Posts Tagged: "Internet"

The Facebooks, Googles and Netflixes of the world, edge providers that provide Internet services via websites but not an Internet connection like ISPs offer, have every reason to support the current net neutrality regime at the FCC because it benefits their bottom line, preventing ISPs from charging them for the incredible amount of bandwidth which they eat up. Proponents of net neutrality have presented the debate to the public as the individual consumer versus the larger ISPs, which has been successful in increasing regulations for ISPs having much smaller subscriber bases and lower market capitalizations than edge providers. While ISPs are prevented from zero-rating, or offering digital content for free to subscribers, under the current net neutrality regime, Facebook and Twitter are increasingly offering live sports broadcasts for free to their users.

East Palo Alto, CA-based web security firm Finjan Holdings recently filed a Form 8-K with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) which disclosed a patent assignment agreement made with Armonk, NY-based information technology giant IBM (NYSE:IBM). Under the terms of the agreement, Finjan Blue, a newly formed subsidiary of Finjan, will acquire a series of IBM security-related patents with potential pathways for the IBM and Finjan to work collaboratively on development of those patented technologies.

There are major concerns that websites enabling consumers to access streaming video illegally without paying, in violation of copyright, could hamper the fortunes of those broadcasting the event. On August 15th, New York City-based television channel operator Showtime Networks Inc., the exclusive producer of the live transmission of the Mayweather-McGregor fight, filed a copyright infringement suit in the Central District of California. The suit is a preemptive strike against a series of John Doe defendants operating a few dozen websites offering illicit livestreaming of the Mayweather-McGregor fight.

John Thorne was VP and deputy general counsel for Verizon during its legal battle against former American cable television company Cablevision where Verizon asserted a series of patents it owned… A closer look into the patents renders some interesting information about the patents Verizon asserted and the company’s legal strategy in the case. Two of the eight patents asserted by Verizon in the District of Delaware weren’t originally invented by Verizon, Bell Atlantic or other any other of Verizon’s predecessor companies; they were acquired from outside entities… And haven’t we been told by the likes of Unified Patents that all patent owners who enforce their patents are patent trolls? One would have to assume if Unified is being logically consistent they would have extraordinary problems with Verizon’s activities particularly here where the patents used to sue Cablevision were acquired and not the subject of in-house innovation.

Seattle, WA-based real estate tech firm Redfin went public after an initial public offering that exceeded expectations, reaching $15 per share and a total valuation of $138.5 million. The company offers a tech platform for real estate transactions available through its website and mobile app and relies on salaried employees instead of commission-based real estate agents. Between 2015 and 2016, revenues have surged by 43 percent from $187.3 million up to $267.2 million in 2016.

Mark Lopreiato, the inventor of the Forearm Forklift, recorded sales of $4 million in 2008 but since then has seen a 30% drop, which he attributes to cheap replicas available on eBay and Amazon. In point of fact, there have been a number of examples of innovative companies suffering from the sale of replicas on Amazon and other e-commerce sites. In extreme cases, global brands like Birkenstock have stopped business with Amazon and other e-commerce retailers altogether. Sustained pressure on e-commerce sites from both professional and governmental bodies have yielded some results in recent years, with almost every major site now offering some level of IP protection tool or process. This also serves the interest of bigger sites as Amazon, eBay and their Chinese counterpart Alibaba are shielded from legal liability, provided they can offer a timely takedown service for IP owners.

Between 2014 and 2016, Pai said that the country’s 12 largest ISPs have decreased their spending by $3.6 billion, a drop of 5.6 percent in investment. Pai also cited a letter sent to the FCC from a collection of 22 ISPs, each serving about 1,000 customers or fewer, who argue that the Title II common carrier regulations have affected their ability to obtain financing and have at least slowed the development and deployment of new infrastructure and services… Pai believes that the return to a light-touch framework would benefit Americans in a variety of ways. The lighter regulatory framework should spur broadband deployment towards better Internet service, create jobs for Americans to deploy those networks, boost marketplace competition, end government micromanagement and secure Internet privacy by returning authority to the FTC.

Move Fast and Break Things, subtitled How Facebook, Google and Amazon Cornered Culture and Undermined Democracy, dissects the inordinate power of a handful of the popular, primarily Internet companies and those who run them, and its impact on culture, innovation and personal freedom. What Taplin does best is to connect the dots, distinguishing between true break-through ideas and the ability to simply profit from data and dominate markets by making content and information more widely accessible. His analysis reveals how a combination of bold vision, oversized ego and enormous wealth have resulted in undermining the rights of a wide range of people and businesses, and pillaging whole industries.

Yesterday IPWatchdog.com received a suspicious invoice from a vendor that we have never done business with by the name of WizAdwords.com. It is a clever ploy to send a fake Invoice that claims billing auto renewal failed. Given the proliferation of identity theft related crimes, credit card numbers are revoked and reissued with increasing frequency… Based on my investigation of the facts it is my opinion that the Invoice sent by WizAdwords.com is a scam.

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) unveiled a proposed recommendation that would extend the Internet standards organization’s HTML5 standard to incorporate Encrypted Media Extensions (EME), a specification which provides a communication channel between web browsers and digital rights management (DRM) agent software. The proposed new standard has raised a bit of controversy among Internet industry groups despite a reasoned argument from W3C founder and Internet pioneer Tim Berners-Lee… Some industry organizations, like the Free Software Foundation (FSF) or the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), are religiously opposed to DRM and are zealous in their conviction that the W3C’s proposal “is simply a back door for media companies to require proprietary player software.”

Plano, TX-based security tech provider Uniloc USA recently filed a pair of patent infringement suits in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Texas (E.D. Tex.) in which Uniloc asserts a series of patents directed at conference call and voice over Internet (VoIP) technologies. The defendants, Alphabet Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Internet services subsidiary Google and e-commerce giant Amazon.com (NASDAQ:AMZN), are the latest targets in a series of suits Uniloc has filed in the past year… Past Uniloc suits involving the above patents have been filed against Facebook Inc. (NASDAQ:FB), Cisco Systems (NASDAQ:CSCO), BlackBerry Corporation (NASDAQ:BBRY), Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Snapchat, now Snap Inc. (NYSE:SNAP). Uniloc’s suit against Google is the fourth suit involving patents in the litigation campaign and the third filed against Google since the beginning of March.

FCC Chairman Ajit Pai has moved to block broadband privacy rules drafted by the previous administration and set to go into effect in early March… FCC commissioners voted 3-2 last October to adopt broadband privacy rules which limit the amount of data which can be collected by ISPs from their consumers. The rules created an opt-in/opt-out model in which broadband customers must intentionally opt-in to any data collection programs developed by ISPs to collect data considered by the FCC to be sensitive, including geo-location, family size, browsing history or app usage history. Pai was one of two dissenting votes in last October’s decision on the broadband privacy rules, and his dissent reflected his views on harmonizing the FCC’s privacy regime with the FTC.

This new e-Privacy Regulation, if adopted, will replace the current e-Privacy Directive and will establish, together with the General Data Protection Regulation, GDPR, a new privacy legal framework for electronic communications. The proposal aims to be lex specialis to the GDPR. Probably to ensure consistency with the new privacy legal framework for electronic communications, the entry into force provision of the leaked text has been amended to state expressly that the e-Privacy Regulation will come into force on the same date as the GDPR (25 May 2018). With many legislative hurdles still remaining before it is approved, this represents an ambitious timeline for EU legislators.

The recent earnings release from Intel also indicates that the company is increasing its investment in research and development. Intel reported that R&D expenditures were $12.7 billion over the course of 2016 and $3.3 billion during the fourth quarter. This was up from the company’s $12.1 billion investment in R&D during 2015 as well as $3.1 billion invested during 2015’s fourth quarter. Intel spent more on R&D than it did on marketing, general and administrative (MG&A), where the company spent $8.4 billion during 2016 and $2.2 billion during the recent quarter. Intel’s full year guidance for 2017 indicates that the company expects to spend a total of $20.5 billion on both R&D and MG&A this year.

Recently, we took a closer look at four of the largest trending stories playing out in the world of intellectual property and patents during 2016. Today we turn to the world of technology to see what trends have been developing in the technology sector over the past year. From an ever-widening scope of business activities being pursued by Silicon Valley’s largest firms to growing government authority over one sector of Internet services, there have been plenty of interesting stories playing out on the stage of America’s tech sector.