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By Bloomberg

One week after he canceled a patent trial between the patent-licensing firm Wi-LAN USA Inc. and the Swedish mobile-phone company Ericsson AB, a judge in Florida ruled that Ericsson didn’t infringe two patents at issue.

U.D. District Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks said in a May 22 ruling that of the three patents covering wireless transmission that Wi-LAN claimed were infringed, two weren’t infringed and the third was invalid. As a result, he said, he didn’t need to address the claims Wi-LAN made of indirect infringement.

The suit was filed in October 2012, and in August 2014 a Washington-based federal appeals court said the disputed patents weren’t covered by a license and let the infringement suit go ahead.

The case is Wi-LAN USA Inc. v. Telefonaktiebolaget LM Ericsson, 1:12-cv-23569, U.S. District Court, Southern District of Florida (Miami). The appeal is Wi-LAN USA Inc. v. Ericsson Inc., 12-1484, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit (Washington).

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Copyright

Green Party U.K. to Review Proposed 14-Year Copyright Term

The Green Party in the U.K. said it will reconsider its plan to alter copyright law in that country in the wake of complaints from authors and other content creators, the U.K.’s Telegraph newspaper reported.

After the party proposed a copyright term of only 14 years, authors used social media to complain that they often don’t get royalties for years and the change would undercut their compensation, the newspaper reported.

A spokesman for the Green Party told the Telegraph that the 14-year term would commence upon publication of the content.

The newspaper reported that the Green Party’s Caroline Lucas, who was elected to parliament in 2010, has a different view, saying in a blog posting that the 14-year term doesn’t begin until the creator of the content dies.

Architecture Firm Uses DMCA to Halt Streaming Video Library Tour

Group 4 Architecture Research & Planning Inc., a San Francisco-based architecture firm, has made a complaint under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to halt streaming video of a digital tour of a library design by the firm in the coastal community of Half Moon Bay, California, the Half Moon Bay Review reported.

The architecture firm objected to modifications of its video that was broadcast on the video-sharing network of Citizen Access TV, a local broadcaster, according to the newspaper.

Group 4 claimed the modified video associates negative information with the firm, and failed to mention its proper name, according to the Review.

John Ullom, the founder of Citizen Access, said that as a result of the DMCA claim “I had to go through YouTube’s copyright dummy school,” something he found “very upsetting.”

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Trademark

Rockstar Sues BBC Over Documentary on Grand Theft Auto Game

Rockstar Games Inc., the New York-based games company known for its Grand Theft Auto game, sued the British Broadcasting Corp. for trademark infringement, CNET News reported.

The suit, filed in the U.K., is related to the use of Rockstar trademarks in a BBC docudrama starring Daniel Radcliffe about the development of the series of Grand Theft Auto games, according to CNET News.

Rockstar told CNET it wants to make sure its trademarks “are not misused” in what the game company characterized as “an unofficial depiction of purported events related to Rockstar Games.”

Take Two Interactive Software Inc., publisher of the game, is co-plaintiff with Rockstar, CNET News reported.

Navitar Pushes China to Issue Fine in Dispute Over Trademark

A complaint by Navitar Inc., a Rochester, New York-based maker of optical instruments, to the Dongguan China Administration for Industry and Commerce office has resulted in a fine and cease-and-desist order to a Chinese competitor, Quality Magazine reported.

Quality, a manufacturing-industry trade publication, reported that Navitar complained that Dongguan Yihui Photoelectricity Co. had falsely advertised that Navitar lenses were components in their machines.

Navitar President Julian Goldstein told Quality his company has pending legal actions in China against other companies.

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Trade Secrets/Industrial Espionage

Tianjin University Disavows Link to Claimed Trade Secret Theft

China’s Tianjin University has denied any involvement in a case in which trade secrets belonging to Avago Technologies Ltd. and Skyworks Solutions Inc., the International Business Times reported.

Three professors at the school were among six Chinese citizens who accused of misappropriating radio-filter technology secrets from the two companies, according to the newspaper.

The school said it had been falsely implicated and that the U.S. was politicizing its professors’ research, the newspaper reported.

The allegedly purloined trade secrets were taken to a Chinese company with connections to both the military and the university, according to the indictment, International Business Times reported.