Wall Street Journal

A federal appeals court revived Apple's legal claims that handset maker Motorola Mobility copied its iPhone patents, but the ruling could weaken a separate case Apple is pressing against Samsung Electronics.

The US Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit ruled that an influential Chicago-based federal judge made multiple legal errors when he dismissed competing patent-infringement claims by Apple and Motorola in 2012. The court said Judge Richard Posner wrongly excluded expert testimony in a case where Apple and Motorola were each pressing claims the other owed monetary damages for infringement.

The ruling means that Apple will have a new chance to argue Motorola infringed its patents. In the latest case, Apple is seeking $2.2 billion from Samsung for infringing five patents. Samsung has countered by saying that Apple infringed two of its patents and is seeking $7 million.

[Commentary] Imagine if businesses had to go to after every sale so a federal agency could pass judgment on whether the deal is "commercially reasonable."

Readers in heavily regulated industries may say they already do. But it's not the way to prosperity and it's not the model that has allowed the Internet to become an engine of the US economy. Yet new Chairman Tom Wheeler previewed the Federal Communication Commission's latest attempt to enforce "net neutrality" rules on Internet service providers. These are the companies like AT&T and Comcast that run wires into homes and businesses to deliver Internet connections.

A long-standing dream among liberal activists is to prevent these firms from charging higher prices to heavy consumers of Internet bandwidth. The most zealous promoters of this idea don't even believe that capacity hogs like Netflix or Google's YouTube should pay extra for all the video they send over digital communications networks (though the companies themselves have more nuanced positions). The net-neuts also want new rules preventing networks from blocking or discriminating against websites -- say, by slowing down connections to websites that aren't affiliated with the network.

Although Congress has never appointed the FCC to run the Internet, Chairman Wheeler will now try a third time to sneak this idea past the judiciary and fulfill a 2008 campaign promise from President Obama. Chairman Wheeler will likely present his proposal, which he briefly described in a blog post, as a compromise between free markets and the heavy-handed regulation that the FCC has always applied to the traditional telephone system. And our liberal friends are already howling that to allow any variable pricing will relegate average customers to an endless Internet traffic jam while well-heeled companies take the fast lane on a private cyber toll road.

Four big Silicon Valley technology companies agreed to settle a lawsuit in which 64,000 employees accused them of conspiring not to recruit each other's workers, depressing wages.

Terms of the settlement involving Apple, Google, Intel and Adobe Systems weren't immediately released. The settlement was confirmed by Kelly Dermody, a lawyer for the plaintiffs at Lieff Cabraser Heimann & Bernstein LLP.

"This is an excellent resolution of the case that will benefit class members," Dermody said.

The Federal Communications Commission plans to propose new open Internet rules that would allow content companies to pay Internet service providers for special access to consumers, according to a person familiar with the proposal.

The proposed rules would prevent the service providers from blocking or discriminating against specific websites, but would allow broadband providers to give some traffic preferential treatment, so long as such arrangements are available on "commercially reasonable" terms for all interested content companies. Whether the terms are commercially reasonable would be decided by the FCC on a case-by-case basis.

Companies such as Skype or Netflix that offer phone or video services that rely on broadband connections could take advantage of such arrangements by paying the broadband providers to ensure that their traffic reaches consumers without disruption. Those companies would be paying for preferential treatment on the "last mile" of broadband networks that connects directly to consumers' homes.

The proposal does not address the separate issue of back-end interconnection or peering between content providers and broadband networks.

FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler indicated he planned to issue new open Internet rules in February after a federal court threw out the FCC's previous rules. The court's ruling sketched out a legal pathway through which the FCC could try and achieve the same goals, and Chairman Wheeler has said he plans on following that road map.

Additional Coverage:

FCC, in a Shift, Backs Fast Lanes for Web Traffic (NYTimes)
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/24/technology/fcc-new-net-neutrality-rule...

FCC shifts stance on net neutrality rules (FT)
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/568be7f6-cb2f-11e3-ba95-00144feabdc0.html

Net neutrality dead for good? FCC may endorse pay-for-play deals (ars technica)
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/04/net-neutrality-dead-for-good-...

Google to Netflix Pay-for-Access Deals Said to Be Review by FCC (Bloomberg)
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-04-23/fcc-said-to-consider-letting...

FCC proposes allowing streamers to strike ISP deals (USA Today)
http://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/personal/2014/04/23/fcc-net-neutralit...

FCC chairman proposes new net neutrality rules (LA Times)
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-fcc-net-neutrality-20140424,0,5845...

The FCC is planning new net neutrality rules. And they could enshrine pay-for-play. (Washington Post)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/the-switch/wp/2014/04/23/the-fcc-is-...

We are delighted to announce that Christopher Mims is the new technology columnist for The Wall Street Journal and WSJD.com, the Journal’s online and mobile home for tech coverage.

Mims, 34 years old, is coming to the Journal from Quartz, where he has served as lead technology reporter and, most recently, technology and science editor. As a writer, he has consistently provided provocative and insightful stories, columns and blog posts about an array of technology and science topics, from Facebook’s plan to find its next billion users to the history of the pumpkin spice latte at Starbucks.

As a freelance journalist before joining Quartz, Mims was a prolific writer for publications ranging from Technology Review and Smithsonian.com to Wired, the Atlantic, Scientific American, Discover, Slate and Glamour. He has a degree in neuroscience and behavioral biology from Emory University. In his new role, Mims will produce a weekly column for print and online readers, as well as blog posts and videos for digital platforms.

As Samsung Electronics's best-selling smartphones face increasing competition from a horde of Chinese lookalikes, one of the South Korean giant’s key goals has been to translate demand for its devices into interest for Samsung’s homegrown software and services. But a new study shows how far the company still has to go.

Strategy Analytics, a Newton (MA)-based research firm, said in a report that US users of Samsung’s devices spend little time on its own messaging, music and voice-activated applications including apps like ChatON, the South Korean company’s answer to services like WhatsApp, Line and Viber.

The report said that US users of Samsung’s Galaxy S3 and S4 smartphones logged an average of six seconds per month using ChatON, compared to more than 11 hours per month on Facebook and about two hours per month on Instagram. On average, users spent just seven minutes during the month on an array of Samsung apps -- including ChatON, voice-activated search app S Voice and app store Samsung Hub. By contrast, they spent an average of 149 minutes on just three apps by software partner Google -- its app store Play Store, video-watching site YouTube and its flagship search engine.

If your Internet speed feels too slow, it probably is. Most major US Internet service providers usually deliver slower speeds than they advertise to their customers.

Indeed, the vast majority of the 800 cities included in the sortable table below experience median Internet speeds that are slower than what their providers advertise, according to data provided by Ookla and its online speed test, Speedtest.net.

Ookla, which previously licensed its data and technology to the Federal Communications Commission, compiled the data from tens of millions of speed tests as well as surveys of 646,404 Speedtest users’ subscribed Internet speeds since March 2013.

Marketers have been pouring money into mobile, but they’re still hungry for better tools to track the reach of their ads. Now there are signs of progress at the big measurement firms.

Nielsen will announce it is partnering with BrightRoll and TubeMogul -- two digital ad-sales firms -- for a technical trial before the expanding its ad-tracking system, known as Online Campaign Ratings, to mobile this summer.

ComScore, a Nielsen rival, announced the expansion of its measurement product, Validated Campaign Essentials, to track ads appearing on smartphones and tablets.

The two initiatives are evidence of how important tracking consumer activity on mobile devices is becoming to advertisers -- and how measurement companies are scrambling to provide more of that information.

NBCUniversal said it plans to launch an extensive original programming slate for its digital platforms.

The Comcast unit said the programming would be featured on its channels' websites, through video on-demand services and on streaming service Hulu.

NBCUniversal said the plan is "designed to connect advertising brands with consumers in the most engaging and immersive ways." The digital series, in several cases, will be developed in collaboration with advertising partners, the company added.

"Much of the uncaptured value in the online world can be unlocked with smart collaborations between creators and clients," NBCUniversal content executive Jeff Wachtel said in a release. "This year, we're making a big push to building that bridge."

NBCUniversal's announcement comes two weeks after it reached a multiyear deal to give Hulu exclusive rights to stream several TV shows.

Madison Avenue has long been home to creative gurus who had months to produce an advertising campaign. But an explosion of social media has pushed ad firms to work at faster paces and to even hire folks who are used to working on tight deadlines: reporters.

Take Caitlin Francke, a former reporter for the Baltimore Sun and the Philadelphia Inquirer. After a stint in marketing at Conde Nast and work at various agencies, she’s now senior vice president and director of social strategy at Publicis Kaplan Thaler.

“We know as journalists that we can teach to the advertising agencies the need to move that much faster,” Francke said. Her job includes running Publicis’s so called “Newsdesk” operations, a department of 50 people that includes social strategists, creative staffers and others.

The newsdesk, formed two years ago, monitors social media for eight clients and looks for opportunities for a marketer to jump in on a conversation in real-time. A morning meeting for the newsdesk may include a rundown of the important news of the day, a discussion of what major events to prepare for and a review of the conversations that are unfolding on social media. For big events, like the Olympics, Publicis will set up a pop-up 24/7 newsdesk for its client.

If they spot an opportunity, they post something quickly on social media channels like Facebook or Twitter that links the brand to what’s going on. Finding the right opportunity isn’t easy – a brand doesn’t want to tie itself to bad news.