A House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing about a Yahoo official’s “false information” given to the committee at a Feb. 2006 human-rights hearing (WID Feb 16/06 p1) quickly turned to the issue of Yahoo’s failure to help, financially or otherwise, the families of imprisoned Chinese users. Yahoo’s compliance with Chinese demands to turn over user information has resulted in the arrests of at least a handful of dissidents and one journalist. For three hours, lawmakers berated Yahoo CEO Jerry Yang and General Counsel Michael Callahan, frequently interrupting their carefully worded responses with demands to give straight answers, although a few members said Congress deserved some blame for supporting repressive regimes through trade and aid packages.
University students targeted by the RIAA on file-sharing allegations are getting help from two unexpected sources: their own university, and their state’s top law enforcement officer. Oregon Attorney General Hardy Myers (D), on behalf of the University of Oregon, filed a motion to quash a subpoena to the school for the identities of 17 John Doe defendants in Arista v. Does 1-17 in U.S. District Court, Eugene. It appears to be the first time either a university or state attorney general has intervened in a RIAA file- sharing case, said Ray Beckerman, a P2P defense lawyer who runs the Recording Industry vs. the People blog.
The International Trade Administration and the International Trade Commission have each issued notices initiating automatic five-year Sunset Reviews on the AD duty order for persulfates from China and the suspended AD duty investigation on fresh tomatoes from Mexico.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted to its Web site a notice providing details on the enhancements to the Automated Commercial Environment account type for brokers that were implemented with the deployment Entry Summary, Accounts, and Revenue (ESAR) A1.
In U.S. v. National Semiconductor Corporation, the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit vacated the Court of International Trade's final judgment and remanded the case to the CIT to determine an appropriate penalty for negligence and any prejudgment interest related to an underpayment of merchandise processing fees (MPFs) under 19 USC 1592 (See NSC III CIT Slip OP. 06-138).
U.S. Customs and Border Protection has posted a notice to its Web site announcing that the first fiscal year 2008 specialty sugar tariff-rate quota (TRQ) (i.e. tranche) that opened on October 24, 2007 oversubscribed at opening moment. The pro-rata percentage is .1687649 or 16.87649%.
In U.S. v. Inn Foods, Inc., the Court of International Trade ruled on remand from the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit that entries filed by Inn Foods covering imported frozen Mexican produce from 1987 to 1990 were undervalued, and these actions constituted a fraudulent violation under 19 USC 1592. (See U.S. v. Inn Foods, Inc., CAFC 04-1035.
LG was among 25 companies sued last week on patent infringement allegation by SanDisk in three cases. Two suits were filed in the U.S. District Court in Madison, Wis., and a complaint was filed with the U.S. International Trade Commission -- all accusing the companies of infringing on various SanDisk system-level patents. In the Wisconsin suits, SanDisk said it was seeking damages and a permanent injunction. It sought a permanent exclusion order from the ITC banning importation of the infringing products into the U.S. The actions “demonstrate SanDisk’s long-term commitment to enforcing its patents, both to protect our investment in research and development by obtaining a fair return on that investment, and out of fairness to third-parties that participate in our patent licensing program,” said Earle Thompson, SanDisk’s chief intellectual property counsel. “The goal is to resolve these matters by offering the defendants the opportunity to participate in our patent licensing program for card and system technology,” he said, adding that his company will otherwise “aggressively pursue these actions, seeking a prompt judicial resolution awarding damages, obtaining injunctive relief and banning importation of infringing product.” LG, named in the ITC complaint and one of the Wisconsin suits, declined to comment. A spokesman for Kingston, named in all three complaints, said his company “will vigorously defend its own rights and products.” But he declined to comment specifically on SanDisk’s actions, saying “on the advice of Kingston’s attorneys, we will not comment on pending litigation matters.”
Analysts bombarded Broadcom officials with questions about spending in a third quarter conference call after the company said Q3 profits had sunk 75 percent from a year earlier. Net income plunged to $27.8 million after the chip maker spent $352.3 million on research and development, almost $80 million more than it did in 2006. But strong Bluetooth, wireless LAN and DTV businesses drove company revenue to $950 million, up 5.2 percent from last year, it said late Tuesday.
A major prerelease music Web site was shut down and its alleged operator arrested in a raid by British and Dutch police, after a two-year investigation by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry and the affiliated British Phonographic Industry organization, the groups said. The members-only OiNK group carried 60 major albums this year before their commercial release, making it the largest source of prerelease music, the trade groups said. The site had about 180,000 members, who had to qualify by proving they had access to prerelease music to upload, and it accepted donations using PayPal. A 24-year-old man from Middlesbrough, U.K. was arrested in connection with the site, and servers in Amsterdam were seized, the IFPI and BPI said. “This was not a case of friends sharing music for pleasure,” said Jeremy Banks, IFPI’s head of Internet antipiracy. BPI CEO Geoff Taylor said the work that went into creating OiNK can’t be replaced by ordinary file-sharers using BitTorrent: “Make no mistake, this operation will cause major disruption to this illegal activity.”