active designation.

House legislation aimed at making music licensing more transparent is a "one-sided approach that would fail to simplify" it, the Content Creators' Coalition wrote House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., and ranking member John Conyers, D-Mich. C3, which urged the committee to reject HR-3350 introduced by Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., in July (see 1707260009), is "deeply concerned about the bill's onerous registration system and financial penalty (forfeiture of statutory damages and attorneys' fees) for songwriters or publishers who fail to register their works in a new database, created and run by the government." Sensenbrenner's bill would direct the register of copyrights to create and maintain a searchable database of sound recordings, permitting businesses that want live music performed there to identify and pay copyright holders. C3 said Friday an IP right shouldn't be subject to forfeiture, nor should there be hurdles for creators "on pain of losing control." The coalition said there's support for the Fair Play Fair Pay and Compensating Legacy Artists for their Songs, Service and Important Contributions to Society acts (see 1707200012). The letter was signed by members of the c3 executive board, musicians Melvin Gibbs, John McCrea, Rosanne Cash, Tift Merritt and Matthew Montfort, Executive Director Jeffrey Boxer and artist manager Tommy Manzi.

The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative is seeking comments from foreign governments through Oct. 27, and from everyone else through Oct. 20, on whether and how the agency should identify Thailand based on its intellectual property protection regime or market access it provides Americans who rely on IP protection, USTR said in Thursday's Federal Register. USTR announced Sept. 15 it was starting an out-of-cycle review of Thailand’s “Special 301” status because of positive steps the country took. The agency put Thailand on the Special 301 priority watch list in its 2017 Special 301 report in April. Thailand requested the review “in light of its efforts to achieve substantial progress” in its IP regime, USTR said.

A coalition of nearly two dozen music organizations wrote U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer that the tech community is "working for a backward-looking agenda" for the North American Free Trade Agreement at the expense of U.S. cultural, economic and employment interests. In the Tuesday letter, the coalition, including ASCAP, BMI and RIAA, cited an Aug. 31 letter to him from CTA, Internet Association and other industry groups that want a "strong and balanced copyright framework," which includes the Digital Millennium Copyright Act safe harbors. That tech letter said DMCA safe harbors and the Copyright Act exceptions are essential to the internet's commercial growth and any modernization of NAFTA that omits portions of a copyright framework that the tech sector relies on "will cause serious harm" to part of the economy and risk jobs. But the music coalition said the tech sector wants the U.S. to insert "vast loopholes" in the copyright system "such as broad copyright exceptions and sweeping immunities for those committing content theft." The music coalition said it would permit trading partners to be havens for piracy for those who illegally infringe on American content. "Beyond the U.S. experience, our trading partners are simply not in a position to implement U.S. safe harbor law in their own domestic systems, which lack fundamental aspects of the U.S. legal system, including our high-standard intellectual property protections, our case law and our Constitution," the music coalition said. It said adding safe harbors would put U.S. creative industries at a "competitive disadvantage."

Sony has ideas for adapting virtual-reality head-up display technology for use in cars, said a U.S. patent application (2017/0240047) published Aug. 24 at the Patent and Trademark Office. The application, filed in early 2016, describes an “active window” for vehicle infomatics and VR in which the car’s front windshield is partly covered with a flexible, transparent OLED screen so the driver or passengers can see a real-world view of the car’s surroundings overlaid by synthetic images. Using what Sony dubs a “fun selector,” occupants can decide whether to augment reality with useful information to aid navigation or to add whimsy. The outside world can be “enhanced to allow amusing things to happen,” such as an image of a dinosaur peering out from between two trees or boulders, or superimposing images of grass, lakes and flowers onto a desert landscape through which the vehicle is passing, it said. Sony didn’t comment Tuesday on possible commercial plans.