The International Trade Commission began two Section 337 investigations into patent infringement by iPhones and iPads imported by Apple, it said in news releases (here) and (here) March 30. Ericsson requested the investigations in February, alleging Apple is infringing its patents for 2G and 4G/LTE standards, as well as design of semiconductor components, user interface software, location services and applications and the iOS operating system. Ericsson asked the ITC to issue limited exclusion orders and cease and desist orders banning import and sale of infringing products by Apple.

The FCC is seeking comment on some issues on Part 4 outage reporting rules in a consolidated NPRM and two orders released Monday. Among the questions on which the agency is seeking comment is whether service degradation that affects thousands, but not all calls to public safety answering points, should be required to be reported. Some providers may be interpreting current rules as requiring reporting only if a PSAP can't receive any 911 calls for a period of time, the NPRM said. Comments are due 30 days after publication in the Federal Register, and replies 45 days after publication. In one order, the agency declined to add outage reporting requirements adopted for primary, commercial service and reliever airports to include general aviation airports. The other order disposed of seven pending petitions for reconsideration to the 2004 order that established the Part 4 rules.

The FTC “halted two Canada-based schemes that defrauded small businesses and nonprofits” in the U.S. by billing them for “unwanted listings in online ‘yellow pages’ business directories,” said a commission news release Thursday. Commissioners unanimously voted in favor of a proposed stipulated order for permanent injunction and monetary judgment against Oni Nathifa Julien and several of her companies, which contacted organizations “under the guise of confirming contact information in a directory” and then billing the organization $479.95 or more. If the invoice was disputed, the defendants would use deceptive collection tactics such as “playing altered or incomplete audio recordings to give the false impression that an employee of the organization had authorized a directory listing,” the FTC said. Julien is prohibited from misrepresenting any good or service and from collecting money from past customers or profiting from or keeping their personal information. The $3 million judgment against Julien was suspended due to her inability to pay. Julien could not be reached for comment. The commission also unanimously voted in favor of authorizing staff to file a complaint against American Yellow Browser; American Yellow Group; Distribution H.E.P., also doing business as American Yellow Distribution and Medical Yellow Directories; Official Yellow Guide; Publication A.A.P., also d/b/a All American Pages and Official Yellow Guide; Publication A.Y.B., also d/b/a American Yellow Browser, American Yellow Group and All American Pages; Publications A.Y.D.; Ivan Chernev, also d/b/a American Yellow Corp., General Credit Protection and Credit Bureau Recovery; and German Lebedev, also d/b/a American Yellow Directories, for sending unsolicited invoices for $480.95 or more for a one-year directory listing. The invoice named someone from the targeted organization and showed the listing as it was to appear in a directory, and suggested someone had previously agreed to buy the listing, the FTC said. “Those who ignored the invoices received more of them with statements such as ‘COLLECTION WARNING’ and ‘LAST CHANCE TO PROTECT YOUR CREDIT SCORE IN GOOD STANDING!!!’” and were asked to pay larger amounts such as $2,385.95. Those who refused to pay were sent dunning notices from the defendants, who posed as third-party debt collector General Credit Protection.

ABI Research said smartphones will be a primary driver for a forecast $3.1 billion in global revenue in 2015 for the biometrics industry’s consumer and enterprise sectors. Rapid advances in biometrics will drive further smartphone hardware upgrades, ABI said Wednesday. “Biometry is moving rapidly into the security ecosystem and its adoption by CE devices will jumpstart this phenomenon,” said ABI analyst Dimitrios Pavlakis in a news release. “Smartphone biometrics provide not only a secure alternative for authentication, mobile payments, and [bring your own device] initiatives but also enhance user experience, navigation, mobility, and versatility.”

The Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board sought comment by June 16 on PCLOB’s examination of counterterrorism activities conducted under President Ronald Reagan's national security executive order 12333 and the implications for privacy and civil liberties, it said Monday.

The Defense Information Systems Agency gave Harris Corp. a contract with a potential value of $450 million to provide systems engineering and program management services for the agency’s crisis management system, said a company news release Thursday. Harris has supported the system since 2004 and will continue to provide 'round the clock on-call, on-site corrective maintenance for all related hardware and software components.

Cisco took the lead in Q4 over Microsoft in enterprise unified communications collaboration, said a news release from Synergy Research Group Tuesday. While Microsoft briefly matched Cisco for market leadership in the first half of 2014, Cisco regained its lead in the final quarter of the year with a 9 percent sequential increase in revenue, said the release.

Apple and Samsung’s combined dominant share of the tablet market could plummet to 38 percent by 2019 in a “tectonic shift” to lower-priced tablets, a Juniper report said. Evolving form factors and emerging players such as Lenovo with low-cost alternatives are a threat to today’s dominant tablet vendors, said the industry researcher Monday. It expects Lenovo to lead the movement and increase its shipments by 30 million units per year by 2019. Lenovo announced several Android- and Windows-based models at Mobile World Congress, Juniper noted. Android will remain the dominant tablet platform over the forecast period, with Windows-based devices expected to be close to 10 percent of the market by 2019, Juniper said. Hybrid devices such as two-in-ones will find a place in office environments, but tablets will struggle “due to peripheral compatibility requirements,” it said. Phablets also will have a growing impact on tablet sales, Juniper said. More than 400 million phablets will ship globally in 2019, up from 138 million forecast for this year, it said. The iPhone 6 has been a catalyst for bringing the phablet category “further into the limelight,” but budget-priced devices are the key to driving phablets into the mainstream globally, it said. The phablet emerged out of the transition of the smartphone away from communications and toward multimedia use, Juniper said, although in terms of device hardware, a phablet is “virtually identical” to a smartphone except in screen and battery size. A smartphone can perform most computing tasks, which would suggest that other mobile devices can become increasingly like smartphones, Juniper said. At the hardware level, that would involve integrating modem and cellular functionality within the chipset “rather than as add-ons,” it said. The platform-centric approach would require systems on a chip to be scalable for different products and hardware possibilities, it said.

The FTC will host a Nov. 16 workshop on privacy issues for “cross-device tracking” for advertising and marketing purposes, the agency said Tuesday in a news release. Questions the commission hopes to answer include: What are the different types of cross-device tracking, how do they work, and what are they used for; What types of information and benefits do companies gain from using these technologies; What benefits do consumers derive from the use of these technologies; What are the privacy and security risks associated with the use of these technologies; How can companies make their tracking more transparent and give consumers greater control over it; and Do current industry self-regulatory programs apply to different cross-device tracking techniques, the agency said. “More consumers are connecting with the internet in different ways, and industry has responded by coming up with additional tools to track their behavior,” said Bureau of Consumer Protection Director Jessica Rich. "It’s important to ensure that consumers’ privacy remains protected as businesses seek to target them across multiple devices.”

Vonage agreed to buy privately held SimpleSignal for $25.25 million, said a Vonage news release Monday. SimpleSignal provides unified communications as a service and collaboration solutions to small- and medium-sized businesses. The purchase price is about 1.5 times the estimated 2015 SimpleSignal revenue, said Vonage.