At the Automated Commercial Environment Exchange VI conference held July 30-August 1, 2007 in Brooklyn, NY, U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials discussed the deployment of ACE Entry Summary, Accounts, and Revenue (ESAR) A1, which is currently scheduled to be deployed on August 25, 20071.
Hearings and letters to the FCC and NTIA on DTV consumer education will multiply in September, when Congress returns, Hill aides said in interviews this week. Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Daniel Inouye, D- Hawaii, told reporters he will convene a fall hearing on the DTV transition, saying a July 26 session convinced him “more needs to be done.” House Telecom Subcommittee Chairman Ed Markey, D-Mass., also will scrutinize consumer education efforts, an aide told us.
Qualcomm may only win a court stay on the International Trade Commission ban of its chips if it agrees to post a hefty bond on all imports, an attorney said in an interview. But reaching a settlement with Broadcom might be a better choice, another said. The president Monday declined to veto an ITC order that bans importation of Qualcomm chips said to infringe on Broadcom’s patents (CD Aug 7 p3). But Monday was only the start of a bad week for Qualcomm: Later, a San Diego federal court ruled against the company in a separate patent clash with Broadcom.
According to various press releases, Target Corp. and its affiliate, Associated Merchandising Corp. (Target), and Totes-Isotoner Corp., have filed complaints with the U.S. Court of International Trade accusing the U.S. of gender and age discrimination in the tariffs it imposes on similar items of apparel, footwear, and gloves.
RIAA reached a settlement “in principle” in a P2P case considered by the Justice Department for possible intervention, concerning the constitutionality of a DMCA infringement damage statute (WID Aug 1 p7). The parties in Atlantic v. Boggs in U.S. District Court, Corpus Christi, Tex., intend to file within 30 days a joint stipulation of dismissal “with prejudice of all claims and counterclaims,” they told the court, meaning the case can’t be brought again against Michael Boggs. The settlement in principle likely means Justice won’t weigh in on the $750-a-song minimum damage award. In other P2P litigation, RIAA filed a motion to strike a potentially embarrassing part of the record in Warner v. Paternoster in U.S. District Court, Nashville. The trade group took criticism for including the entire Kazaa library -- apparently pornographic files included -- in screenshots of Nicholas Paternoster’s shared folder. RIAA rarely includes more than a handful of pages and dozens of files in evidence of infringing activity. Exhibit B originally contained the names of 4,500 files, “many of which did not relate directly to the copyright infringement at issue,” the filing said. Earlier, in counterclaims, the defense said the irrelevant files were included in the public record “in an attempt to place [Paternoster] in an unattractive light due to the nature of the personal files,” despite the army sergeant’s insistence that other soldiers had access to his computer and downloaded Kazaa and files without his knowledge. The court ordered RIAA to re-file the exhibit to include only relevant files, but the original exhibit remained in the public record. Plaintiffs’ attorneys “wish to extend a professional courtesy” by asking the court to strike the original exhibit from the public record, the latest filing by RIAA said.
CBP has recently posted the following to its Web site:
As the U.S. tries to get out of its duty to let residents gamble on foreign Web sites under a World Trade Organization ruling (WID May 7 p1), officials have little to worry about in the way of WTO-authorized retaliation, a former U.S. trade official said at a Cato Institute forum Wednesday. The WTO appellate body that reviewed a panel ruling siding with Antigua, which is heavily reliant on Internet gambling revenue, substantially limited the grounds on which Antigua and others could recoup losses, said John Jackson, a WTO expert at the Georgetown University Law Center.
The apparent successor to dirt-cheap Russian download store AllofMP3.com is back online and promising to take credit card payments following a narrow Russian legal victory. But payment options appeared to be broken, at least for new users, when we attempted checkout Thursday. MP3Sparks.com went down last week, although a related client application called AllTunes remained available for download (WID July 10 p6). MP3Sparks uses a template and an e- commerce checkout system nearly identical to those AllofMP3.com had before it closed, but lists a different parent company, Regiontorg. AllofMP3 was owned by Mediaservices.
The Office of the U.S. Trade Representative has issued a notice requesting comments on its negotiations for compensatory adjustments with eight World Trade Organization Members as a result of its May 4, 2007 notification to the WTO of the U.S. intent to modify its General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) commitment in order to exclude gambling and betting services.