The first-sale doctrine applies to foreign-made goods, the Supreme Court ruled Tuesday in Kirtsaeng v. Wiley, giving a big win in particular to online marketplaces. The case centered on Supap Kirtsaeng, a Thai citizen, who, while attending college in the U.S., imported legally purchased textbooks from Thailand and sold them on eBay to American students. Publishing company Wiley filed suit, arguing that the first-sale doctrine, where copyright is exhausted on the first legal sale of an item, applied only to items made and sold in the U.S. The court’s 6-3 decision said tech companies filed amicus briefs highlighting how a ruling in Wiley’s favor would keep Americans from reselling consumer electronics that incorporated copyright-protected software that had been legally purchased abroad.
The first-sale doctrine applies to foreign-made goods, the Supreme Court ruled Tuesday in Kirtsaeng v. Wiley, giving a big win in particular to online marketplaces. The case centered on Supap Kirtsaeng, a Thai citizen, who, while attending college in the U.S., imported legally purchased textbooks from Thailand and sold them on eBay to American students. Publishing company Wiley filed suit, arguing that the first-sale doctrine, where copyright is exhausted on the first legal sale of an item, applied only to items made and sold in the U.S. The court’s 6-3 decision said tech companies filed amicus briefs highlighting how a ruling in Wiley’s favor would keep Americans from reselling consumer electronics that incorporated copyright-protected software that had been legally purchased abroad.
International Trade Today is providing readers with some of the top stories for March 11-15 in case they were missed.
The “first sale doctrine” applies to foreign-made goods, so copyrighted material legally manufactured and sold abroad may be imported and sold in the U.S. without the copyright holder’s permission, ruled the Supreme Court March 19. The 6-3 decision reversed the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit’s ruling in Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons, where a Thai student studying in the U.S. was found to have infringed on the textbook company’s copyrights by selling cheaper Asian editions of Wiley’s textbooks in the U.S. without the company’s permission. The Supreme Court’s decision also settled splits between several circuits on whether the “first sale doctrine” applies to goods legally made and sold abroad.
The Census Bureau released its final rule revising Foreign Trade Regulations March 13, making major changes to export reporting requirements -- including new mandatory filing through the Automated Export System or AESDirect for all shipments of used self-propelled vehicles and temporary exports valued at more than $2,500 (see 13031307 and 13031428). The trade community has 300 days before the rule takes effect, on Jan. 8, 2014. The rule also revises predeparture filing requirements, State Department and Export Administration Regulations and carrier rules:
The question of how to preserve competition between Verizon and cable companies dominated the filings the Department of Justice posted this week, the latest in court documents from stakeholders in U.S. and State of New York v. Verizon Communications, Verizon Wireless, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, Cox Communications and Bright House Networks. Justice proposed a final decision on how to better open up competition last fall, sought comments and this week addressed concerns raised in the four comments submitted by the Communications Workers of America, Boston, Montgomery County, Md., and RCN Telecom. Justice wants its proposed decision to move forward in court as originally drafted, despite commenter concerns.
The International Trade Administration ordered CBP to reinstate suspension of liquidation for unliquidated entries of utility scale wind towers from China and Vietnam made between the preliminary determinations and the antidumping and countervailing duty orders, pursuant to a March 4 Court of International Trade temporary restraining order. The ITA had originally ordered CBP to terminate suspension of liquidation and refund cash deposits for entries prior to the AD/CV duty orders because of the International Trade Commission’s injury vote, which according to the ITA did not find actual injury to U.S. industry before issuance of the orders. But based on a request for preliminary injunction from the Wind Tower Trade Coalition, CIT reluctantly issued the temporary restraining order while it awaits a response to the request from the government.
CBP posted three Great Idea Forms (GIF) on a request from the Trade Support Network meant to allow for interaction with the Participating Government Agency (PGA) Message Set through the Automated Commercial Environment (ACE).
Due mainly to costly International Trade Commission patent infringement litigation against Motorola and HTC, Immersion’s litigation expenses in 2012 soared to $8 million from about $500,000 in 2011, Chief Financial Officer Paul Norris said on an earnings call Thursday. Immersion filed a complaint in February 2012 with the ITC claiming that Motorola Mobility Android-based smartphones infringed on six Immersion patents covering various uses of haptic effects in connection with touchscreens. Immersion also filed a patent suit against Motorola Mobility in U.S. District Court, Wilmington, Del. Immersion later added HTC to the complaints. Immersion signed a settlement and license deal with Google and Motorola Mobility in November, resolving their patent dispute. Immersion is continuing its Basic Haptics litigation against HTC and feels “confident regarding the strength of our case,” Immersion CEO Vic Viegas said Thursday. A hearing in the ITC action is scheduled for late March, with an initial determination due in June and a final determination in October, he said. Forty-six percent of Immersion’s Q4 revenue came from the mobile device sector, Norris said. Interactive games were 21 percent of revenue, while 23 percent of revenue came from the medical sector, 6 percent from the auto industry and 4 percent from chip and other areas, he said. That included revenue from royalty and licensing, product sales and development contracts, he said. Revenue for Q4 ended Dec. 31 grew 15 percent from Q4 the prior year to $8.9 million. Its loss narrowed to $200,000 from $270,000. Royalty and license revenue grew 12 percent to $7.6 million. Immersion’s software licensing business is profitable and is “expanding rapidly, particularly” in the mobile market where its OEM customers have shipped more than 550 million TouchSense-enabled smartphones and tablets to date, said Viegas. Immersion expanded its mobile market presence in “important new geographies” including Japan and China last year, he said. The company recently expanded its license deal with LG Electronics and signed a license deal with Panasonic. Immersion is “seeing great opportunities with new OEM customers,” he said. In China, Immersion is “actively engaged” with chip partners to offer haptic solutions to OEMs there and ZTE, Huawei and Xiaomi all released new devices in 2012 that incorporated Immersion chip-based solutions, he said. Immersion is “engaged” with various companies that aren’t existing licensees or litigants and “we continue to make progress,” he said.
Due mainly to costly International Trade Commission patent infringement litigation against Motorola and HTC, Immersion’s litigation expenses in 2012 soared to $8 million from about $500,000 in 2011, Chief Financial Officer Paul Norris said on an earnings call Thursday. Immersion filed a complaint in February 2012 with the ITC claiming that Motorola Mobility Android-based smartphones infringed on six Immersion patents covering various uses of haptic effects in connection with touchscreens. Immersion also filed a patent suit against Motorola Mobility in U.S. District Court, Wilmington, Del. Immersion later added HTC to the complaints (CED March 15/12 p6). Immersion signed a settlement and license deal with Google and Motorola Mobility in November, resolving their patent dispute (CED Nov 28 p10). Immersion is continuing its Basic Haptics litigation against HTC and feels “confident regarding the strength of our case,” Immersion CEO Vic Viegas said Thursday. A hearing in the ITC action is scheduled for late March, with an initial determination due in June and a final determination in October, he said. Forty-six percent of Immersion’s Q4 revenue came from the mobile device sector, Norris said. Interactive games were 21 percent of revenue, while 23 percent of revenue came from the medical sector, 6 percent from the auto industry and 4 percent from chip and other areas, he said. That included revenue from royalty and licensing, product sales and development contracts, he said. Revenue for Q4 ended Dec. 31 grew 15 percent from Q4 the prior year to $8.9 million (CED March 1 p9). Its loss narrowed to $200,000 from $270,000. Royalty and license revenue grew 12 percent to $7.6 million. Immersion’s software licensing business is profitable and is “expanding rapidly, particularly” in the mobile market where its OEM customers have shipped more than 550 million TouchSense-enabled smartphones and tablets to date, said Viegas. Immersion expanded its mobile market presence in “important new geographies” including Japan and China last year, he said. The company recently expanded its license deal with LG Electronics (CED Feb 5 p5) and signed a license deal with Panasonic (CED Feb 6 p6). Immersion is “seeing great opportunities with new OEM customers,” he said. In China, Immersion is “actively engaged” with chip partners to offer haptic solutions to OEMs there and ZTE, Huawei and Xiaomi all released new devices in 2012 that incorporated Immersion chip-based solutions, he said. Immersion is “engaged” with various companies that aren’t existing licensees or litigants and “we continue to make progress,” he said.