BitTorrent Returns to Google Search’s Auto-Complete (CNET)
After having been blocked for years from showing up in Google’s auto-complete suggestions, BitTorrent was quietly allowed back into the fold. BitTorrent has been striving to rework its image and prove it doesn’t deal in piracy.

Supreme Court Takes on ‘Raging Bull’ Copyright Case (Los Angeles Times)
The U.S. Supreme Court announced it will decide eight new cases, including a copyright dispute over the 1980 Oscar-winning boxing film “Raging Bull” and whether Paula Petrella, whose father Frank Petrella wrote the book and screenplay, waited too long to sue over the renewal of his copyright.

Yahoo Agrees to Pay Damages to Singapore Press Holdings (The Next Web)
Yahoo announced it has paid undisclosed damages and costs to a Singaporean media company after reaching an amicable settlement in a copyright infringement suit where Yahoo’s Singapore news site was accused of reproducing content from Singapore Press Holdings without approval.

Policy News

‘Patent Trolls’ Launch a Lobbying Defense in D.C. (Politico)
‘Patent trolls’ are feeling the heat in Washington — the FTC announced it will investigate them, and Congress is pushing a myriad of bills to curtail their activities — so they are taking steps to defend themselves in D.C.

Apple, Google, Microsoft and Samsung Plead for a Patent-Troll-Free Europe (GigaOM)
Big tech firms want to make sure that a soon-to-launch unified European patent system doesn’t let trolls game the system on a wide scale, so they’ve asked for modifications to the rules of the new EU patent court.

Keith Kupferschmid is General Counsel and SVP, Intellectual Property Policy & Enforcement at SIIA. Follow Keith on Twitter at @keithkup and sign up for the Intellectual Property Roundup weekly newsletter here.

Kim Dotcom’s Mega-Lawsuit Could Make Him a Multi-Millionaire Again (Wired)
MegaUpload founder Kim Dotcom filed a seven-figure lawsuit against the New Zealand government over the 2012 raid on his mansion, and the electronic spying that preceded it.

Aereo Claims DC Injunction Doesn’t Affect It (GigaOM)
Broadcasters and upstart streaming TV service Aereo are skirmishing in Boston over whether an injunction issued in DC against another streaming service should affect Aereo. Aereo claims the two companies’ technology are not the same, and that the DC ruling misunderstands copyright law.

Fashion Designers Look to Patents to Fight Knockoffs (Reuters)
Because U.S. copyright and trademark laws often do not apply to new, logo-free designs, fashion designers are applying for design patents — patents that protect the way something looks — to protect clothing and other accessories from being targets for knock-offs.

MPAA Report Says Google, Other Search Engines a Major Gateway to Piracy (Los Angeles Times)
A study released by the Motion Picture Association of America alleges that search engines are making it too easy for consumers to find pirated content online, even when they’re not looking for it. The MPAA says it found no evidence that the change Google made to its algorithm last year to take into account the number of copyright takedown notices a site has received affected search-referred traffic to illegal sites.

IP Policy News

Senate Judiciary Chairman Crafting Bill to Combat ‘Patent Trolls’ (The Hill)
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy plans to introduce legislation in the coming weeks to limit frivolous patent lawsuits.

Expanded Anti-Piracy Bill Hits Russian Parliament (RIA Novosti)
A new bill allowing for websites to be blocked if they contain any copyright-infringing content was introduced in the Russian parliament, expanding an earlier law against film piracy that was met with considerable public outcry.

Keith Kupferschmid is General Counsel and SVP, Intellectual Property Policy & Enforcement at SIIA. Follow Keith on Twitter at @keithkup and sign up for the Intellectual Property Roundup weekly newsletter here.

New Zealand Bans Software Patents (ZDNet)
After five years of debate, delay and intense lobbying from multinational software vendors, New Zealand finally passed a new Patents Bill that will effectively outlaw software patents.

Google Calls Book Scanning “Transformative” In Latest Push For Fair Use Ruling (GigaOM)
In the long-running copyright fight between Google and the Authors Guild, new court filings suggest the case will turn on whether or not Google’s book scanning was “transformative.”

Re-thinking the Role of IP: A Lecture By Dr. Francis Gurry (Lexology)
In a presentation at Melbourne University, Dr. Francis Gurry, Director General of the World Intellectual Property Organization, gave a speech exploring the major economic, social and political developments affecting intellectual property.

File-Hosting Services Take Big Hit With Ruling Against Hotfile (The Verge)
The MPAA announced it has prevailed in a copyright suit against cloud-storage service Hotfile, and while the decision has not yet been released by the court, the studios now have a legal precedent and are in a better position than ever to prevent people from storing movies in cyberlockers.

Russia To Hit Search Engines With Huge Fines Over Piracy (RIA Novosti)
A Russian parliamentary committee approved a bill to introduce fines of up to 1 million rubles ($30,000) for Internet users, websites, service providers and search engines failing to comply with an online piracy blacklist.

Keith Kupferschmid is General Counsel and SVP, Intellectual Property Policy & Enforcement at SIIA. Follow Keith on Twitter at @keithkup and sign up for the Intellectual Property Roundup weekly newsletter here.

Harvard Law Professor Lessig Sues Record Company, Claims Copyright Threat Violated Law (ABA Journal)
A Harvard law professor who is an expert on copyright issues decided to sue after an Australian record company accused him of infringement by using a French band’s song in a lecture posted on YouTube.

Apple is the Patent Trolls’ No. 1 Target, With 171 Suits Since 2009 (Fortune)
Of all the companies sued over the past five years by so-called non-practicing entities, or “patent trolls,” Apple got hit the most, with 171 patent lawsuits as of June 2013.

Microsoft Sues Israeli Businesses For Copyright Infringement (Globes)
Microsoft has filed lawsuits against five Israeli businesses for copyright infringement on the sale of computers with unlicensed Windows operating systems and unlicensed Office programs.

Keith Kupferschmid is General Counsel and SVP, Intellectual Property Policy & Enforcement at SIIA. Follow Keith on Twitter at @keithkup and sign up for the Intellectual Property Roundup weekly newsletter here.

IRS May Be Breaking Software Copyright Laws, Audit Finds (The Washington Times)
A new audit found the IRS is handling its software licenses poorly and may be in violation of copyright laws.

Will Copyright Be Extended 20 More Years? An Old Debate Returns (GigaOM)
In 1998, Congress agreed to grant another 20 years of copyright protection to every film, book and song in the land. Now, the laws are under review once again, raising the question whether another extension will take place.

3-D Printing Pitting Fans Vs. Copyright (San Francisco Chronicle)
As 3-D printing is becoming more ubiquitous, corporations are having to balance protection of their copyrights vs. the potential backlash of taking their fans to court. So far, 3-D printing disputes have been playing out as cease-and-desist orders — no lawsuits have yet been filed.

EBook Sellers Strike Deal To Share Customer Details With Anti-Piracy Outfit (Torrent Freak)
A new digital distribution deal for eBook merchants will see them ‘watermark’ unique codes into the digital eBooks they sell, which will identify a specific transaction number that will be linked directly to a specific customer account.

IP Policy News

Lower House To Consider Public Petition Against ‘Russian SOPA’ (RT)
A top Russian Lower House MP has promised to consider a public petition against the recently passed anti-piracy law which permits web-sites allegedly posting pirated content to be blocked without a court order.

Keith Kupferschmid is General Counsel and SVP, Intellectual Property Policy & Enforcement at SIIA.2

Copyright Policy, Creativity and Innovation in the Digital Economy (U.S. Patent & Trademark Office)
The U.S. Department of Commerce released a green paper on Copyright Policy, Creativity, and Innovation in the Digital Economy. The paper is a comprehensive analysis of digital copyright policy intended to advance discussion on the issue. Read the full report here.

SOPA Died in 2012, But Obama Administration Wants to Revive Part of It (The Washington Post)
The report on digital copyright policy issued by the Department of Commerce’s Internet Policy Task Force endorsed one piece of the controversial SOPA proposal – making the streaming of copyrighted works a felony.

Judge Says Patent Lawyers Have Right to Science Articles Under ‘Fair Use’ (GigaOM)
In a case between patent lawyers and copyright lawyers over the scientific articles submitted as part of most patent applications, U.S. Magistrate Judge Jeffrey Keyes sided with the patent lawyers, ruling that the reason they made unlicensed copies of the articles was to comply with the law for submitting applications to the patent office, not to compete within the market for scientific journals.

Search Engines Not Seen as a Major Player in Music Piracy (The Verge)
A new report from the nonprofit Computer and Communications Industry Association claims that “the solutions to online infringement have little to do with search,” and removing “undesirable” search results would not substantially alter or prevent piracy. Read the full report here.

‘Russian SOPA’ Anti-Piracy Law’s First Day Full of Protests and a Failed Lawsuit (International Business Times)
Russia’s new anti-piracy law went into effect on July 31, and was met with criticism and a failed lawsuit. More than 1,700 sites went dark in a SOPA-style protest.

First Content Ban Imposed Under Anti-Piracy Law (The Moscow Times)
TV channel TNT has become the first company to successfully file claims against illegal distributors of their content under new anti-piracy legislation in Russia.

Comcast Developing Anti-Piracy Alternative to ‘Six Strikes’ (Variety)
Comcast has begun preliminary discussions with both film and TV studios and other leading Internet service providers about employing technology that would provide offending users with opportunities to access legal versions of copyright-infringing videos as they’re being downloaded.

Music Publishers File Copyright Suit Against Big YouTube Channel Operator (The Verge)
A group of music publishers and songwriters have claimed in a copyright lawsuit that Fullscreen, which operates a network of popular YouTube channels, is including unlicensed music in its videos.

Keith Kupferschmid is General Counsel and SVP, Intellectual Property Policy & Enforcement at SIIA.2

Congress Betrays 3M to Google Over Patent Fees With Cuts (Bloomberg)
Google and 3M are among the top patent-holding companies that agreed two years ago to pay higher fees if Congress let the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office use the funds to address a work backlog and improve application scrutiny, but the companies are crying foul now that Congress has instead held back as much as $148 million in fees due to automatic federal spending cuts.

Viacom Demands New Judge in YouTube Copyright Fight (The Hollywood Reporter)
Viacom filed papers at the Second Circuit Court of Appeals and made the case why its long-running dispute against YouTube deserves another chance, despite having been dismissed twice on summary judgment.

AP, Meltwater Settle Copyright Dispute (USA Today)
The Associated Press says it has settled a copyright-infringement lawsuit against digital news distributor Meltwater and that the two companies will begin developing products together.

Keith Kupferschmid is General Counsel and SVP, Intellectual Property Policy & Enforcement at SIIA.2

Why Startups Are Sporting Increasingly Quirky Names (The Wall Street Journal)
With about 252 million domain names currently registered across the Internet, short, recognizable dot-com Web addresses have long been taken, prompting startup companies to come up with misspelled, made-up, and mashed-up names.

Google, Amazon.com Win Appeal to Toss Internet Patents (Bloomberg)
Google and Amazon won a U.S. appeals court ruling in a case of a former university researcher who claimed his patents covered some of the Internet’s most basic interactive functions.

Charts: How Spotify is Killing Music Piracy (paidContent)
Online music service Spotify published a report that shows that piracy in the Netherlands has gone down just as Spotify has become more popular in the country.

Is Flipboard a Partner or a Competitor For Publishers and Content Creators? Yes (paidContent)
With the launch of a web version, Flipboard highlights how far it has evolved from its early days as a standalone app, and how it is both a partner and a potential competitor for content companies.

Keith Kupferschmid is General Counsel and SVP, Intellectual Property Policy & Enforcement at SIIA.

Has Patent, Will Sue – An Alert to Corporate America (The New York Times) Inside the mind of a patent troll – IPNav, owned by Erich Spangenberg, is a Dallas-based company that helps “turn idle patents into cash cows,” with its typical client an inventor or corporation demanding a license fee from an infringer.

Goodreads Hit With Copyright Suit Over Fan Photo (paidContent) Photo agency BWP Media has filed a copyright lawsuit against Amazon’s Goodreads site over a celebrity image posted by one of the site’s members.

Executives are Biggest Risk for Copyright Infringement (Fort Mill Times) A recent study found that nearly half the executives surveyed for the study are potentially exposing their organizations to the risk of copyright infringement violations.

RIAA Wants Infamous File-Sharer to Campaign Against Piracy (Wired) The RIAA offered music file-sharer Jammie Thomas-Rasset a reduction of her $222,000 fine if she agreed to make a public statement against piracy.

Broadcasters Lose Final Appeal to Take Down Aereo (Ars Technica)
A coalition of broadcasters, in its suit against Aereo, asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit to take their case “en banc,” but the court declined.

Keith Kupferschmid is General Counsel and SVP, Intellectual Property Policy & Enforcement at SIIA.

Much of the debate over PTO funding hinges on whether patent payments are “voluntary” under the Budget Control Act, which was triggered this past March. The act exempts voluntary fees paid to the government from sequestration, and it would seem that the PTO would fall under this exemption. However, it was decided that user fees paid to the PTO are not “voluntary” because only the federal government can issue them.  This line of reasoning is at odds with past treatment of PTO funds by Congress and the Administration.

When Congress passed and the President signed the America Invents Act (AIA) 21 months ago, it was explicitly recognized that fees collected by the USPTO are different from regular discretionary government spending.  The act ensured that excess fees collected by the USPTO are used to fund programs to improve patent quality and pendency, and to ensure the continued provision of critical, time-sensitive services.

The budget cuts resulting from sequestration will put those efforts in jeopardy, delay the opening of new satellite offices throughout the country and exacerbate the current backlog of patent applications.  If the USPTO is unable to reduce its backlog, it will diminish businesses’ ability to expedite new innovations into the marketplace.  Sequester budget cuts may also hinder the USPTO’s efforts to improve patent quality, which could make it harder to tackle the growing problem of patent trolls.

SIIA is on record voicing its concerns about the effect of sequestration on the USPTO, and is very supportive of H.R. 2582. We urge Congress to immediately consider and pass H.R. 2582.

Keith Kupferschmid is General Counsel and SVP, Intellectual Property Policy & Enforcement at SIIA.