The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit upheld an International Trade Commission determination that some Motorola Mobility smartphones are infringing patents held by Microsoft, in violation of Section 337 of the Tariff Act (http://1.usa.gov/1gGAUAq). The ITC findings had resulted in imposition of a limited exclusion order in June 2012 banning imports of certain Motorola smartphones. Customs and Border Protection ruled in April that a design-around by Motorola allowed entry of products formerly subject to the exclusion order, which provoked an ongoing lawsuit from Microsoft at the U.S. District Court in Washington. Motorola Mobility is “disappointed with this decision but pleased with the overall outcome,” said a spokesman for the company that’s now a unit of Google. “Microsoft lost on 8 of its ‘best’ patents, and this lone opinion does not impact our ability to build great products that people love.” The ITC had no comment on the Federal Circuit’s ruling, decided Monday. “Even after a closer look by the Federal Circuit, it’s clear Google is using patented technology Microsoft worked hard to invent,” said Microsoft Deputy General Counsel David Howard.
Iridium’s petition for reallocating Globalstar’s Big low-earth orbit spectrum will ensure sufficient spectrum to promote continued development and innovation in essential mobile satellite service (MSS), Iridium said in FCC RM-11685 (http://bit.ly/18z3Bwu). The petition is neither anticompetitive “nor would it hinder Globalstar in pursuing its MSS or TLPS business plans,” Iridium said of Globalstar’s proposed terrestrial low-power service. Iridium’s growth is expected to continue, “driven by the introduction of new products and services enabled by upgrades in Iridium’s constellation and its innovative vendor partnerships,” it said. As Iridium prepares for the launch of Iridium Next, its next-generation network, “it will be increasingly important to ensure that it has sufficient spectrum available to support this expansion as well as sustain its core business,” it said. “Iridium offers nothing new in its response and nothing supports its request to take almost 3 MHz of Globalstar’s L-band spectrum,” said Barbee Ponder, Globalstar general counsel.
Michigan’s Merit Network and the Ohio Academic Resources Network completed construction of a fiber connection between their networks, they said in a news release Wednesday. The new connection will help provide increased redundancy for the networks, they said.
The California Public Utilities Commission asked the FCC for an extension of time to implement a third-party identification verification process for its Lifeline program (http://bit.ly/JIdsVK). An extension to May 1 would help the PUC comply with an FCC requirement that the state implement the verification process, it said. The FCC had made the verification requirement a condition on the PUC’s being able to opt out of the National Lifeline Accountability Database, said the PUC’s Tuesday petition.
The Nebraska Public Service Commission asked the FCC for a permanent waiver of rules requiring it provide a copy of the Lifeline subscriber’s certification form to eligible telecom carriers (http://bit.ly/JIcKYL). Ongoing compliance will “result in a significant burden” for the state commission, and a delay in bringing Lifeline benefits to eligible subscribers, said the PSC in a petition Tuesday. “Special conditions” in Nebraska warrant the waiver, it said: The Nebraska PSC “oversees the application verification process, ensures that a compliant certification form is executed by each subscriber, then provides written notification to each affected ETC.” This “should be considered more than sufficient” to ensure compliance with Lifeline program requirements, it said.
Several telecom associations asked the FCC for a stay of rules requiring their members to “reconcile and revise study area boundary data” that will ultimately be published in an online map of study area boundaries (http://bit.ly/JIaL6y). NTCA, USTelecom, the Independent Telephone and Telecommunications Alliance, Western Telecommunications Alliance and Eastern Rural Telecom Association asked Wednesday for a stay or a six-month extension to let the companies gather the information. The Wireline Bureau’s study area boundary order said the data would be used to implement the USF/intercarrier compensation benchmarking rule, which uses quantile regression analysis to generate capital and operating expense limits for each rate-of-return carrier study area. “The Chairman has indicated that consideration will be given by the Commission to the elimination of the quantile regression analysis ... mechanism in the near future,” the petition said. “Absence of the QRA would remove the stated reason for the study area boundary process, and particularly for the burdensome and time-consuming efforts that will be involved in reconciling many hundreds of overlaps and voids.” If the boundary data are still required, the groups said, a six-month extension is necessary to ensure accuracy. The groups are awaiting details of the QRA replacement FCC Chairman Tom Wheeler told Congress the agency is working on (CD Dec 18 p2).
"Illustrative model outputs” of version 4.0 of the Connect America Cost Model are available at http://fcc.us/18RrTfQ, the FCC Wireline Bureau said in a public notice Wednesday (http://fcc.us/18RrU3A). The site also contains lists of the census blocks that would be funded if the bureau adopts this version of the model, it said.
Ex-Commissioner Deborah Taylor-Tate and Education Networks of America met Nov. 13, 14 and 15 with FCC Wireline Bureau staff and aides to several commissioners, they said in an ex parte filing posted online Tuesday (http://bit.ly/18RnrOi). The group said it supports the FCC’s goals for modernizing the E-rate program, and offered ideas on streamlining the application process for E-rate funds. The E-rate program should also be able to provide partial funding “in situations that merit such treatment,” they said in a presentation that was included with the filing(http://bit.ly/18RnARR). They recommended exemption of schools, libraries and their underlying providers from paying into the Universal Service Fund on services and service components. They also suggested a standing committee of “E-rate constituents” to help ongoing improvement of the rules.
Gannett may get a retransmission consent and cost-savings boost from buying Belo Corp. after the Department of Justice OK'd it with a divestiture (CD Dec 17 p6), a stock analyst wrote to investors Wednesday. The acquirer “could see modest multiple expansion, benefiting from ramping retrans and increased synergies along with strong political inflows helping boost total cash flow and offsetting ongoing weakness in print,” said Ed Atorino of Benchmark. He said Belo means “higher margin revenue streams” for Gannett, which also owns daily newspapers including USA Today.
SES, SpeedCast and AsiaSat donated satellite and service capacity to help restore communication links to survivors of Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines. The companies provided the capacity to NetHope, a group of nongovernmental organizations, SES said in a news release (http://bit.ly/J5uEmQ). It said that includes 36 MHz of capacity on SES’ NSS-11 satellite and uplink services and ground infrastructure from SpeedCast and AsiaSat.