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A U.S. district court judge has ruled that 13 Motorola Mobility patent claims related to digital video are invalid in a patent licensing case brought by Microsoft.
Judge James Robart of U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington ruled that the patent claims, related to encoding and decoding a bitstream of digital video data and the H.264 video codec standard are not valid because they aren't adequately tied to a specific invention apart from a general purpose computer. The claims are tied to three Motorola patents. Judge Robart, in his ruling, granted Microsoft's request for a summary judgment against the patents. Microsoft filed a lawsuit against the Google-owned Motorola in November 2010, arguing that the mobile technology company had reneged on promises to make the video and some WLAN patents available on fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory terms.
Judge invalidates 13 Motorola Mobility patent claims in Microsoft case
The National Telecommunications Cooperative Association (NTCA) and the Organization for the Promotion and Advancement of Small Telecommunications Companies (OPASTCO) announced that the associations will unify. This joining of two well-known entities increases the policy strength for the rural telecommunications industry and expands the business opportunities for growth and development for rural telecom companies. As of March 1, the new organization will be known as NTCA, The Rural Broadband Association.
Leading Rural Telecommunications Associations Agree to Unify
EveryBlock, a hyperlocal Chicago neighborhood news site that was bought by MSNBC, pulled the plug without warning. Vivian Schiller, senior vice president and chief digital officer of NBC News, told Poynter that EveryBlock was "a wonderful scrappy business," but said it "wasn't a strategic fit with our growth strategy and — like most hyperlocal businesses — was struggling with the business model.” EveryBlock's hyperlocal site, which posted everything from purse snatchings to zoning permits, was a pioneering use of the web to cover news at the micro level. It was founded by Adrian Holavaty in 2007 and sold to MSNBC two years later.
Why NBC shut down EveryBlock NBC Shuts Down Hyperlocal Web Site (NYTimes) Another hyperlocal journalism effort dies as NBC shuts down pioneering startup EveryBlock (paidContent)
Trade associations that represent tech giants such as Google, Amazon, IBM and Cisco argue that a proposed cybersecurity directive released by the European Union is written too broadly and could slap burdensome new regulations on the tech industry.
U.S. tech trade associations argue that the proposed rules are too sweeping and would not have the desired effect of boosting cybersecurity in Europe. They argue that Internet companies and cloud storage services are not critical infrastructure and should not be subject to the proposed rules. "We believe that to be manageable, useful and proportionate, the requirements should be narrowly targeted at sectors which operate truly critical infrastructures," said Christian Wagner, security and privacy policy manager of TechAmerica's Europe arm. "We are concerned that the sweeping and indiscriminate inclusion of 'enablers of Internet-services' in the scope of the directive would fail to strike the delicate, but indispensable, balance between the risk-based prioritization of assets and functions to be protected," Wagner added. Tech trade groups also fear that another section in the EU cyber directive would force companies to meet a set of performance standards, arguing that it's too prescriptive.
Tech associations raise concerns with EU's proposed cybersecurity rules
Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor said she no longer supports bringing cameras into the courtroom, a reversal from comments she made during her confirmation hearings.
Judge Sotomayor told a crowd in New York that allowing television cameras to capture the court's oral arguments would do more harm than good. “It's like reading tea leaves. I think if people analyzed it, it is true that in almost every argument you can find a hint of what every judge would rule. But most justices are actually probing all the arguments." "Looking at oral argument is not going to give you that explanation. Oral argument is the forum in which the judge plays devil's advocate with lawyers," Judge Sotomayor said. She said the court fully explains its reasoning in its rulings, and that's what really counts. "There's no other public official who is required by the nature of their work to completely explain to the public the basis of their decision," she said.
Justice Sotomayor no longer backs television cameras in Supreme Court
Google must extend its offer made last week to pay French publishers for use of their content to all media companies across Europe, the head of the European Publishers Council said.
Last week, the internet search giant agreed to pay 60 million euros ($80 million) into a special fund to help French media develop their presence on the Internet. It will not pay them for posting links to their content. French publishers had demanded licensing fees for headlines and snippets of articles in its search engine results.
Google must extend payments across Europe for use of content
This report summarizes information about Internet access connections over 200 kilobits per second (kbps) in at least one direction in service in the United States on December 31, 2011, as collected by FCC Form 477.
Form 477 gathers standardized information about subscribership to Internet access services in the fifty states, District of Columbia, and inhabited insular areas (American Samoa, Guam, Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and U.S. Virgin Islands). The information is reported by telephone companies, cable system operators, terrestrial wireless service providers, satellite service providers, and other facilities-based providers of advanced telecommunications capability. This is the seventh report to include details about subscribership differences among census tracts and counties, as well as subscribership differences among the states.
Notable developments between December 2010 and December 2011 include:
- Internet connections overall are growing. The number of connections over 200 kbps in at least one direction increased by 27% year-over-year to 230 million.
- Growth is particularly high in mobile Internet subscriptions, but fixed-location connections also continue to increase. The number of mobile subscriptions grew to 142 million – up 46% from December 2010. The number of fixed-location connections increased by 4% year-over-year, to 88 million.
- Both fixed and mobile services are shifting to higher speeds. The share of fixed connections with download speeds at or above 3 Mbps and upload speeds at or above 768 kbps increased from 53% to 58% of total fixed connections. Among mobile wireless subscriptions, the share increased from 11% to 22%.
- Despite the strong growth of total mobile connections, fixed connections continued to dominate among those connections with higher download and upload speeds.
FCC Releases New Data on Internet Access Services
For the 64 percent of Americans whose internet service provider imposes a broadband cap, and for those lucky enough to have a meter, some bad news. The president of the firm who audits many of the country’s broadband meters says that he can’t certify the measurements produced by five out of seven of his clients’ meters because they don’t count your bits correctly.
Peter Sevcik, president of NetForecast, told GigaOM that seven clients have hired his firm to audit their broadband meters over the last few years, but of those seven only one — Comcast — has published a report on the NetForecast certification. Sevcik is only willing to certify one other client in a public report. The other five clients — which Sevcik would not name — have meters that Sevcik views as inaccurate, although not all of them have publicly rolled out their meters. And not all of those clients impose a broadband cap. Sevcik usually expects accuracy on the meters of between plus or minus one percent, but so far these don’t measure up.
More bad news about broadband caps: Many meters are inaccurate
The Federal Communications Commission is seeking comment on rules to help address problems in the completion of long-distance telephone calls to rural customers. Retail long-distance providers, such as wireless providers, cable companies, interexchange carriers (IXCs), local exchange carriers (LECs), and providers of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services, often employ intermediate providers to carry long-distance calls to their destination. Some of these intermediate providers offering wholesale call delivery services may be failing to deliver a significant number of calls to rural telephone company customers, and evidence indicates that the retail long-distance providers may not be adequately examining the resultant rural call completion performance.
Rural Call Completion
The Warner Music Group, the smallest of the three remaining major record companies, said on that it had reached an agreement to pay $765 million for the Parlophone Label Group, a package of divestments from the EMI label that was mandated by European regulators as part of the Universal Music Group’s $1.9 billion deal for EMI last year.
“This is a very important milestone for Warner Music, reflecting our commitment to artist development by strengthening our worldwide roster, global footprint and executive talent,” said Len Blavatnik, the founder of Access Industries, Warner’s parent company. The Parlophone group consists of EMI’s Parlophone, Chrysalis and other labels, along with EMI subsidiary companies across Europe, with artists including Coldplay, Pink Floyd, the Beach Boys, David Guetta and Iron Maiden. Universal will retain EMI’s Capitol and Virgin labels, including artists like the Beatles, the Beach Boys, Katy Perry and Lady Antebellum. (In a separate sale, an investor consortium led by Sony bought EMI’s music publishing assets.) The deal is a win for Warner, which since 2000 has made several unsuccessful efforts to buy or merge with EMI.
Warner Music Group Buys EMI Assets for $765 Million