YouTube victory a blow to rights owners A New York court has sided with Google in Viacom's lawsuit charging YouTube with "massive intentional copyright infringement". Viacom sued Google, the owner of video sharing website YouTube, in March 2007, seeking more than $1 billion in damages and an injunction barring YouTube from further infringement of its copyrighted content. Viacom accused YouTube of hosting 62,637 infringing clips on YouTube's video sharing site. But the US District Court for the Southern District of New York ruled in June that YouTube met the requirements for protection under the safe harbour provision of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). "Defendants designated an agent, and when they received specific notice that a particular item infringed a copyright, they swiftly removed it," wrote Judge Louis Stanton in his decision. Stanton said that, according to the terms of the DMCA, "mere knowledge" of prevalence of infringing activity on a service provider's site is not enough to preclude DMCA protection. The decision is a blow to rights owners, but Viacom has said that it is confident it will prevail on appeal.

USPTO outlines three-track plan The USPTO has proposed a three-track patent examination system in an effort to reduce its backlog of more than 750,000 pending applications. The new system would feature three examination options for patent applications first filed in the US: Track I – prioritised examination; Track II – traditional examination; and Track III – applicant-controlled delayed examination for up to 30 months. For applications based on foreign filings, the Office would not take any action until receiving a copy of the foreign office search report and first office action, along with the applicant's response to the first office action.

False marking decision bolsters plaintiffs The Federal Circuit has upheld a district court's decision that Solo Cup Company is not liable for falsely marking its products, but the Court also clarified that expired patent numbers can count as false markings. In Pequignot v Solo Cup, Judge Alan Lourie said that, "as with a never-patented article, an article marked with an expired patent number imposes on the public 'the cost of determining whether the involved patents are valid and enforceable'". Although the Court ultimately found that Solo Cup successfully rebutted the presumption that it intended to deceive the public, the decision could intensify the recent surge in false marking lawsuits, since courts will be less likely to dismiss cases involving expired patent numbers up front.

HTC continues smartphone battle The International Trade Commission (ITC) has agreed to investigate HTC's patent infringement complaint against Apple in the latest battle in an all-out smartphone patent war. The HTC complaint seeks to halt importation and sale of the Apple iPhone, iPod and iPad devices. The Commission's decision to investigate came in response to HTC's claims that the Apple devices infringe five of HTC's US patents. In May this year, Nokia filed suit against Apple claiming that the iPad and iPhone also infringe five Nokia patents. In October, Nokia charged that Apple's iPhone device infringes 10 of Nokia's patents for wireless technologies. Apple countersued Nokia in December for infringement of 13 patents, and also filed complaints in March against HTC at the ITC and in US district court alleging infringement of another 20 patents. Some have criticised all of the companies for competing in the courtroom or via licensing arrangements, rather than in the marketplace.

Publishers target P2P Thirty-one music publishers have sued peer-to-peer music service LimeWire for inducing copyright infringement. The suit comes on the heels of a New York Court's May ruling in Arista Records v LimeWire that LimeWire was responsible for encouraging its users to infringe the copyrighted works of a group of 13 record companies. EMI and 30 other music publishers filed a complaint in June with the US District Court of the Southern District of New York – which also tried the Arista case – alleging that the publishers are entitled to the same relief as the plaintiffs in Arista. The record companies are seeking statutory damages of at least $750 each song for 200,000,000 illegally downloaded songs, or $150 billion in total. In response, LimeWire issued a statement saying that the move could "hold back the creation of new digital music technologies that LimeWire is in the process of developing and does not benefit the industry as a whole".

USPTO to update examiner performance standards The USPTO and the union that represents patent examiners have jointly proposed changes to patent examination performance standards. A POPA newsletter said that the union has been working with the Office to fix problems with the examiner performance appraisal plan (PAP) to "redefine examiner performance standards, take the sharp edges off the agency's disciplinary process, and value employees by treating performance problems as fixable rather than terminal". The proposed changes would encourage the use of personal interviews, increase the focus on examination quality by creating a unified standard and allow examiners more discretion in managing their own workflow. The PAP has not been revised since 1986. POPA members will vote on the changes in July. The new standards could be implemented as early as the 2011 fiscal year if approved.

Mexico makes patent changes The Mexican Congress has made several revisions to Mexico's IP law governing patent practice. Juan Serrano of Olivares & Cia says that the key changes include: modification the industrial application requirement for patentability to include "a need to demonstrate the possibility of 'practical utility' of the invention"; the ability for a third party to file information related to the patentability of an invention before IMPI within six months after the publication of the application; and the ability for any third party to inform the IP Office of any reason to invalidate the patent after the patent is granted. The new provisions take effect on September 20.